Discovery Channel’s Twitter strategy creates social frenzy around Shark Week

Shark Week’s official Twitter account has nearly 100,000 followers, but the account doesn’t merely push out updates. By monitoring for tweets about Shark Week, the moderators can observe the conversation and reply when other users ask the Twittersphere what Shark Week is all about.

The Shark Week team also responds to fans who are excited to watch the programming, cementing that good relationship. Here is just one example:

This year, Discovery Channel has partnered with Georgia Aquarium to present a Shark Cam, powered by Ustream. Georgia Aquarium and Discovery Channel have representatives on hand to interact with shark fanatics about what they are watching through the #SharkCam hashtag and on Ustream’s social chat component.

Another first for Shark Week, Discovery Channel is using YouTube celebrity Philip DeFranco to host an all-social-media contest. Every night, DeFranco asks people to choose what a giant mechanical shark will crush with its steely jaws by voting through Twitter or a live poll on Facebook.