Our goal was to purposefully curate and program VH1’s YouTube and social platforms by developing original web series that appeal to new and existing VH1 viewers and ultimately grow our audience. One of these series, Brunch With Tiffany, originally debuted in 2017 but was revamped for Season Two with the goal of using it to develop a new social and digital strategy geared toward our new initiative promoting both original web series development and season-over-season growth of an established series.
Brunch With Tiffany first premiered on VH1’s YouTube channel in 2017. Utilizing our brand social media accounts and the viral appeal of the host, Flavor Of Love and I Love New York star Tiffany Pollard, the series experienced success and we realized that VH1’s homegrown talent is our most valuable asset. We decided to invest more resources toward the series with an objective of using this established hit to grow VH1’s YouTube audience and prepare them for the launch of additional digital series.
Research provided us the optimal time to launch, as well as which show talent would help us best leverage VH1’s show social media accounts. By strategically casting guests from our top-tier shows, such as Love & Hip Hop New York, Black Ink Crew and RuPaul’s Drag Race, the series’ reach was broadened by promoting it to over 29.5M fans who engage daily on our branded social platforms.
Thanks to a savvy rollout strategy placing guest Cyn Santana from Love & Hip Hop in the premiere episode, we received robust press coverage from publications like Refinery29, Vice, and The Source due to some highly shareable soundbites and exclusive content that our linear audience eagerly responded to. Social strategy included launching an all-new Instagram account, @BrunchWithTiffany, and leveraging our relevant series’ social accounts to promote the weekly premieres. The use of IG Stories as well as a weekly live YouTube premiere further emphasized the episodic content and eventized viewing.
The season premiere received over 400K views in its first week, and the first three episodes have over 1.2M views on YouTube alone, with 5.7M minutes of watch time. The social media campaign that accompanied the premiere also succeeded in driving views and growing fan engagement, and the new @BrunchWithTiffany Instagram account gained over 27K followers in its first month (16K of those in the first two days of its launch). Season over season, views grew 273%, with a 469% increase in minutes watched vs. Season One. 10% of our subscriber growth on YouTube is a direct result of Brunch viewers. Brunch With Tiffany also directly led to consumption of over 1M minutes of channel content through “Suggested Views.”
