Wednesday night’s two-hour Empire season finale marks the final leg of a remarkable three-month run that delivered record-breaking ratings for fourth-place Fox, and got America talking about everything from race on television to the return of the prime-time soap opera.

The show’s stars are garnering Emmy buzz, the series is breaking Twitter, the soundtrack is number one on the Billboard chats, and the Queen of Television herself is preparing a royal visit to a future storyline.

Which means there’s only one question for Fox and its marketing team: how do we keep this party going?

Fox marketing essentially hit a home run on their first at-bat with a launch campaign that emphasized the glitz and glamor of the music industry.

They also used today’s plethora of viewing options to their advantage, with prominent, consistent, and clear messaging encouraging catch-up or repeat viewing on Fox Now, Hulu, and on demand.

Then there’s the aforementioned social media domination, with star Taraji P. Henson the undisputed MVP on that front. Henson offers a case study in how talent can build help an engaged audience, and she live-tweets episodes like she invented the practice:

But it’s the network’s smart use of on-air promo that is earning a lot of praise. The series is a prime example of why good promo matters, even in today’s evolving TV landscape, according to Vulture’s Josef Adalian:

“…[M]ost episodes of the show had been filmed before the first one aired, giving network promo-makers access to nearly a full season’s worth of OMG moments (rather than just whatever was in the pilot or first episode). Fox also took things a step further by capping each of Empire’s first ten episodes with an extended, 90-second teaser touting coming attractions — not just for the next week’s episode (standard practice), but for the entire season to come. That meant viewers were being promised appearances by big-name guest stars weeks before they popped up, or dramatic fights long before they happened. Reality shows (and even some network dramas) have for years created such super-teasers after a show’s first episode.”

Fox sacrificed time normally devoted to advertisers or promoting other shows for the sake of building up Empire, which Adalian points out may have helped the advertisers in the end:

“The strategy also meant Fox could play up the fact that each episode of Empire was being presented with “limited commercial interruption,” subtly encouraging viewers to watch live or maybe not hit the fast-forward button on the DVR.”

Reruns have fallen out of favor in today’s television industry, but Fox may be able to dust off that old tactic and use it to their advantage during the hiatus by taking a cue from the music industry, suggests Adweek‘s Jason Lynch:

Most major album releases come with a “deluxe version” option, offering a few extra songs and other additional material beyond the standard option. Fox should take this same approach by repeating, and rebranding, the show’s first season as Empire: Deluxe Version, enhancing each Season 1 episode by adding in deleted scenes and longer versions of the original music, along with a Talking Dead-style wrapup of each episode at the end to hold a full two hours of programming.

Even if they don’t rerun Empire, series star Terrance Howard will still be on Fox’s airwaves over the summer, thanks to his supporting role in the upcoming Wayward Pines, which was shot before Empire. Lynch writes that the network would probably be wise to make sure Howard is in the promos.

There’s also the idea of producing a one-off Empire concert, leveraging the cast as hosts of the Emmys pre-show (it’s Fox’s turn to air the telecast), and a holiday special.

Regardless of what Fox decides to do during the hiatus, the network is battling against the conventional wisdom that even the most successful freshman series see a drop in viewers when they come back for season two (See: The Blacklist, The Following, Sleepy Hollow).

But for a show that’s already brushed aside so much of the industry’s conventional wisdom in three short months, we could all be in for another fascinating ride.

Read More: Vulture, Adweek, fastcocreate, The New York Times

Brief Take: From start to finish, Empire’s remarkable three-month run has been a case study in how to launch and market a new show in today’s complicated landscape.

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