Those ‘Mormon Wives’ Helped Hulu Grow Earned Media Value in September
Not only has The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives become Hulu’s top unscripted season premiere of the year — prompting a quick season two renewal — it’s also driving notable Earned Media Value (EMV) for the platform, according to a September analysis from CreatorIQ. EMV is CreatorIQ’s metric for quantifying the estimated value of consumer engagement with digital earned media.
In total, Hulu received $73.8 million in EMV during September, a notable 66% month-over-month increase — but it wasn’t enough to beat Netflix, which racked up $128.2 million. Peacock ($31.8 million in EMV) and Max ($30.8 million) secured third and fourth places, respectively.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives fueled part of Hulu’s increase, and owned the service’s No. 3 hashtag for the month (#SecretLivesofMormonWives), which garnered $5.9 million in EMV alone. By comparison, in August that hashtag only generated $509.6K in EMV, highlighting the explosive trajectory the reality series has experienced since its premiere on September 6.
Also thanks in part to the series, Hulu received 53.1 million engagements and 1.5 billion impressions in September, representing respective 83% and 58% month-over-month increases. CreatorIQ also notes that TikTok was the primary platform fueling Hulu’s momentum, delivering $33.2 million in EMV across the month vs. Instagram’s $29.7 million. This isn’t surprising, given that the cast of Mormon Wives consists of eight TikTok influencers that are part of the “#MomTok” community.
Taylor Frankie Paul, who arguably was the impetus for the Hulu series after her 2022 “soft-swinging” reveal that went viral on social media, has seen her TikTok audience grow by nearly 20% since August, per CreatorIQ. On Instagram, her followers have jumped over 125% in the last two months.
While the rest of the cast members have all increased their social followings, Layla Taylor stands out: Her TikTok followers have risen by over 14x since August, with 22x more on Instagram. On the flip side, Whitney Leavitt — who had basically been exiled from MomTok by the end of season one — has the smallest rates of audience growth from August to October, up 10% on TikTok and up 53% on Instagram, according to CreatorIQ.
“The success of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is a prime example of how digital conversations shape and accelerate content in today's media landscape," said Alex Rawitz, Director of Research & Insights at CreatorIQ. "We're starting to see how digital content can inform showrunners and streamers, not the other way around. As #MomTok has become a highly engaged community online, it creates a pathway for this content to thrive in other media and entertainment mediums that encourage tune-in and conversation—whether in the streaming environment or on social."
