We invented a holiday.
We confused a lot of men.
We initiated Twitter into the mob.
Webster’s dictionary defines social as — just kidding. But seriously, what makes for good social these days? Even for brands, the rules have been thrown out the window. It’s like Westworld out there — fun until the bots turn on you — and it’s getting harder and harder to carve out your own place.
But over the last year, HBO social transformed from a promotional space into a topically-relevant, editorially-driven, conversation-starting, always-trending brand with a personality as big as its shows. A brand with a defined voice, a distinct point of view, and a national holiday for Laura Dern.
Twitter is not known as the kindest place on the Internet. But we managed to engage fans in positive conversations, spark healthy debate, and start everyone’s year off on the right foot.
This happened.
There are some conversations we’d rather not be part of… like international sanction announcements. So we took to Twitter to make our wishes known. The post caught more than a few eyes and became our most popular tweet of 2018.
#DernDay
Do you ever sit around thinking about how Laura Dern deserves her own holiday? Same. So we invented #DernDay: a social holiday that apparently everyone wanted.
International Women's Day
HBO is home to a lot of badass women who always seem to know exactly what to say. So we used their words on #InternationalWomensDay to speak our truth - and accidentally confuse a lot of men.
Instagram is a great place to show off what you got. And when you got the best talent in the game, it’s not hard. We used the platform to become super fans of talent... and then we geeked out so hard, we had no choice but to make some charts and graphs.
6,331 Likes, 66 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "Time to write your own story."
24.8k Likes, 292 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "Spend some quality time with a man who knows how to do two things very well."
3,192 Likes, 16 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "It's just hats. #derbyday"
3,931 Likes, 37 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "Thank you for coming to my TED talk."
41.4k Likes, 314 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "Rise and shine, let's get this sacramental bread."
20.8k Likes, 312 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "So loving. So pure. #SharpObjects🥀"
14.4k Likes, 248 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "Sundays."
3,472 Likes, 207 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "They came. They saw. They conchord. @flightoftheconchords is returning for an all-new special,..."
43.7k Likes, 237 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "Her babysitter died but her hair THRIVED."
129.8k Likes, 953 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "I appreciate you. #AppreciateADragonDay"
2,553 Likes, 28 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "A few words of advice for our newest HBO family. #SuccessionHBO premieres tonight at 10PM."
11.5k Likes, 160 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "It's Fall, where's my coat? Oh, there it is. Thanks, Matt Damon."
4,090 Likes, 70 Comments - HBO (@hbo) on Instagram: "Men, amirite?"
INSTAGRAM STORIES
Instagram Stories can be a wasteland of quotidian garbage... or it can be a useful tool. Need help deciding what to watch? Need an excuse to get out of something? Need excessively bad tax advice? We got you.
SOPRANOS NICKNAMES
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Sopranos, we sent out a single tweet offering Soprano-worthy mob nicknames for whoever wanted one. Over 24,000 people replied, including Roger Federer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Nussbaum, Blake Griffin, Macaulay Culkin, and a big chunk of brands on Twitter.
We wrote, designed, and posted over 100 nicknames in real-time, creating one of the great Twitter threads of the year.
To quote the nice people at Fast Company—“Look, Brand Twitter rightfully gets a lot of flack. It tries too hard. It’s too gimmicky. It’s manufactured human interaction. But this? THIS. This was goooood.”
