How Vampires are Sucking the Life Out of Social Media

HOW A generation after Anne Rice novels and the wildly popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, vampire culture returns to dominate movies, TV shows, and Internet social sites. VAMPIRES HOW DOES EACH OF THESE MEDIA SENSATIONS ENCAGE WITH ARE SUCKING THE LIFE OUT THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIENCE? OF SOCIAL MEDIA TWILIGHT TRUE BLOOD VAMPIRE DIARIES FACEBOOK Team Edward vs. Team Jacob took social media by storm. FACEBOOK FACEBOOK IN OCTOBER 2011, a social media game available on Facebook allowed users to complete missions assigned by the TV show's characters, 7 TEAM EDWARD page has about TEAM JACOB page has about IN 2010, fans could win tickets to an HBO 270.575 186.156 likes 1 likes, 12) screening event by interacting with an app at certain times during "vampire hours." (11] In 2011, TWITTER an interactive app was made as a teaser for season 4. The show tends to perform well on Twitter trends. In May 2011, it was in the top 10 trends, 18) Fans could make Flash-based TWITTER teasers featuring images of themselves and of their friends. Created an official account in late 2009 and popularity exploded. 31 GETGLUE TWITTER 2|1 After 20 check-ins, fans can earn free stickers and other merchandise. 91 AROUND THE NEW MOON MOVIE RELEASE, THERE WERE ABOUT Fans are so The official In February 2012, the show was among 81K tweets a day about the film. 4 they created their own site at truebloodontwitter.com. engaged that Twitter account posts teaser content like short clips from the the top 10 TV check-ins. Several hashtags track fan tweets, including: V #twihards next season, (13] BLOOD TYPE !! RATING #breakingdawn #robertpattinson 151 Twitter fans are so active they came up with a blood drive that True Blood ended up supporting. 4 Vampire Diaries is discussed across the social media board, has an official mobile app and is often (10] GETGLUE BLOOD TYPE appearing on Trendrr rankings. " RATING=B+ In late 2010, fans who checked-in could receive While you can't ignore the sheer volume of Twilight fans, the hype seems to be confined to the time 10% off at the True Blood shop. n5] This HBO-sponsored discount was a first 10% right around a movie release, 16) This might be because TV series run over a longer period of time. for the site. True Blood was its most popular show in the summer of 2011 with CONCLUSION 490,787 check-ins, 16) All of these vampire-related phenomena have an amazing fan base, but they all use different tactics to engage social media users and up the hype. A poll shows that: 171 Team Bill vs. Team Eric followed in the BLOOD TYPE RATING= tradition of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. True Blood doesn't just resort to natural social media hype-it explores new ways to engage its audience with content marketing and by paying About About The other 65% prefer ERIC 13% prefer BILL 8% prefer SAM or other options attention to what fans want, 141 FACEBOOK LIKES THE OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS TWITTER FOLLOWERS HAVE TWEETED ABOUT 32 M 8K 900 K 12 M 3K 390 K 409K 10 M 2K VAMPIRE BLOOD DIARIES TWILIGHT TRUE BLOOD VAMPIRE DIARIES TWILIGHT TRUVE TWILIGHT TRUE BLOOD VAMPIRE DIARIES [1] http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Edward/15303834585 [9] http://cwtampa.cbslocal.com/2012/02/20/the-cw-fans-getglue/ [2] http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Jacob/40029839224 (10] http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/talkingtech/story/2012-05-02 /social-media-tv/54705524/1 [3] http://www.okmagazine.com/news/twilights-twitter-new-moon- soundtrack-out-friday [11] http://mashable.com/2011/06/09/true-blood-facebook/ [4] http://mashable.com/2009/11/18/twilight-new-moon-stats/ (12] http://truebloodontwitter.com/ [5] http://tweeting.com/twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-twitter-tweet -and- and-hashtags [6] http://www.google.com/trends/?q=twilight&ctab=0&geo- alládate-ytdasort=0 (13] http://www.eonline.com/news/the_awful_truth/does_true_blood_trounce_ twilight_on/173300 [14] http://schedule.sxsw.com/2011/events/event_IAP5536 (15] http://mashable.com/2010/10/14/getglue-true-blood-discounts/ [7] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/vampire-diaries- launches-social-media-245224 (16] http://adage.com/article/the-media-guy/social-tv/229845/ [17] http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/09/14/true-blood-eric-sam-bill/ [8] http://mashable.com/2011/05/31/top-10-twitter-trends-this-month-chart/ (18] http://www.cwtv.com/thecw/the-vampire-diaries-app SOURCES MAY 2012