Prior to Season 10 of Wild 'N Out, there wasn't much strategy surrounding its social presence. However, after some quick analysis, we realized that with a little push and focus, Wild 'N Out could become an internet phenomenon. Our objective was simple…increase social following and engagement across the board to make WNO an internet sensation and in turn use these platforms to gain audience insights that could help influence other areas of the business (linear strategy, consumer products, consumer marketing, etc.).
In the past, we posted very few show clips to social media following the linear airing of a Wild 'N Out episode. We were also inconsistent with posting and engaging with fans. Our knowledge of the audience was not very strong; all we really knew was that show clips tended to perform well on these platforms.
Using Google Analytics, we were able to understand the Wild 'N Out demographic composition and their interests. When compared to the audience defined as "living in United States," our audience was likely to be passionate Rap/Hip Hop and Comedy Fans. While they were present on the internet, we created a hub for them to flock to by upping our posting cadence across platforms and tailoring our content towards the younger African American and Hispanic demos. Armed with this information, we developed a video-heavy strategy for our social platforms that would include an array of video types.
We started off with a range of videos across our platforms, everything from digital originals, to show clips, to promos and sneak peeks. Once we started to understand the behaviors and wants of our fans, we provided them with more. We began posting videos every day and continued to see our audience grow rapidly. As we were relying heavily on show content, we started to turn our attention to creating digital originals that played off of topics, games and themes within the linear show. Going into the 11th season we decided Wild 'N Out needed its own YouTube channel since its videos on the MTV Brand page brought in numbers unmatched by other shows. And since WNO got its start on MTV2, it made perfect sense to convert the MTV2 YouTube page to a WNO one. Our followings continued to grow.
Over the course of the 10th season, we grew our Instagram account by 62%, bringing us over 1M followers in just a few months and making us the largest MTV Show account on Instagram. Within three days of launching the WNO YouTube channel, our videos had an average of 1M views and within a month we gained 1M subscribers bringing us over 2M. We now have over 3M. WNO accounts have contributed over 1B views and nearly 2B minutes of watch time across Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. To date, the WNO accounts make up 18% of all MTV video views on social and 39% of all minutes viewed, and cross-platform streams for WNO have tripled YoY.
WNO YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Contributed 292M views, 27% of all MTV YT views
Contributed 1.4B minutes, 45% of all MTV YT watch time
Average watch time of over 4:30, higher than any other MTV account by almost 2 minutes
WNO FACEBOOK PAGE
Drove more watch time than any other MTV page in 2018
Nearly 570M minutes viewed, 30% of MTV's total Facebook watch time in 2018
WNO INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
The top Instagram account operated by MTV
Contributed 190M views in 2018, 29% of platform total
MTV's most-viewed Instagram property
Grew from 100K to 2.3M in one year
WNO TWITTER ACCOUNT
Ranked #4 among all MTV accounts in 2018
Contributed over 14M streams, 8% of platform total
