This morning during an opening fireside chat at Internet Week New York 2015, Broad City co-creators and -stars Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson sat down with Marie Claire‘s Editor-in-Chief Anne Fulenwider to discuss the shows journey from YouTube to mainstream cable. And, surprisingly, Glazer and Jacobson had a few things to say about growth hacking and how great content can continue to survive and prosper in a highly-saturated market. According to the duo, they released their first Broad City video back in February 2010 – back when there wasn’t as much online video content as there is now (although, that’s not to say that there was very little video content back then – far from it). At the time they were both working full-time jobs at two different companies, but luckily they were both exposed to the basics of SEO and the strategies currently still used today when it comes to growing an audience.
For every episode that they pushed out to YouTube, the two would reach out to bloggers and writers on the Web and try to convince them that the videos were things that their audiences would be interested in. Apropos of typical pitches, they’d highlight keywords that matched the specialties of each publication. Ultimately, though, the popularity of their initial web series could be attributed to shares on social media. Mainly: Facebook. By utilizing traditional growth hacking methods and creating great, funny content, the two eventually landed themselves at Comedy Central with Amy Poehler as one of the show’s executive producers. And, now, the two are in the middle of writing the third season of Broad City. #YasKween
