The Syfy original movie "Sharknado" became a social media sensation this past week with its premiere on Thursday. And perhaps not surprisingly, it also considerably upped the online profiles of the network that aired it and the actors who starred in it
According to content marketing and insights company Kontera, consumption of content items — videos, social posts, etc — revolving around Syfy grew 220.49 percent from July 10, the day before the "Sharknado" premiere, and July 11, when the movie aired.
Also read: 'Sharknado' Takes a Big Bite From Hollywood Tweeters
"Sharknado" star Tara Reid also fared well; consumption of content involving the "American Pie" star jumped 177.55 percent in the same period.
While there wasn't sufficient data to track consumption of content for former "90210" star Ian Ziering on July 10, Kontera found that he drew 70.10 percent of the consumption that Tara Reid had on July 11.
Also read: 'Sharknado' Sequel Is Not Greenlit, Says Syfy
During its airing, "Sharknado" generated 387,000 social mentions — 97 percent of which were generated by Twitter, with the hashtags #sharknado and #syfy — besting competing shows "Big Brother" and "The Big Bang Theory." "Sharknado" also came within 2,500 tweets of the "The Rains of Castamere" episode — aka, the "Red Wedding" episode — of HBO's "Game of Thrones," which was a hot topic of online discussion when it aired in June.
At its peak, "Sharknado" generated almost 5,000 tweets a minute during its airing.
Ratings-wise, the results for "Sharknado" — which depicted a shark-infested hurricane wreaking havoc with Los Angeles — weren't quite as spectacular. The movie drew 1.369 million total viewers, which was more than the 1.264 million that June's "Independence Day-Saster" drew but less than the 1.52 million for April's "Battledogs" and 1.488 million for "Chupacabra vs. the Alamo," which aired in March.
A re-airing of "Sharknado" is scheduled for July 18.