Pretty Little Liars’ Super Social Premiere By Katharine Jaruzelski Posted 19 June 2013 The season 4 premiere of ABC Familyʼs “Pretty Little Liars” last Tuesday (6/11/13) landed at the top of the Trendrr charts with nearly 1.8 million 2nd screen interactions. “Liars” has always generated a massive amount of 2nd screen activity—season 3 brought in an average of nearly 600k social interactions per episode, making it the most social drama series on television and the secondmost social cable series.
Although “Pretty Little Liars” is the most social drama in terms of average interactions per air-date, AMCʼs “The Walking Dead” came in slightly ahead in terms of total interactions during its last season. This is because the social activity of “Dead” remains higher than “Liars” in between air-dates. Although “Liars” generates lots of social activity for new episodes, that activity drops off significantly when the show is off air.
We may be able to attribute this trend to the showsʼ respective audiences. Assuming the teenage, female audience watching “Pretty Little Liars” may choose to “live tweet” their reactions to the show as they watch, the perhaps older audience watching “The Walking Dead” may tend towards a post-show discussion. Itʼs also possible that fans of “Dead” prefer to DVR the show and watch it later, while fans of “Liars” prefer to watch the show live. Regardless, why is “Pretty Little Liars” so social? Its audience certainly has something to do with it, given that teenage girls tend to be especially active on social media. Other teen dramas like “The Vampire Diaries” and “Glee” are also among the top 10 most social dramas. Meanwhile, the mystery and thriller elements of the show provide lots of fodder for online commentary. (This can also be said of “The Walking Dead.”) “Pretty Little Liars” has also actively cultivated its massive online presence. The showʼs official Twitter handle, @ABCFpll, provides commentary during episodes, promotes online bonus content, and regularly retweets fans. The showʼs four stars are also active on Twitter, boasting a collective 6.7 million followers.
Meanwhile, ABC Family regularly employs hashtags to promote online conversation about its shows. Hashtags like #MonasLair and #PoorEzra will appear in the corner of the screen during important parts of an episode, giving viewers a universal topic of conversation and making it easy for the network to track that chatter.
During the season premiere, the largest spike in conversation occurred at the very beginning of the episode as viewers expressed their excitement about the showʼs return. The most popular hashtags during the episode, particularly at the beginning, were #PLL and #PrettyLittleLiars. Another popular hashtag was #PLLayWithShay, which actress Shay Mitchell used to interact with fans during the premiere. Conversation also spiked at 8:07 PM, when viewers learned that an important character on the show had been murdered, and at 8:12 PM, when viewers got a look inside a former villainʼs lair. At both conversation spikes, many viewers were retweeting the @ABCFpll account. Some popular retweets were “UH OH! RIP Wilden #PLL” and “Those dolls are the creepiest thing ever. #PLL.” Another major spike occurred at 8:34 PM, when a dream sequence tricked viewers into thinking a much-loved character had been arrested. Fans were initially shocked, retweeting @ABCFpllʼs “Oh no #PoorEzra!!! #PLL,” but after learning that the scene had been imagined, they responded with both relief and annoyance.