Sep 20, 2022 Content Success
The Buzzy Social Strategy Behind MTV’s Live Events
Following the most social Video Music Awards in history, the youth-focused entertainment brand plans to eventize its tentpoles for streaming and social media.
Music’s biggest night became social’s biggest night this year, with the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards achieving a record number of fan interactions across social platforms. The success was fueled by the brand’s evolving social strategy for its portfolio of live events, designed to tap into fan engagement and emerging technologies from pre-show announcements, a weekend all-platform takeover, and buzz around the day of the event.
The 2022 VMAs were the most social ever with 40.1 million interactions across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, which surpassed both the 94th Academy Awards ceremony and Super Bowl LVI to make it the most social telecast of the year, according to Social Content Ratings.
The brand leaned into a social approach that was marked by custom fan content and assets, as well as innovative campaign activations involving emerging AR technologies via partnerships with Roblox and TikTok—garnering 684 million views and 47 million engagements from when performers were announced in July through the end of show night on Aug. 28.
“We feel like it's critical to reach fans on their terms. We aim for maximum cultural impact across every consumer touchpoint available, especially for our social audience sweet spot of 13 to 18,” says Tyler Hissey, SVP of digital marketing for Paramount Media Networks and MTV Entertainment Studios. “The most effective way to do that is by going to the platforms and touchpoints that are most relevant to them and their friends with content that leans into celebrity fandoms. We did that exceptionally well this year for the VMAs, and this blueprint is very much the consistent approach for all of our bigger tentpoles including the CMT Music Awards and MTV Movie & TV Awards.”
A Fan-First Formula
Hissey describes the 2022 VMAs social and digital campaign as a three-pronged approach, beginning with the announcement of the star-studded list of nominees, then continuing with the official voting period up until and including show night.
When MTV announced the nominees, the brand social team began creating custom content that would appeal to specific fandoms, including Nicki Minaj fans, who are known as Barbz, as well as BLACKPINK’s BLINKs and the BTS Army.
“With the VMAs, it's all about leaning into artists' fandoms,” says Hissey. “The main idea we rallied around as a team was how we go about eventizing the show’s announcements and later the performances and appearances day of for those fandoms specifically.” Artists shared the assets from their official accounts, with the best-performing posts happening on Instagram, which took the reach and engagement “to the next level,” according to Hissey.
I’m receiving the Video Vanguard Award at the 2022 #VMAs! You don’t want to miss my performance – Sunday August 28 at 8p on @MTV Aaaahhhhhh😫🙏🏽💕🎀♥️🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄csfxffvmmkbdsavgkmkkevhvjj pic.twitter.com/dPGgXe2gZA
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) August 8, 2022
To maximize awareness and buzz, the MTVE Studios team leveraged nine of its more than 25 franchise YouTube channels including Wild 'N Out (11.5 million subscribers) and Ridiculousness (1.38 million subscribers) by publishing contextually relevant content featuring VMA nominees and performers. For example, rapper Jack Harlow guest-starred in an episode of Wild 'N Out in 2020, so the team posted the full episode as well as highlight clips to promote Harlow’s VMAs nominations.
Social contributions to Total Minutes Consumed, which measures minutes and consumption across every platform, grew 79% year-over-year. In addition, nominee voting increased 10% compared to 2021.
“Our strategy is to leverage the MTV portfolio across all platforms available to us,” says Hissey. “During big tentpoles, we know that we have great assets on social media, and we're much stronger when we're distributing content from all of our bigger accounts, whether it's Wild 'N Out on YouTube or TikTok, Comedy Central content like Key & Peele, CMT content, etc. Our content library is unmatched and our fans are loyal.”
On show day, the team focused on real-time publishing for a total Sunday takeover across social platforms. MTV partnered with popular Instagram photographer Amber Asaly this year to capture platform-first content for publishing during the show.
The team also immediately shared the broadcast’s biggest moments, including BLACKPINK’s “Pink Venom” performance, Nicki Minaj's Video Vanguard speech, and Taylor Swift teasing her new album. This created a groundswell of engagement interactions within the Social Content Ratings measurement window.
BLACKPINK’s in-show performance became the No.1 trending video on YouTube within hours of being published. The video amassed 15 million views and 40 million minutes in its first 48 hours. The brand went all in on YouTube that Sunday, publishing 36 videos that led to 85 million minutes watched and 186,000 new subscribers during that period.
‘I Want My Metaverse!’
MTV also used its partnerships with Roblox and TikTok to reach young demos.
“We spent time investing in different opportunities this year that really were impossible 5 or 10 years ago,” says Hissey. “So through our partnerships, we were likely introducing some users to the VMAs for the first time.”
The brand has partnered with TikTok in the past, but the 2022 VMAs activation was the first time it introduced a branded AR effect on TikTok. The TikTok activation featured the iconic Moon Person dancing to Tiësto & Charli XCX’s campaign track, “Hot In It” and leveraged the hashtag #PartyWithVMAs, reaching 7 billion views.
@niallmacmillan The Moonperson must be so hot in that suit! :fire::astronaut: Watch the #VMAs on @mtv at 8/7c this Sunday. #PartywithVMAs #moonperson #hotinit ♬ Hot In It - Tiësto & Charli XCX
For the first time, MTV brought the VMAs to the metaverse with The VMA Experience in Roblox. MTV partnered with Super League Gaming to develop a custom world that had three different branded games that users could play. Players were tasked with completing challenges to earn tokens that allowed them to vote for the award show’s brand-new Best Metaverse Performance category.
The day before the show, Aug. 27, the brand also held a virtual meet-and-greet with Maneskin, one of the 2022 VMAs performers. The result of the partnership: more than 1.2 million incremental fan votes within Roblox, most of which came from a coveted audience between ages 13-18 years old. Hissey says there’s more of these immersive, fan-first experiences set to come for future tentpoles.
“We look at the VMAs as being the Super Bowl of social media for MTV Entertainment Studios,” says Hissey. “We want to make sure that if it's our Super Bowl, just like a team would be preparing for the game, we're doing everything we can and looking under every couch cushion to maximize our performance. We can mirror that approach for all major brand events and programming going forward.”
