HBO Hedges on Social Media to Reach 'Challenging' Demographic
In an unprecedented move, the network uploaded the first two episodes of 'Girls' onto its YouTube channel this morning, hoping to engage the show's online fan base.
By Geoff Weiss •
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In targeting millennials, social media channels have become a veritable playground for marketers.
The HBO smash Girls, for instance, is making a full-court press in the digital sphere to hype its third season, which premiered last night. The network is prioritizing micro video apps like Snapchat and Vine over traditional advertising formats to galvanize its sizable digital audience.
"For us, this is an increasingly challenging demographic to reach with traditional means," Sabrina Caluori, HBO's vice-president of social media and marketing, told Mashable.
And according to a new study by the Pew Research Center, young people are flooding the web in numbers that far exceed other age demographics. Every social network except LinkedIn, for instance, is most frequently utilized by people between the ages of 18 and 29.
In an unprecedented move, HBO uploaded the first two episodes of the season for free onto its YouTube channel this morning--following the series premiere last night. Additionally, Girls unveiled a Snapchat account--at girlsHBO--through which HBO intends to share sneak peeks of future episodes, according to Mashable. That's not to mention the show's pre-existing and active Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and Vine accounts.
In perhaps the biggest sign that traditional social-media marketing is expanding into (strange) new frontiers, the Girls Facebook page is posting episode recaps composed exclusively of emojis with translations available in the comments section.
Related: New Study Details Who Is Using Social Media and When
