If you’re unfamiliar with the name Kardashian you must be living in another decade. The family has redefined what it means to have a reality show coupled with social media influence. Kim Kardashian alone has amassed nearly 15 million Twitter followers. At its upfront, E! cited that they’re “#1 in terms of combined network reach of on-air, online and mobile platforms,” and the network just launched another season of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” its flagship reality series.
The seventh season, which premiered three weeks ago, has had a 16% ratings increase since the previous season. The entire family is invested in constantly sharing their lives across the social web. Even younger half-sister Kendall Jenner is jokingly tweeting pictures of baby Mason Disick (who wasn’t alive when the show first launched) with a baby girl. I found out after receiving a press release about his friend who was, “sporting her Junk Food Have A Golden Day Tee.” To understand how E! cultivates and leverages this social media influence, we spoke with Annemarie Batur, E!’s Vice President of Marketing & Advertising.
Lost Remote: What was the social TV strategy implemented to launch the new season? What partners did you work with? How was the cast involved?
Annemarie Batur: We believe that with a tentpole franchise like Keeping up with the Kardashians, social strategy can’t only happen around the launch of a new season. We do our best to keep our sizeable Facebook audience (6.3M fans) engaged year round with the latest Kardashian news, photos and updates. The show’s fans have proven they’re always hungry for the content.
In addition, in preparation for the launch of the new season we launched an Honorary Kardashian Contest Facebook app where fans can compete for Kris Jenner’s seal of approval, and we tweeted responses from our fans during the season premiere on the @kuwtk Twitter account. Also, to capitalize on Mother’s Day we created a social app that allowed fans to send an e-card featuring a quote from Kris Jenner to their mom.
We were also lucky to have great participation from the Kardashian family and show EP Ryan Seacrest leading up to the premiere as they tweeted about the show to their 40M+ combined fans.
LR: How important is social to this show? Which platforms are most important?
Batur: Social is very important to the show, and we tend to focus on keeping our audiences engaged on Facebook & Twitter and are now also starting to engage with them via Instagram & Pinterest. In addition to the initiatives listed above, we also run Facebook & Twitter Fan Feedback weekly initiatives where we ask fans to comment on clips from the upcoming episode and feature a fan comments on-air during the premiere.
As far as platforms go we integrate social into the KUWK section of Eonline which is full of the latest happenings from the show and the girls, and of course that’s where we also integrate our social feeds. If you want KUWK on the go we also have an iOS and Android app for mobile phones. This app has the latest social feeds plus all the news, photos and videos you’d see on eonline. If you’re a fan on the go or want to stay connected while watching the show, we try to make it as easy as possible.
LR: How do you track social buzz around the show?
Batur: In addition to keeping an eye on Twitter trends around breaking Kardashian news and premieres of new episodes, we use several partners to track audience participation and sentiment. While we know our fans love the Kardashians, these reporting tools allow us to also identify the super fans so that we can work with them as evangelists for the brand in getting new messaging out to the masses.