‘Candys’ find success on social media

Mar 14, 2016 | Arts

most retweeted

The most retweeted tweets from Sunday night’s Canadian Screen Awards. Courtesy Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.

Phil Witmer

The 4th Canadian Screen Awards more than tripled their social media engagement from last year.

Sunday night’s broadcast was a trending topic across Canada, thanks to an extended Twitter campaign centered around the “Canadian Screen Week” hashtag.

The presence of the show well before the night of its airing helped to keep it in public consciousness, as did moving it online.

“People aren’t really watching the broadcast, so streaming it online is the best option for viewership,” said Andrea McGrath, Coordinator of Communications and Web Content for the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.

McGrath told Humber News that many new strategies, such as image tweets for each of the winners and live voting of the Fan Choice Award broadened the potential audience.

In fact, the most popular retweet of the night was the announcement that Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany had taken home a Best Actress award.

There were also surprising details about an audience base outside of Canada, according to McGrath.

“We had a big audience in Los Angeles, maybe because of the American films [Room and Brooklyn] that were nominated this year,” said McGrath.

Both Room and Brooklyn were nominated at last February’s Academy Awards.

Neither Room‘s star Brie Larson nor the film’s director Lenny Abrahamson appeared at the CSAs ceremony, despite both winning awards.

Room dominated the CSA film category, taking home nine awards.

CBC comedy Schitt’s Creek won big in TV, alongside The Book of Negroes and Orphan Black.

The Canadian Academy first created the CSAs by merging the Genie Awards for film and Gemini Awards for television in 2012.

Since then, some have questioned if the consolidated awards could compete with its American counterparts, especially since it airs at the end of awards season.

McGrath also said that the final numbers for both social media and television viewing are not in yet, and the former could grow.