HBO's Girls has achieved what every TV show dreams of: A network of connected fans who love to share their opinions about the show, compare themselves to the lead characters -- Are you a Hannah, Marnie, Jessa or Shoshana? -- and tweet with the show's signature hashtag introduced before the season one premiere #mistakesGIRLSmake.
The HBO dramedy about four young friends figuring out life in New York City, now entering its second season, instantly drew comparisons to Sex and the City, its HBO Sunday night predecessor by more than a decade. Comparing and contrasting the two shows is fruit for many lively discussions (be they in high school cafeterias, sorority dining rooms or at happy hour counters).
But something major has changed since (the first time) Carrie Bradshaw graced the cable airwaves. Girls fans of today have a different bond with the show's characters than SATC fans could have imagined. They connect with the shows characters on their mobile phones while waiting for the bus and in their Twitter feeds while distracted at work.
HBO's marketing team has used social media to transform the show's four leading ladies from characters you watch for 30-minutes on TV (or perhaps, on your laptop using your parents' HBO Go account) to friends you see in your Instagram feed that make you giggle as you "double tap" your love.
While you could argue the entrance of all TV shows into the social networking space has changed the relationship of viewers and characters, HBO's VP of Social Media and Marketing Sabrina Caluori explains that Girls fans' own behavior has driven the show's marketing. The over-sharing phenomenon is a marketing team's bread and butter.
Caluori told Mashable, "We're totally inspired by the fan behavior." When we look at all the different social platforms that are out there, we look at what the fans are doing naturally. The GIF behavior on Tumblr was there long before we ever were, and in a way that felt really germane to that platform."
That GIF behavior ultimately fueled the creation of the "What Should We Call Girls" Tumblr blog, officially launched by HBO in December. The blog aggregates animated GIFs combining scenes and memorable quotations from the show. While HBO curates the blog, the GIFs are fan generated.
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The energy of fans has kept the show's accounts active in the seven months since the season one finale.
"When we start work on a show we discuss whether it has a fan base that will stay engaged year round without trying to forcefeed people to sustain it," Caluori says. "With Girls, in addition to content around the show, it's such a lifestyle in and of itself. The community is about more than just the show, it's the music, the fashion, New York, the locations. Even though there was a finite number of episodes, you feel Girls all around you all the time."
Beyond the non-seasonal nature of its social accounts, HBO has made the Girls characters staples of its fans social media lives by integrating fans' own lives into its feeds. HBO will call for and subsequently share fans' resolutions and mistakes, using both the original #mistakesGIRLSmake and season two's #resolutionsGIRLSbreak. Likewise, HBO will call for favorite mistakes, quotations and hypothetical resolutions from the shows' characters. The hypothetical resolutions have also been at the heart of the show's paid marketing campaigns.
For the season two premiere Sunday, HBO won't be promoting hashtags on Twitter, but will be using the hashtag #resolutionsGIRLSbreak, which it's used throughout season two promotion, and the hashtag #GIRLSathon during the season one marathon, playing on HBO starting at 4 p.m. Sunday. (During the season one premiere, HBO promoted three different hashtags, #GIRLSnight, #mistakesGIRLSmake and #GIRLSonHBO.)
"Girls is a younger skewing show for HBO, and its fans are more adept at creating user-generated content," Caluori says. "It's a beautiful thing about working on Girls: When you have a creator that understands social media in the way Lena [Dunham] does, and she's encouraged us from day one, and really trusted us."
Though Girls has consistently produced social content during the off-season, it has a few new things in store for the season two premiere. On Thursday, HBO launched its first Pinterest account, for Girls, curated by the show's costume designer Jenn Rogein.
The show is also expanding its GetGlue presence, with custom badges for each episode, inspired by the "All Adventurous Women Do" cross-stitch in Hannah's apartment. Each week a new digital cross-stitch of a quote from that episode will be released, and one fan will be chosen at random to win a real, framed cross-stitch from Etsy artist Katie Kutthroat.
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Girls has given away some fan-appropriate giveaways to its loyal social media followers leading up to the premiere, including blowouts from Drybar, spin classes at SoulCycle, and a year's rent and an apartment makeover from Urban Outfitters.
Has Girls' social marketing changed the way you relate to its characters? Let us know in the comments if your appreciate the immersive experience.