Sharknado: Social Media Gold

The only wisdom I have to offer at social media conferences is this:

But it works in B2B content marketing.  And this week, Hollywood confirmed this maxim, proving images of selachian fishes captivate an audience even without a good script or a decent story idea.  Nielsen pegs Sharknado’s TV audience at 1.4 million viewers, on par for other SyFy Channel original movies, which cost an average $1.5 million.  Syfy Digital SVP Craig Engler reported that  the hashtag #Sharknado appeared 387,000 times on Twitter on Thursday night, hitting 5,000 tweets per minute at its peak.  The social media success, including celebrity tweets, created press coverage for the film, and I would image helped to build a large audience that will make the film one of the most success reruns on the network.

Although the Dollar Shave Club’s CEO revealed to the WSJ All Things Digital that the critical success factor for a viral video is to use a bear,  Tina Fey clarifies which beast is best.

If we’ve learned anything from Shark Week on Discovery Channel and literary classic characters like JabberJaw, if you want content to connect with an audience, just add sharks.

Special thanks to  Oakley Boren for creating this image at the Social Media Explorer OC conference.

Image by Oakley Boren

UPDATE:

7/30/13 The Poke: Blog of the Day:  Sharks Make Movies Better.   Hat tip Oakley Boren