1.1. This is not good…

There are mitigating factors of course, it was a holiday weekend, all networks were down, yadda yadda…still…not good.

So it’s time for all good Fringies to saddle up, lock and load, stand and deliver, insert your favorite metaphor – it’s time for us to do that thing we do. We did it last season and we can do it again, but it’s going to take all of us, and our work is cut out. We’re working on some ideas for things to do during the hiatus; if Fringe comes back strong in January it’ll have a fighting chance. Stay tuned. But in the mean time, here’s something we can do right now, in an effort to get those numbers up for Friday’s winter finale.

This is taking a page directly from The Fringe Network’s book. Last season’s Twitter Force campaigns seemed to be quite effective, and while doing my part I got a lot of positive feedback from Fringe fans. Some of them were just enthusiastic, but the interesting thing to me was that many of them had no idea Fringe was on the bubble and were distressed to hear it. Our show may be drowning out of simple ignorance; not everyone follows the ratings like we do.

The Twitter Force projects were assigned to volunteers on a weekly basis. We were emailed lists of Twitter usernames and asked to send each person a personal @mention reminding them to watch Fringe live this week. Unfortunately I just don’t have time to seek out hundreds of names on my own and assign them to people, so I’m asking you to do a little more work.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to:

Do a Twinitor search for “#Fringe” – their search engine seems to work better than Twitter’s. Find 5 people you don’t know, and tweet them about this week’s episode. Make sure your chosen targets aren’t talking about hair, clothing, accessories or politics.

Remind them to watch LIVE on Friday. You may wish to point out that the ratings are suffering and the show may be in danger, but keep it positive. Let them know that Fringe needs support, but try to refrain from cancellation talk. It’s a fine line to walk – people need to understand that Fringe will disappear if these ratings continue, but at the same time, panic and doomsaying are friends of no one and will do far more harm than good. Do the best you can.

AVOID SPAMMING. One message per user, unless they reply to you and you find yourself having a conversation; I actually made some friends that way last season. Also – I know this is asking a lot, but it’s important – search your chosen user’s names to make sure that no one else has contacted them yet. It could get irritating if someone is contacted multiple times, even if it’s unintentionally. Try to concentrate on US viewers as much as possible – sorry international fans. 🙁 That doesn’t mean you guys can’t participate though.

This is very ad hoc for this Friday, and a little unwieldy I know. We’ll try and get things more organized for January. But for now, five people, fifteen minutes of your time, and you have an opportunity to spread the Fringe love a little farther. GetGlue is another fine place for this sort of thing.

Get out there. Talk to strangers. Don’t tell your mom I said that.

Also, don’t forget about our sponsor of the week campaign! Read about it here.

Have fun. 😉