The hit Comedy Central show Broad City has been able to amass a huge (and rabid) legion of fans based on the sheer lovability of the ride-or-die BFFs at its core, Abbi and Ilana. The accompanying web series, Hack Into Broad City, was created with a simple, irrefutable fact in mind: that everybody wants to be friends with the Broad City girls. And sure, the web series granted that wish to America by allowing anyone to be a fly on the wall during the girls' infamous video chats, but we were confident it could accomplish a whole lot more. Emboldened by the "YAS KWEEN" attitude of Broad City itself, we geared the series toward keeping viewers engaged between seasons of the show, attracting new fans and, of course, expanding Abbi and Ilana's dominion beyond the airwaves to every major social media platform out there. NBD.
Coming off the smash success of Hack Into Broad City Season 1, we knew that for Season 2, we had to go big or go home to our diminutive Gowanus apartment (and we really didn't want to do that -- it gets, like, zero natural light). One surefire way to do that was to make sure that Hack Into Broad City was everywhere. That meant putting each new episode up on Facebook, YouTube, CC.com and Snapchat, as well as partnering with press outlets like Entertainment Weekly, E! Online and Refinery29 to offer exclusive access. Since we wanted Abbi and Ilana's video chats to feel like they were happening in the real world, we also released three holiday-themed episodes the weeks of Yom Kippur, Columbus Day and Halloween. And of course, each episode included the Broad City Season 3 premiere date to make sure that fans knew that there were more Abbi and Ilana adventures to come.
In addition to eliciting an outpouring of elated posts across social media, Hack Into Broad City Season 2 outstripped the success of Season 1 by a long shot. Each of the three special holiday episodes trended on Facebook the day they were released, and the six episodes collectively racked up 3.2 million views across all platforms -- more than double the number of views for Season 1. Fans may have to wait until February 2016 for Broad City Season 3, but at least they were able to get some FaceTime with their bossest besties in the meantime.
