Pbmom's Blog

The fans from Fringe ( http://morethanoneofeverything.net/2012/10/01/fringe-twitter-event-all-is-not-lost-theres-got-to-be-anotherway/ perfected the best protocol for getting something to trend. Because the single word “Fringe” never trended (well it finally did at the finale), they got with Fox Broadcasting and instead of using Fringe they used the title of the episode. They trended EVERY SINGLE WEEK using this.  It took a labor intensive coordinated effort to get people on board.

Since Dark Matter has no named episodes, #DarkMatter would work just fine (if it doesn’t, then #DarkMatterTV might be something to try in the future). I am going to post what the rules were for Fringe and I’ll put my comments in bold about Dark Matter).

I tried very hard to get the fans of Enlisted on Fox Broadcasting to follow the protocol and it never worked (and it, like Fringe, had a name of the show as a common word that would never likely trend) but it was next to impossible. The fans think that more hashtags make things better, but it does not. Fringe had a very organized process and anyone they saw tweeting more than one hashtag, they kindly asked the person to just use one. If they saw someone not using a hashtag, they politely reminded them to use the hashtag.

This was an example of the Fringe approach (my comments about Dark Matter are in bold and italics below the Fringe approach):

1) Don’t use #LoveIsTheAnswer before the designated time: 1 HOUR before Fringe airs.

(In this case, don’t use #DarkMatter until 1 hour before airtime; you can use DarkMatter without the hashtag, but don’t start using the hashtag until 1 hour before airtime).

2) One # term per Tweet. (Only one hashtag because Twitter doesn’t count tweets towards trending with multiple hashtags.

If everyone needs to use #DarkMatter there should be a coordinated effort that everyone just use that and not something else. So if someone tweets #FourClan #DarkMatter it won’t count towards trending at all.

3) Lots of people tweeting matters more than the number of tweets.

(Rules apply to Dark Matter as well)

4) Those with lots of followers help out a lot!

(Rules apply to Dark Matter as well)

5) We want to pique the interest of non-Fringe fans. (In our case non-Dark Matter fans).

(This was more because they were using the episode titles. If we could get Syfy to pick a hashtag other than #DarkMatter to describe the episode that people would say, “Hey what’s this” that would be great. But the key is a fully coordinated effort).

6) We can discuss aspects of the show in our tweets -TRY to include the word FRINGE (with no #) in your tweet if possible.

(For Dark Matter, if you wanted for example to trend #WeAreDangerous then only use that as a hashtag and type darkmatter in or Dark Matter as two words without a hashtag– another example:  You always need to worry about the silent deadly types, especially with FOUR #DarkMatter   If you wanted #FOUR to be the trending hashtag, then that sentence would look like   You always need to worry about the silent deadly types especially with #FOUR  DarkMatter  )  See the difference?

7) Private accounts must have their locked status removed, as the tweets from these accounts do not count toward the trend tally.

(Rule applies for any trending event)

8) Retweets are the easiest way to help out the trending effort. Just search for the hashtag, and retweet the ones that are interesting to you (and ones with just one hashtag). If you know how to use a Twitter application suite like TweetDeck or HootSuite, this is made even easier.

(Don’t retweet multiple hashtags (or before retweeting correct them by removing all hashtags except #DarkMatter)

9) Thank the sponsors.

(This is true for ANY show.  Sponsors do pay attention to this. Often with DVR viewing, commercials are skipped. When people go out of their way to thank the sponsors means a great deal to them. For example: @subway Thank you for sponsoring #DarkMatter. It s a fabulous show. I think a sandwich would go well with it! 

Let’s help Dark Matter trend every week. Fringe got 5 years even though the network wanted to pull the plug on the show much sooner. It was because of the coordinated efforts of these dedicated, knowledgeable fans that made the difference.