It's a Southern Thing was launched in 2017 with the goal of creating a highly engaged audience around the often hilarious moments that come with life in the South. In order to grow our Facebook audience in 2018, we prioritized native content, utilized new tools like Watch and produced more content with the goal of increasing audience engagement and video views.
It's a Southern Thing was launched under a new division of Alabama Media Group called Red Clay Media. This startup arm of the company produces shareable videos and stories through new brands with different revenue models. It's a Southern Thing started as a Facebook page and has quickly expanded to include a website, a line of merchandise and a hugely popular Facebook Watch show, "So True, Y'all." You can also find us on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.
It's a Southern Thing is a lifestyle brand for people who love the South. We celebrate the things that unite Southerners: our food, our charming accents and sayings, our manners, our quirky families, and our unwavering devotion to sweet tea. Sometimes we laugh at ourselves – but we're allowed to do that. After all, we're Southern, too. That authenticity is what makes us different and what has helped us quickly amass a loyal audience of more than one million people. Southerners often see themselves misrepresented in popular culture, and our goal is to change that. We saw an opportunity to bring people together with positive, funny, relatable content and we've done just that. Our core audience is women between the ages of 25-44 who live in the South, but our content reaches far beyond. We often hear from people who live outside the South now and follow our page to be reminded of home. We also hear from positive feedback from people who have no connection to the South but enjoy our family-friendly comedy.
In 2018, we focused on expanding our Facebook strategy and utilizing new Facebook tools to further connect with our audience. We launched our first Facebook Watch show, So True, Y'all, in March. It quickly grew to 1.3 million followers in eight months. Most of our videos have sponsors using Facebook's branded content tool, which provides an additional revenue stream. We also used Facebook's shop feature to sell relatable merchandise, which we often incorporate into our videos.
On Facebook, It's a Southern Thing continues to see numbers similar to or better than some of the leading social brands in both news and entertainment. It now has a combined 2.7 million followers across Facebook, Facebook Watch, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, and its weekly sketch comedy show, "So True, Y'all" is averaging 7 million views per episode.
Highlights from 2018 include:
