By Jerome Auza
What do you get when you have 11 million tweets in less than 24 hours? Popularity, bragging rights and more commercial contracts. And possibly a new Guinness Book of World Records entry.
The number of Twitter tweets is used as one of the measures of popularity of a certain topic or hashtag. A recent great example of the proper use of this social media platform is Eat Bulaga’s Kalyeserye, a comedy series that mixes studio and street scenes and a unique love story where the pair communicate only via dubbing of songs and hand written notes.
The longest running noon-time show in the country Eat Bulaga surprised its fans two months ago with the new comedy segment which includes a love story between Yaya Dub, played by Maine Mendoza and Alden Richards. Mendoza, who became popular on Youtube because of her hilarious Dubsmash videos, is a new talent introduced by the show. Richards is a budding actor who was paired with Mendoza in the segment.
The other characters in the segment played by hosts Wally Bayola, Jose Manalo and Paolo Ballesteros while the original trio of Eat Bulaga Tito, Vic and Joey act as if they are directors and commentators adding more comedy into the already hilarious conversations of the characters Lola Nidora, Lola Tidora and Lola Tinidora among others.
The segment is a completely new concept in the Philippine television industry and has made Eat Bulaga capture the coveted number 1 position in TV ratings for noon-time shows. It combined traditional TV promotions and social media techniques to increase its popularity.
The show’s excellent use of the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook prior to the start of the segment helps build excitement among the fans. Each segment ends with a cliffhanger scenario and the fans are left wondering and discussing in Twitter and Facebook what might happen next. So they keep watching the segments.
It also helps that the segment has the kind of unpredictability because it mixes reality and acting into the love story of Alden and Yaya Dub. All the while Lola Nidora tries to keep the two apart and wants them to wait for the “tamang panahon” or the right time. Even the real life parents of Mendoza and Richards tweet about the show. And so the conversations on social media continue every day, building up to a major event every Saturday.
For marketing professionals, it is worth studying how Eat Bulaga used social media in promoting the Kalyeserye episodes. 11 million tweets is a big deal because it means there are millions of unique users tweeting about it. And there are way more Twitter users who don’t tweet but see the hashtag and links and therefore exposed to the topic. Just imagine the commercial endorsements that Eat Bulaga can make because of this popularity. In fact, they already have two major commercials based on the Kalyreserye concept.