Posts Tagged ‘twitter’
TWEETING THE ROYALS
This week I began producing a new online campaign forAlison Jackson, the artist who first became famous in 1999 for creating voyeuristic photos using celebrity lookalikes. She went on to win a BAFTA for her mock-documentary show Doubletake in 2002 and is now promoting a new book and website around William and Kate’s marriage. Alison’s brilliant new work uses her trademark style of stealthily-shot paparazzi photos combined with her unique and shocking sense of humour to give the public an insight into the private side of the royal wedding.
Using Twitter we’re going to amplify this work with a new campaign, bringing the personalities of the celebs to life and allowing a global audience to interact with Wills, Kate, Harry, The Queen, Charles & Camilla, Carole Middleton, Posh & Becks, and The Archbishop of Canterbury. It’s a crucial time for the royals and their friends, and bringing eight characters to life allows users to follow a whole family who had, until now, been untouchable.
Throughout the coming weeks our royal wedding party will react to scandalous celeb stories released on Alison’s Daily Mail-inspired website, including the Queen at the bookies, Simon Cowell getting an ‘intimate’ wax and Charlie Sheen’s viagra-assisted night of passion. As they do so our royals will be cracking jokes, bickering, LOLing and a whole host of other shockingly common behaviour.
It’s modern, it’s interactive and its going to be a lot of fun so make sure you follow the key players…
CHARLES & CAMILLA
@Charmilla_Uncut
CAROLE MIDDLETON
@KatesMum_Uncut
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
@Bishop_Uncut
DAVID & VICTORIA BECKHAM
@PoshBecks_Uncut
This project is being run through the new company I’m co-creating (more on that in due course) and the tweets are written by myself and the very funny David Levin.
BEING HUMAN GETS TRENDY (ON TWITTER)
I produce the online content and manage the fan community for Being Human, a BBC Three TV show featuring a ghost, a vampire and a two werewolves all trying to live normal human lives. Give it a try if you’ve not seen it, it’s well good.
The first episode of the new series aired last Sunday and smashed it in the ratings, as well as creating a lot of noise online, some of which I’m going to document here.
WHERE WE LIVE
Being Human exists in several different online spaces. We have over 330,000 Facebook fans, 11,000 Twitter followers and a huge community centred around the Being Human blog. This is our hub of activity for the show, where hundreds of comments are posted daily.
THE FAN COMMUNITY
I love the Being Human fan community. They’re intelligent, funny and have some fantastic theories and discussions about where the show could go. Many of them have become friends in real life, chatting on Twitter, friending each other up on Facebook and travelling to Wales to meet up in person and see the set. They’ve embraced all the elements of the show we’ve introduced to them, including online storylines, new cast and crew members and some even follow my work away from the job, which shows curiosity and loyalty above and beyond your average fan of a TV show.
In fact, some of them may be reading this now because they’re a fan of Being Human. If that’s you, hello! You’re awesome.
THE TONE
Our community is a very positive one, and that’s something we’ve tried to build over three series. We aim to set a tone that’s funny, welcoming and warm. We want to people to feel like they’re part of a fun gang, not part of an exclusive clique, and the fans have created a self-regulating community that honours and enjoys this tone. The fans don’t tolerate aggression or arrogance, and will actively turn their back on people who try and steer the conversation that way. They also embrace new blog users, bringing them up to speed on topics they may not quite follow. And unlike many other shows (especially in the sci-fi genre) the Being Human bloggers don’t try to outdo each other with superior knowledge, rather they share that knowledge for others to enjoy. As a result many people get hooked not just on the show or the extras we create, but on the community itself.
Whenever it looks like the chat may turn sour, there arises a general consensus amongst the fans that it’s better to be a community that shares a love of the show, rather than a community that bitches and falls out. It’s like a family, really, and myself and Garret Keogh (our creative director) are very proud to have been a part of making it grow.
PERFORMANCE
The website has undergone big changes this year, and we’re getting bigger audiences as a result. Before the new series even aired we were getting higher unique user figures than the peak of the previous series (60k+). This is partly due to a redesigned website, a new online storyline featuring Annie (a ghost) trapped in purgatory and a new style of blog video that sees us getting up to even more mischief on set. Then, last Sunday 23rd January, it went into overdrive when the first episode of the new series went live. Here’s what happened on Twitter…
- We started with #beinghuman trending on Twitter in the UK.
- Then Lacey Turner started trending in the UK – this is her first acting gig since Eastenders.
- Then Robson Green started trending in the UK – this is his first acting gig since catching massive fish.
- Finally #beinghuman started trending worldwide.
I was ecstatic and celebrated in typical bolton style… by eating a pasty.
After the show we drove the conversation to the blog and launched episode highlights, plus a behind the scenes feature that went on to gather over 500 comments. I’m still waiting on exact user stats, but we’re expecting them to be high.
THE NEXT STEPS
This weekend we’ll be doing it all again, but this time launching brand new online drama Becoming Human off the back of the episode. This series features a crossover character from the main show, and lives entirely online. It’s a tale of deadly mystery, with episodes and evidence posted online for the audience to enjoy over the next eight weeks.
No pressure then…
TINYPOEM: THE 3-LEGGED DOG
Tinypoems are little poems just one tweet in long… that’s 140 characters including the hashtag #tinypoem. I post them on my Twitter page and keep a record of them here on my blog.
Here are some previous tinypoems tweeted so far…
