HBO will upload the first two episodes of Girls season three onto the network's YouTube channel on Jan. 13 at 10 a.m. ET, just 12 hours after they premiere on HBO.
Rather than requiring fans to watch live during Sunday's two-part premiere or forcing them to catch up using its HBO GO subscription service, offering the episodes for free on YouTube is one way the network is courting the show's active online fan base.
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"For us, this is an increasingly challenging demographic to reach with traditional means," Sabrina Caluori, HBO's vice-president of social media and marketing, told Mashable.
HBO decided to "be social first" with the way its marketing team released announcements, taking advantage of "emerging platforms" such as Tumblr, Instagram, Vine and even Snapchat, as well as social giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.
"Micro video is really becoming more mainstream," Caluori said.
Because of this trend, HBO launched a Snapchat account for the show (handle: girlsHBO), joining other brands such as Taco Bell, Seventeen magazine and NFL teams that are experimenting with the visual messaging service. HBO's first snap featured a gun-toting panda beside a gift box, an homage to a strange text message from Girls' second season. HBO also used Snapchat at the show's red-carpet season premiere this week.
Although Snapchat content is fleeting — at most, the snaps are public through Snapchat Stories for as long as 24 hours — HBO is giving footage and images from the snaps a longer shelf live by turning them into GIFs, and posting archived versions on other platforms. During the season, HBO will share sneak peeks of episodes.
This season, we're living snappily whatever after.
It's official. Add girlsHBO on @Snapchat. pic.twitter.com/vcLc4HbMoB
— Girls (@girlsHBO) January 3, 2014
For season three, the GirlsHBO account on Instagram includes a video series called "Lena On Hannah On" in which the show's star Lena Dunham shares her character Hannah Horvath's opinions on timely topical subjects. Caluori said the series spawned from people routinely asking Dunham, "What would Hannah think about this, or say about this?"
HBO also relaunched its Tumblr page, moving away from the What Should We Call Girls format (a spinoff of the popular What Should We Call Me Tumblr blog).
"The What Should We Call Girls version was successful at the time, but memes, by their nature, are fleeting," Caluori said. "The automatic fan behavior was GIFs. By opening it up to the broader theme now, we can take it to the next level."
On Facebook, the Girls page is posting character recaps via emojis. For example, this one relives Hannah's adventures on the show so far. HBO offers a thorough translation in the comments section of the Facebook post.
Post by Girls.
Meanwhile, on Twitter, a member of the cast and crew will live-tweet during the show, and answer fan questions after the show, starting with episode three using #GirlsFYI. The cast and crew will be busy attending the Golden Globes on Sunday during the two-episode season premiere. Girls is nominated for Best TV Comedy or Musical and Best Actress in a TV Comedy (Dunham).
HBO is tapping into Vine for other shows, as well. For Game of Thrones, which HBO announced would return April 6, the network teased the season with six-second loops.

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Image: HBO