"We know how influential the dialogue on social networks can be," said Danielle Mullin, vice president of marketing at ABC Family. "That was really key to our strategy. We really tried to use social media as a way for fans to become advocates for us and help get the word out about the premiere."
It also helps that the program, based on the popular young-adult novels by Sara Shepard, has a built-in audience ready to help spread the word. Leading up to the series' launch last summer, the network tapped Shepard to participate in an online press call, on which she answered questions submitted on the ABC Family "Pretty Little Liars" Facebook page. To capitalize on the show's premiere and the release of the final book in the series, the network posted Shepard's tweets containing passages from the first chapter on the "Pretty Little Liars" Facebook Fan page.
"We love Twitter; we love Facebook," said series creator Marlene King, who has also taken part in the tactic by participating in a Twitter-based Q and A with fans. "You're talking to people in Brazil, in China. Gosh, if I were 14 years old and I could've tweeted the creator of a TV show while sitting in my bedroom - and they're tweeting me back - I'd be delighted."
On the night of its series premiere last June, "Pretty Little Liars" was a "Breakout!" search term on the Yahoo Buzz index; on Google Trends, which tracks what's popular on the Web, the "Pretty Little Liars" "hotness factor" went from "Spicy" to "On fire" to "Volcanic." They may not be exactly comparable to stellar Nielsen figures, but a program's social-media footprint is just as imperative, according to Dan Neely, chief executive of Networked Insights, a data-mining and -analytics company.
