For those of you who are Bachelor fans, you will know that social media drives audience engagement in the Bachelor and all other shows that stem from it. ABC
produces the Bachelor, Bachelorette, and Bachelor in Paradise, all with Chris
Harrison as the host, and all evoking quite a bit of emotion from viewers. And what
better place to take your long list of emotions than social media?
Last Monday, the second season of the
Bachelor in Paradise wrapped up with “the most dramatic finale ever” (for those
of you that aren’t fans of the show, that is how Harrison describes basically
every single finale). But this season's final episode of the Bachelor in Paradise
didn’t disappoint. Here’s how the show works: a mix of previous
bachelor/bachelorette contestants are invited to “paradise”, which is just a large house in
Mexico. Throughout the season, various other past contestants show up to spice
things up in paradise. There is sort of a whatever happens, happens attitude
and in the end, the couples that are left have the choice to stay together or
leave paradise alone. Riveting. I only tuned in to the last few episodes of
this season of the Bachelor in Paradise, but I definitely did not miss any drama. More importantly, social media kept me updated and thoroughly entertained.
What I find most interesting about the
Bachelor in Paradise is that they have an “After Paradise” discussion where
they ask viewers to tweet their comments, concerns, and questions using the
hashtag #afterparadise. By doing this, viewers have the chance for their
questions to be answered or their comments to be mentioned during the
conversations that occur on this “After Paradise” show. According to Nielsen
Social, the there were 22,000 tweets about the Bachelor in Paradise and about 5,293,000
impressions or the number of times any Tweets about the Bachelor in Paradise were
seen. That is a lot of social media action. Twitter is a powerful tool and in
my opinion, ABC uses it incredibly well, especially with their Bachelor shows.
Each and every episode of the Bachelor in Paradise evokes emotion and every
viewer has an opinion. Twitter gives viewers the opportunity for their voice
and their opinion to be heard, and possibly “retweeted” by others who feel the
same way. When you feel strongly about something, where do you take your emotion and your opinion? I am sensing a common theme here in that producers are engaging viewers in a conversation, and in turn, viewers are gaining perspective from others opinions and observations. The audience is being connected and watching a TV show feels more like a real, human interactive experience.
As you can see, people feel very strongly about the events that occurred on the Bachelor in Paradise and After Paradise
Even Kris Jenner, who is completely unrelated to the show, was drawn into the drama and the conversation.
http://www.nielsensocial.com/nielsentwittertvratings/weekly/
I completely agree. I have never watched the show, but I basically know what is happening through social media - Twitter specifically. They do such a great job creating hype on social media, that even if you've never watched the show, you can watch the next episode without being completely confused. I know Pretty Little Liars is also very active on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. I have never watched the show, but I basically know what is happening through social media - Twitter specifically. They do such a great job creating hype on social media, that even if you've never watched the show, you can watch the next episode without being completely confused. I know Pretty Little Liars is also very active on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteI am with Anna on the comment above! I do not watch the show, yet I know so much about it from Twitter. They do such a great job creating a community with their audience.
ReplyDeleteEmma,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughtful post. I agree Twitter is a powerful tool, perhaps sometimes too powerful. With kids able to vehemently post their opinions at the touch of a screen, do you think we are raising a generation that lacks patience? Twitter has led to a great proliferation of information, but I also think headquarters is responsible for these crop circles in Kansas. I have been out in those corn fields many times and it seems very fishy to me.... Perhaps something Facebook should look into