The Office may have aired its last episode in the U.S. in May 2013, but the appeal of the NBC comedy lives on just as strong today. In the last 12 months, despite the show ending nearly six years ago, The Office uploads to official NBC-owned social channels have generated:
- 125.5M YouTube views
- 5.6M Facebook Video views
In December 2018, this video celebrating Dwight K. Schrute’s unique management style trended on YouTube, generating 1.3M views and driving viewers to Google Play and Apple to purchase episodes of the show:
As well as 9.6M followers on the official Facebook Page, a combined 1.2M subscribers to two active YouTube channels, and 869k followers on Twitter, the People’s Person’s Paper Company also has a very dedicated following of 885K Redditors. So how does NBC manage to maintain and grow its dedicated fan base years after one of its most popular shows ended?
NBC’s Always-On Video Strategy
The last episode of The Office played out on NBC to an audience of 6M U.S. viewers, but interest in the show remains sky-high. For example, during the news that Friends may be leaving Netflix, viewers may have missed the fact that The Office consistently attracts the most views of any content on the streaming platform, almost six years after it was taken off the air. Plus, when Steve Carell pulled a bait and switch on SNL in November 2018 for a possible revival of the show, social feeds were flooded with pleas demanding the cast get back together to film fresh episodes.
Along with a Netflix residency and a carousel of repeats on U.S. TV, there’s another incentive that keeps viewers’ interest in The Office alive: NBC’s always-on social video strategy. While a presence on Netflix helps keep the characters alive for millions of viewers, social video is also playing a huge part in keeping this pop culture phenomenon as relevant as it was in its heyday. And viewers get to access this content without paying a fee.
The Office Drew in 125.5M Official YouTube Views in 2018
NBC have two official YouTube channels for its much-loved show: The Office US and The Office. While the latter was established during the show’s run, it still uploads occasional clips from the show for its 63K subscribers.
However, The Office US YouTube channel, managed on NBC’s behalf by Little Dot Studios, has a much more active audience development strategy, and a publishing schedule of around three videos per week. And that content isn’t just straight clips from the show — the channel is slicing and dicing footage around different themes and different characters, as well as offering up the ever-popular blooper reel, and repackaging clips you may have missed. Even if you are like this author and watched every episode 30 times, the new footage seems fresh and entertaining, with 191 of the 458 videos uploaded to the channel since 2014 generating over 1M views.
NBC also likes to have a little fun with the viewers by repositioning content to tie in with current trends and news stories. For instance, “Making a Stranger’ was uploaded to YouTube in March 2018, ostensibly trawling through archive footage to uncover whether or not Toby (HR rep and arch-enemy of Michael Scott) could, in fact, be the Scranton Strangler himself. The mockumentary play on Netflix’s “Making of a Murderer” generated 3.6M views and 67K likes, shares, and comments for the channel.
The Office on YouTube: Everyone Loves Dwight
We took a look at the kind of content creating views and engagement on the Office US channel, and of the 458 videos uploaded, Rainn Wilson’s extraordinary Dwight K. Schrute features in all of the top three most-viewed:
- Jim’s Pranks Against Dwight – 20.7M views
- First Aid Fail – 19.6M
- Fire Drill – 9.3M
Such is the popularity of Schrute, as he’s the focus of 154 of the uploads to YouTube, followed by Jim with 85 clips, Pam & Jim with 37 clips, and Michael Scott with 37 video uploads.
5.6M Facebook Views for The Office in 2018
NBC also has an official Facebook property for the show. It’s mostly single clips but the fans seem to be OK with that, as it generated an impressive 5.6M video views in 2018 alone.
- Steve Carell Returns to SNL Monologue – 3.6M
- The Office Is Ready For The Big Game – 1.1M
- Holiday Greetings from The Office – 527K
But it isn’t just NBC that is keeping Michael Scott and his team alive in the minds and hearts of the viewing public. In the last 90 days, media and entertainment publishers like Netflix, BuzzFeed Food, BuzzFeed Video, Amazon Prime, and Nickelodeon have uploaded content around The Office to Facebook and YouTube. Netflix generated 1M views for their expose that Michael Scott’s “chair” girl had in fact been caught moonlighting as Miss Pawnee in Parks & Recreation.
Will The Office ever return? Who knows, but if it does, the show clearly has a powerhouse of a marketing and audience development team who can hit the ground running.