The photo above was the selfie seen ‘round the world during the 2014 Oscars telecast - almost one year later, the photo that host Ellen DeGeneres tweeted out has racked up 3.3 million retweets and more than 1 million favorites.

In only one hour, the photo (with stars Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong’o and Angelina Jolie) was the most shared tweet in history, even causing Twitter to go offline briefly.

The retweeted and oft-talked-about photo was a big social win for DeGeneres, the Oscars, ABC and sponsor Samsung. Last year’s Oscars telecast also hit ratings records with 43 million viewers, which also boasted the best Oscars ratings in 10 years.

So it goes without saying that the 87th Academy Awards, airing Feb. 22 on ABC, has a lot to live up to in terms of social strategy.

The Academy has a very hush-hush social campaign planned, having yet to announce any specifics in that department. But Josh Spector, managing director of digital media for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, says that the backbone of that plan is to take advantage of last year’s Twitter publicity to ramp up behind-the-scenes exclusives this year.

Spector adds that his team plans on using the entire day of coverage (with red carpet, fashion coverage and the show itself) to showcase the Oscars on social platforms and bring attention to the big event.

According to Variety, The Academy had about 400,000 social followers last year at this time, compared to roughly 7 million now. The 2015 Oscars host, Neil Patrick Harris, has 13.6 million followers on Twitter (not counting his meal-only @NPHFoodPorn account), which is expected to drive fans to the Oscars’ leading into the big day.

Read more at Variety.

Brief Take: Harris’ mammoth social following should boost this year’s Oscars social presence, and—depending on how Harris does—could turn social into a contributing factor when it comes to choosing Oscar hosts.

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