Last Friday (9/6/13), MSNBC replaced two hours of prime time programming with “Advancing the Dream: Live from the Apollo Theater“.  The show was hosted by PoliticsNation’s Rev. Al Sharpton and featured guests including Stevie Wonder, Magic Johnson, Condoleezza Rice, Tyler Perry and Cathy Hughes.

The show promoted the hashtag “#AdvancingTheDream”, which was a smart way to engage the audience via social media.  And the engagement it received on Twitter was great:

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The number of tweets it received was on par with MSNBC’s most successful (on Twitter, at least) shows.  All of which is pretty phenomenal given the show was a one-off and didn’t have a long time to build audience awareness with its hashtag.  While it was on the air, approximately 1 in every 4000 english-language tweets was about the show.

Kudos to MSNBC for managing a successful social media campaign around a one-time event.  When so many news shows don’t even make an attempt to engage their social media audience, it’s nice to see it done right. (See the Cable News Twitter Ratings for the day to see other shows with almost no engagement.)

For more information about this study, ping me at admin@socialseer.com.