How do you turn a 12-day Simpsons marathon into a social media phenomenon? You live tweet it, of course. In an effort to unify fans during the #EverySimpsonsEver event on FXX, we created the @EverySimpsons account and tasked its managers to live-tweet the entire marathon. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. 12 days straight.
On 8/21/2014, the marathon began and the @EverySimpsons twitter account sprung into action. Content included live-tweeting quotes in concert with episodes, engaging with fans, and publishing a host of graphical content. These graphics included quote cards, character cards, little known factoids ("Frosted Facts"), and a collection of "High 4" graphics listing top moments in Simpsons History. Also, during the livetweet, @EverySimpsons promoted the #SimpsonsSelfies campaign, asking fans to tweet pictures of themselves enjoying the marathon.
10,000 tweets, thousands of #SimpsonsSelfies, and zero breaks later, the #EverySimpsonsEver live tweet inspired nearly half a million tweets from the fans. For the duration of the marathon, FXX was the most watched cable network among P18-49, reaching 14.1M adults and 24.9M total viewers.
By creating engaging content and identifying key moments in the Simpsons 25 year history, @EverySimpsons brought together a massive fanbase that had grown up watching America's favorite family.
It was no easy task, but the FXX team and their agency partners rose to the challenge and combed through the massive Simpsons episode library to find the most iconic material. Key quotes and moments were identified and incorporated into various assets that were posted in support of the marathon. The fans embraced this huge flood of content beyond our wildest expectations, and tweets related to The Simpsons reached an impressive 475K during the marathon.
Fans especially loved our #SimpsonsSelfies campaign, an initiative created to provide a sense of community among viewers, giving them a chance to become an active participant in the marathon. The campaign was wildly successful, with more than 9,000 tweets sent using the hashtag, and had tons of viewers sending in their creative and often hilarious selfies during the wee hours of the morning.
In the end, #EverySimpsonsEver dominated the social conversation and helped turn a simple cable marathon into a must-see event, energizing a massive Simpsons fanbase in the process. With interesting trivia, hilarious quote cards and beyond, #EverySimpsonsEver effectively put a creative and modern spin on viewer nostalgia, encouraging a community to both watch and participate in a television event that, years from now, will have fans saying, "I remember where I was when I watched the Every.Simpsons.Ever. Marathon."
