Exclusive: Fox Helps Out Fringe Fans on Twitter!
Mar 22, 2012 05:14 PM ET
by Damian Holbrook
Thanks to a group of determined devotees, Fringe's spring return tomorrow night (9/8c, Fox) brings with it a new kind of social-media shout-out. Working under the name Fringenuity, these fans have been campaigning to get their show-inspired hashtags to trend domestically and internationally every Friday night on Twitter since the Bishop boys and company kicked off the second half of their season back in January.
So as a nod of appreciation for all their viral efforts, Fringe's producers and Fox will be placing this week's Fringenuity-selected hashtag (#WhereYouBelong) at the bottom of the screen during the episode in place of the usual #Fringe. The idea is for fans to use only this week's hashtag in all of their show-related tweets starting an hour before the East Coast airing (no earlier).
Read Damian's entire article here.
(fo note:Thank you Jeff Pinkner & Joel Wyman for this gift! This has you two written all over it.
Also, this is the perfect article to follow the Fringenuity Twitter/GetGlue post!
Also, Jeff & Joel followers, does this photo look familiar? Think about what's behind J&J during most of their video interviews.)
How effective this is I don't know, but the failure of so many Fox series has at least opened the door a crack for half of a season five. Maybe this all pushes it a little wider.
ReplyDeleteSwitching the tag every week is confusing. I'm not understanding how this is going to help ratings.
ReplyDeleteHere is the basic theory as I understand it:
ReplyDeleteFringe fans are never going to generate enough tweets all at once to get a frequently used hash tag like #fringe to "trend" on Twitter. It has to compete with the celebrity news, Hunger Games, etc.
However, because trending appeares to biased towards "news", it is much easier to get something to trend on twitter if it is something new.
How does this help Fringe?
According to NPR:
The list of "trending topics" on the right side of Twitter's home page is a coveted spot because millions of people see it. It often reflects what's hot in the news, from the death of Steve Jobs to Kim Kardashian's latest exploits.
...
"If you start trending on Twitter, people on Twitter will turn that show on"
The tags have to be switched up on a regular basis otherwise Twitter will begin to filter out repeating ones as they are then treated like spam after some unknown thresholds have been passed.
ReplyDeleteI see all this, Twitter, Facebook, Google +1 ... as very salutary and important for the "life" future of Fringe. We know that the current "cyber world", is definitely a great influence on our daily lives, and this is the current real world now. Whichever way it is, we're always talking, discussing, exposing somehow Fringe, so I think, will be increasingly within the collective consciousness, to which we belong. Everything is valid in matters of media to disseminate more and more, the show Fringe! Go, Fringe for 5th season, go!
ReplyDelete