The Doctor Who 50th anniversary
is coming up. The event needs little promotion, given the massive fanbase who
have been eagerly awaiting The Day of the
Doctor. The fans have been instructed by the Doctor himself to use the
hashtag #SavetheDay for any Who-related content.
The BBC has compiled all the Whovian Generated
Content on their website. The more UGC – or WGC – that is created, the
more golden “nodes” of the TARDIS appear, and the more nodes that appear
reveals more exclusive 50th content, such as clips of the special
and behind the scenes photos.
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- It provides an outlet to share and read consumer opinions. Whovians around the world can speculate how The Doctor could possibly cross his own timeline to save the world from the Zygons on social media, forums like Reddit, even on Youtube comments.
- The content is authentic. When seeking information, users trust peers more than they trust companies. Moffat lied to us about Paul McGann. Rule #1: Moffat lies.
- Virality of positive WOM. The response
to any and all new content that is released to the public is immediate sharing,
especially on the social media Big Three (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
- Brand advocates provide free advertising
and increased brand awareness. Whovians are the best at putting the spotlight
The Doctor.
- Fresh content and back-linking can help SEO. Whovians can spend hours perusing the BBC Doctor Who website. In response to this, the BBC is constantly posting new Who content.
- Reveals insights and allows better engagement with community. The BBC caught onto how Whovians react to Who-related content (through fangirling and spamming the Big Three). The BBC has essentially created a vicious cycle of fangirling. They’ve developed a website that is powered by these natural reactions to uncover new content that will in turn, cause more fangirling. Amazing.
There are, however, a few disadvantages of
UGC:
- Poor moderation of content on website can drive traffic away. I’m assuming this isn’t the case since I haven’t seen any non-Who related content on the site yet. But perhaps a couple instagram shots of wedding invites could be hidden in those nodes somewhere. I highly doubt that a couple unrelated images would deter a die-hard Whovian from leaving the site.
- No control. While the BBC rarely has any issues with Whovians posting content to their detriment, sometimes you really just don’t want to see weird Who fanfiction.
- Virality of negative WOM. Just as Whovians can quickly spread the word about positive news, they can do the same with negative news. When Colin Baker, the Sixth Doctor, criticized Moffat for not contacting any of the pre-reboot Doctors to appear in the 50th, claiming to be regarded as “surplus baggage,” the news was everywhere from social media to Canadian Sci Fi talkshow InnerSPACE.
And if you weren’t convinced of how
confident I feel in the Whovian social media domination on the 23rd,
we’ll also be competing against Miley Cyrus’s birthday and “One Direction Day.”
ALLONS-Y!
