It’s hard not to love Glee. If you’re female and you’ve seen it, you more than likely loved it. If you’re male and were ‘forced’ into watching it, you probably loved it but won’t admit it. From the very first episode I was a self proclaimed Gleek (Glee geeks for those of you not fluent in Glee terminology). I’m not alone; there are millions of Gleeks around the world as addicted to the show as I am. It’s like one big happy family…that is, if your family all sit around together and sing along to the show (I don’t do that, honest!). Even before the first episode aired, Glee had a huge fan base because of its social media campaign. It is the perfect example of how social media can be used to boost ratings. Although many thought the tactic a risk, it was one that paid off; it’s now one of the most watched shows around the world. Countries outside of the US have had to fast track the airdate for the second season episodes in order to prevent viewers from watching it illegally online (which is ironic considering Fox is aiming for a dominant online presence).

Glee

1. The announcement of the Glee iPhone app had every Gleek dying with anticipation. When I saw it, I wasn’t disappointed. I’ll admit that I’m extremely tone deaf (I can show you if you don’t believe me, but trust me it’s not a sound you want to hear!) so to prevent damaging any eardrums I made sure that no one was around when I tried it out. The app allows you to duet with your favourite character and post it directly to your Facebook or Twitter, a great way for fans to continue interacting with the show. You can also see other people’s attempts and hopefully find someone who has a worse voice than you (I couldn’t find anyone).

2. Glee has taken Twitter by storm. Three of the most popular characters, Sue Sylvester, Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel have their own Twitter accounts which are regularly updated with phrases that the characters might say in the show. With 90,000 followers between them it is a good way of making sure Glee is a trending topic. When you search  for Glee on Twitter, updates pour in every second with new tweets about the show. Its 1.4 million tweets during 2009 alone prove that it really is taking over the Twitter world.

3. Although MySpace usage isn’t what it used to be, Fox recognises that it still has a lot of users and are maximising on this. They even held open auditions for three new roles on MySpace. It was so popular that they had to extend the audition process by an extra day.

4. The Glee Facebook page has over 2.4 million fans. This is updated more regularly than the Twitter page. They cleverly use the picture of the most popular character (Sue Sylvester of course!) to attract more fans. They are constantly updating their status with competitions, trailers and reminders to watch new episodes, which happens up to five minutes before the show airs. This means that their millions of fans on Facebook are constantly hearing about Glee through their newsfeeds.

All of these social media techniques have helped to put Glee into the top 20 most watched shows in the USA every week with a season average of 9.8 million viewers. Other networks need to follow in Fox’s footsteps and realise that maximising their use of social media in their marketing campaigns will see a huge boost in ratings.