After the premiere of NATURE CAT in November, PBS KIDS ramped up to promote new episodes of the series in early 2016. In January, a one-hour special featuring four all-new 11-minute stories aired, and related games, clips and full episodes were also made available on PBS KIDS digital platforms. One of PBS KIDS' goals was to take advantage of its loyal Facebook and Twitter following to garner interest for the new NATURE CAT episodes, and receive feedback from viewers on the new series. PBS KIDS' main objective was to drive tune-in to the episodes when they premiered on January 18th. A strategy to utilize the notoriety of the actors voicing the NATURE CAT characters was implemented.
Keeping in mind that video content is the most engaging and sharable content on social media, PBS KIDS produced videos with each of the actors voicing the NATURE CAT characters. Saturday Night Live's Taran Killam, Kate McKinnon, Bobby Moynihan, and Kenan Thompson, and The Big Bang Theory's Kate Micucci were all interviewed about the characters they play in the series, and their affinity for the show. PBS KIDS used a rolling timeline strategy to release the exclusive videos on social media during a three week period before the new episodes of NATURE CAT aired. In these videos, viewers were able to hear unique anecdotes from each actor, and numerous stories focused on what inspired these actors to join the series. Viewers also saw footage from the series, and heard the characters in action. Since parents are the main target audience on social media, PBS KIDS leveraged the notoriety of already well-known comedic, adult actors to draw parents' attention to a series for kids.
The social media video content roll out strategy for NATURE CAT's new episodes proved successful, resulting in over 133,000 shares/likes/comments on Facebook and Twitter, and over 3 million video views.
