Big Brother Canada’s Even BIGGER Social Media Presence
Competing for customers, clients or viewers without social media in the digital age is like choosing to locate your business 100 miles away from civilization. Both will make it extremely difficult to achieve financial or reputational success. We are in an era where social media is one of the primary tools necessary for attaining and retaining customers or supporters. With one click of a button, you can essentially market yourself or your brand to anyone, anywhere with Internet access. The vast majority of companies use social media to capitalize on this incredible marketing and branding tool simply because it is absolutely crucial for success nowadays.
I cannot think of a single contemporary cable television show (or series on any other platform for that matter) that does not make use of social media. Big Brother Canada is not just one of my favourite television programs, but one of my favourite brands in terms of its social media strategy. While the show is exclusively Canadian and does not air outside of the country or let foreign users access videos on its website, it has managed to attain significant popularity within a limited geographic area. Social media also allows fans that watch the show from other parts of the world through streaming or video sharing websites, like YouTube, to keep engaged with its creators.
If you are unfamiliar with the show, Big Brother Canada is a reality competition series wherein strangers from across the country move into one house with cameras following their every move. The competitors compete for power, vote to evict each other from the house, and then the evictees form a jury that votes for the winner in the end. Each season gives viewers the ability to watch live feeds from inside the house at nearly every moment of the day. There is also an interactive element to the show that often lets the audience vote on twists to change the format of the game or give an advantage to their favourite houseguests. Since the show takes place in real time and offers live feeds into the house, there is certainly no shortage of content to be shared. Big Brother Canada’s social media accounts act as a medium for sharing Big Brother related content and allowing fans to communicate with both the show’s creators and other fans.
As of April 2018, Big Brother Canada has over 60,000 Instagram followers, over 105,000 Twitter followers, and over 179,000 likes on Facebook. This may not seem large on a global scale, but it is huge for a show only airing in a rather small country of less than 40 million people.
Big Brother Canada’s brand is known for its witty sense of humour, relatability and sass. The brand’s personality is a clear attempt at attracting younger audiences and gaining popularity with millennials, even using terminology found in youth and millennial culture in its social media posts, such as “woke”, “tea” and “shade”. It is evident that Big Brother Canada has an excellent grasp of its largest demographic, which is people between the ages of 18–34. Its success has resulted in the series becoming a Top 10 series amongst millennials (18–34) and even adults (18–49).
Big Brother Canada makes excellent use of visual marketing. On the show’s Twitter, almost every single tweet (excluding retweets, replies and polls) is accompanied by a GIF, picture or video with the vast majority being content owned by the show. Considering that 90% of information that the brain retrieves is visual and that tweets with images earn 89% more favourites and 150% more retweets on average, Big Brother Canada’s social media team is using its social media presence in the most effective manner. The videos on Big Brother Canada’s social media page are also kept short, as Twitter users are accustomed to quick updates on the platform. As such, videos are generally kept under two minutes and most short clips and episode highlights are fifteen seconds long on average. The same is the case on Big Brother Canada’s Facebook page, as most of the same content is posted on multiple platforms in order to reach followers who may have not seen it when it was posted elsewhere or who only use one platform.
One of Big Brother Canada’s strong suits in terms of its social media usage is its understanding of how fans use the content that the brand shares on social media. The primary reasons that fans visit their social media accounts are (1) for entertainment, (2) to learn additional information about the game/show, and (3) to interact with others and share theories or opinions. Big Brother Canada’s social media team delivers what fans want by providing memes, comedic posts, behind the scenes content, live feed news, episode highlights, and polls and questions that allow fans to respond and comment with their unique opinions about the game.
The Big Brother Canada social media team makes sure to entertain their followers by creating countless Internet memes using real reactions from the houseguests and amplifying their comedic effect. They often do this by making “relatable content” that often plays off of self-deprecating humour or by making fun of common human experiences. For instance, one post featured houseguests on the show gesturing spending money with their hands and the GIF was accompanied with the caption, “Me spending all the money I don’t have this weekend.”
Other social media posts by Big Brother Canada’s social media team steal from pop culture trends and memes, such as the “confusing math” meme or “you’ve heard of elf on a shelf” meme. By engaging with popular culture, the Big Brother Canada brand remains relevant and exposes itself to a larger audience than just fans of the show, as people searching hashtags on social media platforms can come across it. Creating entertaining visual posts also increase the likelihood of followers retweeting and sharing their posts or memes becoming viral, which increases the publicity of the Big Brother Canada brand.
Clickbait is used quite effectively by Big Brother Canada’s social media, as many of the brand’s posts are designed to entice followers to click on a hyperlink to vague or intriguing content. For instance, in order to build hype for its sixth season, Big Brother Canada’s social media team made various “Top 6” countdown videos including Top 6 Funniest Moments, Top 6 Fights, Top 6 Speeches and Top 6 Tearjerker Moments in BBCAN History. On a similar note, the social media team behind Big Brother Canada releases “exclusive content” or a “behind the scenes look” at various aspects of the show. This tactic makes followers click on links because there is a high degree of perceived value from the content contained within these articles or videos.
Big Brother Canada also uses social media to provide viewers with content that cannot be contained within each hour-long episode. In the past, the Big Brother Canada Sideshow aired on cable television, wherein past houseguests would give their take on the current season and evicted houseguests would be interviewed about their time in the game. Since this program received fewer views than the actual show, it was replaced with “After the Eviction” on Facebook during the show’s fifth season. This strategy saved Big Brother Canada costs and improved the brand’s social media presence by offering valuable and exclusive content that could only be accessed using social media. This led to an increase in followers on Big Brother Canada’s Facebook page and other social media accounts, which increases the likelihood of the show being exposed to others on social media who were previously unaware of the show or are friends with people following Big Brother Canada’s accounts. Moreover, since After the Eviction is live and takes questions from viewers, it creates a more interactive experience for fans, improving the relationships between viewers and the show’s creators.
Following the finale of the show’s fifth season in May of 2017, Global announced that Big Brother Canada was on hiatus. In an attempt to bring the show back on the air, fans engaged in activities to pressure Global to renew the show for a sixth season, such as creating online petitions and tweeting to bring the show back on the air. While fans were merely trying to bring back a trivial television show rather than demand social or political change, there are several parallels between the actions taken by fans and “slacktivism”. Fans engaged in these activities knowing that their actions involved minimal effort and were unsure that it would result in any form of change. It also made fans feel good to say that they contributed to fighting for something they support, which in this case was bringing the show back for another season.
The social media team at Big Brother Canada facilitated the efforts made by fans by encouraging them to tweet about the show and even created the hashtag #YouCanAndYouWill to direct social media posts to a measurable hashtag and encourage Global to renew the program. By controlling social media traffic through hashtags, Big Brother Canada was able to prove to Global that it was in their best interest to renew the program and that there was a large enough fan base for it to be popular and profitable in a sixth season. Unlike the results of “slacktivism”, the efforts made by Big Brother Canada’s social media were successful in their cause, proving that social media actually CAN be used to create change, at least for renewing trivial television programs. Big Brother Canada successfully used social media hashtags to create change and direct the anger and emotion of their fans, thus proving their social media competency. The large number of positive tweets and reviews from viewers on social media, which are trackable through big data analysis, also shows that the brand excels in customer relationship management.
In addition to developing relationships with audiences, Big Brother Canada uses social media to fulfill sponsorship agreements with the program’s various sponsors, such as Wendy’s, Skip the Dishes and Shaw Communications. Carefully crafted posts act to promote both the show and its sponsors, as the program is heavily dependant on advertising other brands to earn capital. For instance, the tweet featured on the left featured a scene in the show where a houseguest was ignoring another player because they were more interested in the Wendy’s meal in front of them than talking about the game. The tweet was designed to promote Wendy’s Canada while simultaneously reminding followers of a comedic moment in the show.
With a consistent and unique brand personality, quality content and strategic steps taken to increase the show’s social media following, capital and popularity, Big Brother Canada has demonstrated an excellent social media strategy. The Big Brother Canada brand is modern, funny, sassy and entertaining with plenty of visual content that performs well in terms of likes and shares. The content fulfills the desires of the fans, while appearing to offer plenty of value that cannot be found elsewhere. Strategic measures, such as hosting “After the Eviction”, advertising for their sponsors, and directing social media traffic through hashtag #YouCanAndYouWill show the skill and proficiency that the Big Brother Canada social media team has when it comes to managing the show’s brand on social media. Big Brother Canada provides an excellent example for other brands out there in how to cultivate strong online relationships and create a well-received online presence that is distinct and original.
