New Girl is a show that I have watched since high school. The humor can be awkward and downright cringeworthy, however the show is charming and the characters are delightfully quirky. The audience who watches New Girl is one that truly is invested in the show, as I know I am (they do have 753,000 Twitter followers and 3.7 million Facebook likes, after all!). I created this post about the friendship between the characters Schmidt and Nick Miller. Their unique relationship has placed them in a slew of unexpected situations, and the nature of their friendship is, in a word, hilarious. Their relationship is one of the most comedic aspects of the show, and I felt that a post surrounding that bond would be successful in reaching the audience of New Girl, as well as allow individuals with close friendships such as theirs to relate to the content.
23 times Nick and Schmidt's bromance on New Girl was perfecthttps://t.co/u0jOmJPMf9 pic.twitter.com/hOmppc2BmB
— BuzzFeed Community (@BuzzFeeders) December 3, 2016
GIF Credit: Mackenzie Cooper
The main objective of this campaign was to reach an audience in the niche market of people who watch the Fox TV series New Girl. This article might not appeal to everyone who reads Buzzfeed on a regular basis, however, a previous post I created with similar content was quite successful. I hoped to share the comedy of the friendship between characters Nick Miller and Schmidt, and appeal to an audience who would relate to the humor and nature of their relationship.
Do you love New Girl as much as Nick loves Schmidt? #goals #NewGirl #NHBuzzfeed
.@NewGirlonFOX .@BrettSVergara https://t.co/8xzJrX0rGW pic.twitter.com/hCdRzJXMsD— Mackenzie Cooper (@mackenziexgrace) December 1, 2016
GIF Credit: Mackenzie Cooper
prepping for a brand new @NewGirlonFOX tonight like… #newgirl #pinkwine #roseallday #jessday #NHBuzzfeed #yas https://t.co/3fLScZuD9n pic.twitter.com/ZpIOF8HM9s
— Mackenzie Cooper (@mackenziexgrace) December 6, 2016
Video Credit: Mackenzie Cooper
The goal of this assignment was to identify an audience who would relate to my created content, market the post on social media sufficiently enough that it would attain virality, have a high amount of audience engagement through both BuzzFeed and Twitter, and be able to fully analyze the reach of the post. Upon identifying an audience and setting up the demographic profile via Twitter Ads (spend: $5.00), I created 2 original GIFs and 1 original Boomerang video for my promotional tweets, to maintain consistency with the Tumblr-roundup style of the article (which was comprised entirely of GIFs).
I reached a respectable amount of virality with “23 Times Nick And Schmidt’s Friendship On ‘New Girl’ Was Just Too Perfect.” I attained a social lift of 2.7x, with 107,000 viral views and 64,400 seed views, totaling up to 172,000 total views. The main platforms off of which I gained the most viral views were Facebook (97,794 views) and Email/Chat/Apps (8,653); 184 views came from Twitter.
I think the inclusion of important ‘bits’ from the show aided in its virality, allowing fans that remember the jokes and situations to relate to the article. I also believe that the humor, in general, is comical for BuzzFeed readers who might not be as familiar with the show. I found this post to have a relatively high amount of success. The other BuzzFeed community article I posted about New Girl was slightly more successful than this one. I believe the other article had a higher success rate because of its length, being slightly shorter than the Nick and Schmidt post.
“23 Times Nick And Schmidt’s Friendship On ‘New Girl’ Was Just Too Perfect” received positive feedback via social media, both on Facebook and Twitter. I believe that articles such as this are excellent methods of growing a fanbase and keeping it tight-knit with “inside” jokes and lovable characters. This Facebook reaction, in particular, rings true to what comedic BuzzFeed posts aim to do – bring a bit of joy and entertainment into someone’s day:
After my post was promoted to the Community Homepage, a PR professional from M Booth in New York City even reached out to me about an interview for BuzzFeed with Hannah Simone! She plays Cece Parekh on New Girl, and was hosting a cat runway event that the PR representative wanted me to cover for BuzzFeed. I thought this was too funny! Shoutout to the Community Editors at BuzzFeed for teaching us the “BuzzFeed Voice” so well!