Turner Classic Movies engages both cinephiles & pop cultural junkies with deep and broad social outreach. Chatting at the Atlanta Social Media Club, we explain how we innovate with social marketing.
What is Google Search Console and What is it provide?
MOOCs & Fandoms, Oh, My!
1. MOOCS & FANDOMS, OH, MY!
DEEP & BROAD ENGAGMENT WITH
FANS & INFLUENCERS
2. SHARING THE LOVE OF CLASSIC MOVIES
Turner Classic Movies shares and celebrates the entire spectrum of cinema with movie lovers like us—
selecting and presenting the best films of all genres and eras, and airing them uncut and commercial free
in their original format. By staying true to that mission for more than 20 years, we’ve attracted a broad
base of deeply passionate fans, and we’ve earned a spot as a Top 30 cable network.
As we’ve developed innovative strategies for fan outreach, we’ve kept in mind that we want to:
• Stay true to the brand. We’re commercial-free, and our defined niche means we appeal to passionate
fans with high expectations.
• Lead with curation and context. Our business model is to give catalog titles value through programming
and packaging.
• Find & leverage organic synergies. We look for ties between owned platforms and assets as well as
between TCM and like-minded brands & influencers.
3. KNOWING OUR FANS & INFLUENCERS
Our fans divide into roughly two groups: Cinephiles & Pop Culturals.
Our Cinephiles live classic film. They can quote lines from Casablanca (’42). They attend film festivals to
see obscure foreign films from the 1970s. They run blogs & create art to share their love of movie history.
Our Pop Culturals embrace all media, and they’re always on the look out for connections between old
media and contemporary media. While this set of our fans may not know much about classic film, they
have a yearning to learn, and if we reach out with interesting connections, they’ll respond.
Because these two groups come to us with different desires, we take unique social approaches to reach
each. Last year, we launched a massive open online course (MOOC) in collaboration with Ball State
University to explore film noir and engage our cinephiles. At the same time, we reached out to our pop
culturals with a focus on fandoms.
5. ENGAGING CINEPHILES WITH DEEP CONTENT
In Summer 2015, we programmed a massive film noir retrospective, and identified this festival as a marketing
tentpole. Our challenge was to generate discussion that was as deep and meaningful as the programming,
while also trying to leverage this popular genre to onramp new fans. The solution? An entertainment media-
higher education partnership with Ball State University to offer a free online multimedia course. The course
offered rich content and a flexible multiplatform environment to generate greater scale and achieve high
persistent fan engagement.
Media companies and institutions of higher education face similar challenges as they work to attract and retain
customers in a climate of disaggregation. By innovating & collaborating with Ball State University this way, both
parties benefitted—generating the highest levels of digital and social engagement TCM had measured to date
and generating industry-leading MOOC participation and completion rates.
6. PRODUCING A MASSIVE ONLINE COURSE (MOOC)
The MOOC offered several innovations in the online learning space.
Highly produced course lecture videos:
• Created in the style of a five-part documentary
“Daily Dose” emails:
• Delivered a video clip and associated question for fans to answer. Fans could
share answers via hashtag on Twitter or on the TCM message boards.
• Sent each Monday-Thursday to 19,500 students
• 37% average opens
• 21.3% average click to open
• 0 Complaints
OTTO Video Annotation tool:
• Empowered students to attach commentary to a specific scene and share their
comments on social (effectively “crowd-sourcing” film commentary and criticism
in a new way)
7. AMPLIFYING MOOC WITH SOCIAL
Strategy: Drive all Summer of Darkness discussion to #NoirSummer to
get the hashtag to trend on Twitter & thereby increase organic reach.
Analytics: Highest measured results for any TCM programming initiative
to date; approximately 1.5x engagement of most popular month-long,
daily programming initiatives for reach and contributors, with 4x the
total number of tweets.
Twitter Trending: Individual film noir hashtags trended with MOOC &
#TCMParty discussion; #NoirSummer trended in Atlanta on July 30
during the script contest; #NoirSummer trended in San Diego on July 3
throughout the #NoirAThon; MoMA picked up #NoirSummer on June 20
to promote its own noir series, a nod of respect to our brand and its
position as a thoughtful player in the social community.
Posts: 13
Post Reach: 900K+
Likes: 43K+
Comments: 4K+
Shares: 6K+
Tweets: 26K
Tweets/Day: 619
Contributors: 3K+
Tweets/Contributor: 7
Tweet Reach: 6.2M
Total Impressions: 53.1M
8. REVIEWING MOOC BY THE NUMBERS
Enrollment: 20,603
Certificate Earners: 2,908
Completion Rate: 14.1%
Completion rate among starters who took at least 1 quiz: >60%
Average MOOC completion rates from the largest MOOC providers:
• Coursera (Stanford University): 4%
• edX (Harvard University and MIT): 5%
Largest media MOOC to date: The Walking Dead
• Enrollment: +/- 65,000
• Completion Rate: 3%
• 2,203 completers, 700 fewer than for TCM course, despite more than 3x the enrollment
TCM Message Board Traffic Due to Course:
New Registrations: 3,679
Topics: 201
Replies: 11.188
Unique Visitors: 11,236
Page Views: 187,665
Message board registrations increase from average of 172 unique visitors per month to 3361 in June when course launched.
9. ENJOYING FAN RESPONSE
“I took the course to see whether a film studies course could successfully be given online. I had my doubts but
you proved me completely wrong. I was surprised at how few glitches there were and at how much work you put
into making it the absolute blockbuster it was. Thank you again.”
“This class is a gateway drug to great movies and film discussions.”
“Having watched @tcm for many years and thus having seen a fair number of films included in our course, all I
can say is: Wow! What I’ve been missing. For I have to say it’s remarkable how seeing these films with “fresh eyes”
has so greatly increased my understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of TCM and its film library.”
“Exposed to new films noir and learning so much I’m enjoying my favs even more.”
“Good Afternoon, Dr. Edwards, …In celebration of completing the course, I made some “Film Noir Certified”
buttons this afternoon to share with some of my friends and fellow students. I would love to send you one to have
as a little “thank you” of sorts.”
“I now watch all movies much more closely. I stop the DVR, read all the credits and even
take notes so I can look up things later and learn more about the film and the filmmakers.”
“I am very much impressed by the effort you and the team are putting into this. I can’t imagine it is possible to do
much better work regarding the combination of enjoyment and learning.”
10. EMBRACING MOOC MODEL FOR YOUR BRAND
If you consider embracing a MOOC as a model for outreach, reflect on these questions:
• Can your brand teach fans about any particular topic in a deep way? If so, what colleges or partners
might you want to collaborate with?
• If you don’t have enough material to produce a MOOC, can you create short educational or tutorial
videos for fans & share these via YouTube or email?
13. UNDERSTANDING THE POWER OF FANDOMS
Fandoms are a huge part of the social audience;
they are engaged and passionate about their
subjects, much like core TCM fans. Covering a wide
demographic, fandoms range interest sets and
embrace young, social and pop culturally savvy
viewers.
20 MOST DEDICATED FAN COMMUNITIES
According to Vulture 2012 Study
1. Game of Thrones 11. Tyler Perry
2. Star Wars 12. Joss Whedon
3. Twilight 13. Community
4. Harry Potter 14. Star Trek
5. Justin Bieber 15. Oprah
6. Lord of the Rings 16. True Blood
7. Hunger Games 17. Bruce Springsteen
8. Lady Gaga 18. Neil Gaiman
9. Doctor Who 19. Insane Clown Posse
10. Arrested Development 20. Kevin Smith
14. TESTING OUTREACH WITH DOCTOR WHO FANS
In May 2015, we launched our fandom outreach
with a connection to Doctor Who fans. Across
social platforms, we introduced these passionate
fans to the non-canon Dr. Who and the Daleks
(‘65).
• On Facebook, our fandom video reached 167K
fans, garnering 49K views. Both measures
exceeded high end averages for posts.
• On Twitter, our #WhoOnTCM live tweet reached
159K unique users and 229 of those users actively
participated in the discussion.
In addition to using Facebook & Twitter, we also
launched our brand Tumblr to connect with these
fans.
15. ENGAGING POP CULTURALS WITH FANDOMS
After our initial fandom outreach to Doctor Who and a second campaign targeting Supernatural fans, we reviewed our key
learnings & set these guidelines:
• Find organic fandom ties within our existing programming. This approach offers two benefits. First, it shows fans that we
aren’t pandering to them but that our programming already appeals to them. Second, working within our existing
programming doesn’t change the brand proposition or add new workflows.
• Connect using content as our main message. We won’t sell in this space but rather encourage brand awareness.
• Speak to fans in their language. Knowing fandom vernacular builds authentic connection and community.
• Produce rich, easily shareable videos and memes. Fandoms love to share these, and they’ll help spread brand awareness.
• Keep a routine. Once we reach out to fans, they’ll look for us to lead fandom discussions. Reaching out once a month sets
a schedule fans can look forward to & share with others.
• Encourage our staff to lead the conversation as fans themselves.
16. REFINING WITH JANE AUSTEN FANS
In January 2016, we continued our
monthly fandom outreach by
connecting with Jane Austen fans.
Our live tweet of Sense & Sensibility
(’95) reached 2.4 million unique
users and more than 1.7K of those
fans actively participated in the
discussion.
Both our social reach &
engagement numbers have
increased with each fandom
forward event.
17. FINDING FANDOMS FOR YOUR BRAND
As you consider a fandom outreach strategy for your own brand, reflect on the following:
• What is your goal with reaching out to fandoms? Do you want to spread brand awareness, or do you aim
to market your products or services directly?
• What fandoms organically tie to your product & services? Can you tie to entertainment fandoms, sports
fandoms, lifestyle fandoms?
• What long-term results do you aim to achieve? Based on these goals, will you build an ecosystem of
passionate niche fandoms around your brand, or will you instead aim for a broad, although less
engaged, fan audience?
• Do you have fans among your own staff? If so, how can those staffers help you learn the vernacular of
that fan community?
• What resources do you have available to produce high-quality, shareable social videos and memes?
• Can you set a consistent schedule for fandom outreach?
• Can you partner with other like-minded brands or social influencers on outreach to fandoms?
18. QUESTIONS? WE’VE GOT ANSWERS…
or at least some answers. Don’t ask us why
cats rule the Internet. We don’t know the
answer to that.
