2023 presented an interesting challenge in that no new episodes of Yellowstone were airing in this calendar year. So our main objective was to support the show with our same always-on strategy without having the typical funnel of content. We had to think creatively and strategically about how to use archival content and make sure the show was getting the same robust support. Another objective was to support Yellowstone’s first run on CBS. While they weren’t new episodes, airing the first two seasons on broadcast TV gave us the opportunity to reach and tap into a brand new audience.
Leaning into vertical video (clips, memes, music) and scenic unit images were the bread and butter for the Yellowstone social platforms. Our first plan of action was to dig into our archives and select top performing content from earlier seasons. When the early seasons of Yellowstone originally aired, both TikTok and Instagram Reels didn’t exist. So we reformatted clips into 9x16 and got them in front of new audiences. We also heavily relied on unit photography from the earlier seasons, getting classic images that are buried in our social feeds back into our fans’ timelines.
Another challenging element of 2023 was the SAG strike that limited our ability to engage with our show’s talent. But as soon as an agreement was reached, we worked with our show’s stars to get fresh content for our pages, particularly in the music space.
We also made sure we were posting episodically relevant content aligning with the CBS airing of past episodes. Our episodic formats like Behind the Story and Stories from the Bunkhouse saw new life with refreshed posts.
These formats help us achieve an always-on publishing strategy and will bridge the gap until new episodes are released.
Even though we haven’t had any new episodes, we are still growing our follower counts, with more than 10.6 million cross-platform followers, and seeing successful views and engagements on posted content. In one music example, a video of Luke Grimes performing garnered more than 9.8 million cross-platform views.
Yellowstone on CBS surpassed ratings expectations, and the season 1 premiere was also a success on social: The Yellowstone CBS linear premiere earned more than 114K interactions and 163K views on SCR, making it CBS’ No. 1 Drama Premiere in 2023 for interactions! Given that this episode was five years old, it shows the true power of Yellowstone social and its fandom.
