User:Wikiedits32/Scandal (TV series)

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Social media and its impact

Scandal was one of the most popular shows on social media. The cast tweeted with their fans when the show was airing on television. During the season three premiere, the show topped Nielsen's Twitter TV Ratings Top 10, with 713,000 tweets that mentioned the show and were seen by an audience of 3.7 million users. The show had also the most loyal Twitter followers according to Nielsen Social.

In the post-Scandal era, live-tweeting has become a common practice in the television viewing experience. While watching their favorite programs, viewers take to social media to share their thoughts and reactions to what’s occurring on their screens, as well as interact with other viewers, using hashtags relevant to their programs. Scandal is often credited with popularizing social television. Though it was not the first show to embrace social media, it was one of the first shows to use social media as a way to interact with fans in real-time and create a sense of community among them. Prior to Scandal, Shonda Rhimes had already discovered how effective social media platforms could be as marketing tools. She leveraged them, particularly Twitter, to create audience awareness and a loyal following for Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice.

Early on, Rhimes and ABC Entertainment’s marketing team recognized the importance of social media in promoting Scandal. The official Scandal Twitter account, @ScandalABC, was created a year before the series premiered. Rhimes is often accredited with utilizing Twitter to create emotional investment in her shows, making fans feel as if they have a stake in them, but she admitted that Kerry Washington was instrumental in harnessing Twitter to transform Scandal into a social television show that cultivated a weekly social event. In a one-on-one discussion with InStyle’s Editorial Director, Ariel Foxman, Washington also revealed that it was her idea to have the entire cast of Scandal live-tweet. She stated:

Before the show aired, Allison [her social media manager] sent me an article about the most tweeted about shows, and I was like, “I want to be on this list a year from now.” She [Allison] said, “Probably to make that happen, the whole cast should be on social media,” and I was like, “Well then I have to get the whole cast on social media.” But I didn’t want to be like the bossy star of a show, so instead, I very much “Olivia Poped” it. I emailed Shonda, and I said “Could you ask, ‘cause you’re the boss? So if you asked the cast to do it, they’ll all join ‘cause they’ll feel like they have to.” So she emailed the cast and said, “It would be really great if everybody could just think about being on social media.” To this day, I know we wouldn’t have had a second season if it wasn’t for social media.

Washington, her cast mates, and even crew members live-tweeted during the airing of the pilot episode titled “Sweet Baby,” inviting viewers to ask them questions using the hashtag, #AskScandal. They responded to users, answering countless “Scandal-related” questions. One user took it upon themselves to dub Scandal fans “Gladiators,” which Washington, Columbus Short, and Darby Stanchfield all endorsed. #Gladiators began trending not long after receiving the Scandal stars’ approval. With the first season only having seven episodes, live-tweeting helped the show gain enough traction to be renewed for another season. Each episode brought about thousands of tweets, resulting in ABC integrating hashtags into the promotional strategies for the show. In the season one finale, Gladiators were presented with a new a hashtag, #WhoIsQuinn, which relates to the cliffhanger that left them curious about Quinn Perkins’ identity.

Promoting specific hashtags related to the show's most riveting storylines and "OMG" moments carried conversations and interest into subsequent seasons. In season two, the assassination attempt on Fitz's life became the top OMG moment, and the hashtag #WhoShotFitz trended on Twitter. In the episodes leading up to the gunman's identity being revealed, #WhoShotFitz appeared on-screen, and anticipation heightened as Scandal's personnel encouraged fans to share their wildest theories. According to the editors of TV Guide, “WhoShotFitz was a game changer for ABC.” Ratings skyrocketed, convincing ABC to employ a full social media-based promotion. During season two, the amount of tweets generated per episode drastically increased, reaching thousands per minute, hundreds of thousands per episode, and accumulating millions of tweets per season. The plot twists, turns, and cliffhangers, packed into every episode, made Scandal a "must watch live" series and one of the most talked about shows. The fear of encountering spoilers and missing out on a communal watch experience social media offered, ensured audiences tuned into the show every Thursday night for all seven seasons.