The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon engages with our viewers and fans all day, every day. The show airs for an hour every weeknight, but our social accounts are active around-the-clock, providing exclusive video, unique peeks behind the scenes, and bonus materials that act as an extension of the show itself. This year we focused on three areas to further set the show apart from its peers:
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REAL-TIME ACTIVATIONS
Since Jimmy took over the Tonight Show, the @FallonTonight social team has been livetweeting every episode, releasing custom content real-time, uploading clips from the show as the air, and leading conversation with fans and celebrities. This year we've continued to bring our social audience even closer to the show by having some of our most socially-savy guests takeover our Snapchat and Instagram accounts. Guests like Hugh Jackman, Jessica Alba, Gabrielle Union, Joseph-Gordon Levitt, and Meghan Trainor have participated, giving fans backstage access and showing what its like to be on the show in real time.
This year, with the rise of Meerkat, Periscope and Facebook Live, we have also evolved our strategy to include regular mobile live-streaming. Both Jimmy and the show were early adopters and have quickly become leaders on each of these platforms. Take Seth Rogen, for example. When Seth stopped by the show, we played a fan-driven game of "Would You Rather" in his dressing room using questions submitted during our live-stream. Jimmy has also opened up his office on multiple occasions for live Q&As!
YOUTUBE AS A SOCIAL PLATFORM
We also pride ourselves in recognizing YouTube as a social network, not just a distribution platform. This year we've worked to continue to set the bar in engaging directly with both creators and fans in the YouTube community. On our channel we actively engage with fans in the comments, create custom video end cards with Jimmy, and use fan response to help drive the production of additional web exclusive backstage content, like the "Backstage Acoustic" music series or our interactive series like "Unqualified Advice."
One of the coolest things to happen on the show this year actually started on YouTube, the #AndrewShadowJimmy campaign. A teen named Andrew Kochamba, produced a great YouTube video asking to shadow Jimmy as part of his senior year "Shadow" day. Jimmy saw the video, loved it, and decided to make the campaign a reality. We put our own video of calling on YouTube, then flew him to NYC to shadow Jimmy for the day. Because of his video, Andrew got come to the show, interview Jimmy live on Meerkat and even joined that night's guests on the couch at the end of the show.
ALLOWING FANS TO SHAPE THE SHOW
Many of our show segments involve fan-submitted web content on a weekly basis. Through our social channels and app, fans are able to contribute content that makes it to air. Examples include our weekly Tonight Show Hashtags segment that invites fans to share stories related to a given topic, with Jimmy reading her favorites on-air, as well as the the "Screengrabs" segment, which brings "Headlines" into the digital age, and our recurring "Kid Theater" segment, which has had major celebrities including Channing Tatum, Tom Hanks and Michael Keaton act out short scripts submitted by children.
In 2015, The Tonight Show was:
Also in 2015:
