NBC hopes that Bridgit Mendler's extreme popularity on social media websites will help promote the show "Undateable." That is why NBC added her to the cast, according to Deadline.

Mendler, the former Disney Chanel star and singer, appeared for the first time on the show Tuesday night. Mendler has a huge presence on social media. With 8.1 million likes on Facebook, 4.6 million followers on Twitter and 1.1 million followers on Instagram, Mendler might be a perfect match for NBC that could lead to more viewers of "Undateable."

Mendler also has an account on the music-video site Vevo that has 1.2 million subscribers. Her songs "Hurricane" and "Ready or Not" have a combined 178 million views.  

"We just thought it was a great opportunity with a new cast member with roots in music and comedy acting" to try something new, said Rob Hayes, EVP of Digital for NBC Entertainment.

Mendler then wrote a song and worked with co-star Brent Morin and the rest of the cast of "Undateable" to create a funny music video. More than 100,000 people have already viewed the video, with another 620,000 views on Facebook. Mendler and Morin will keep making new music videos each week.

The music videos will air on Mondays in advance of the show, which is aired on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Eastern time. The cast of "Undateable" also cut 24 short promotional videos for the show. Each video is targeted at certain YouTube search topics like video games, movie trailers, animals, sports and dating.

The promotional videos began running March 7, but ended on Tuesday. The videos can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and NBC's video player on its website. Most of the material will be found on Mendler's own Facebook page.

Showrunner Bill Lawrence was supportive of the idea to push out the videos and music videos, Hayes said. Lawrence and other show writers helped write the scripts for the promo videos. Hayes said using Mendler's social media presence will help NBC push out video to promote the show. NBC is trying to do this for their overall strategy for all of their programming.

"Most shows need to do that now to break out of the clutter," Hayes said.

Mendler will appear on the show as a new waitress working at the unsuccessful Detroit bar run by Morin's character.

It seems the strategy has paid off, as the show was trending. Mendler thanked her fans for their support.