Today I randomly decided to use the hash tag #24 when I wrote a Tweet about the fox television show 24. This created a link in my tweet that allowed me to do a search for recent Tweets about 24. So I clicked on the link and noticed that Chloe O’Brian and Jack Bauer are using Twitter. I do not know if these people are official Fox endorsed Tweeters, but the idea of characters from a TV show Twittering is brilliant.
Why hasn’t anyone realized the power of connecting TV characters to their audience through Twitter?
Whoever becomes to the first to do this–if Fox is not already doing it–will get a big ratings push. Twitter has the potential to build a tribe around television shows, led by the characters of the show themselves. The future of story telling is connecting with your audience, and allowing them to participate. Twitter is excellent way to do this.
Twitter can be used in the following ways by television shows:
- Have characters send Twitter message during the show connected to events as they happen, maybe from PDA (I know, timezones kind of mess this up)
- Twitter interactions between characters and viewers have some effect on the story line (even if minor)
- Viewers can ask characters to explain their feelings or positions on certain aspects of the story
If the Studios Don’t Do It, the Community Will
If the studios don’t do it, you can bet that the fans will. If you do a search on Twitter, you can find accounts for people like Jim Halpert, Temperance Brennen, Dr. Gregory House, and Jack Shepard. I do not have any way to confirm if these are official accounts, but you may notice that some of these characters have duplicate accounts. Obviously, there are fan boys and girls out there twittering as their favorite personality.
The more credibility that studios can give to their characters’ twitter accounts, the more powerful of a connection they will build to their audience. I believe the connection between story telling and Twitter is a lot stronger than business and Twitter.
Beware, one of the Chloe’s is the FBI trying to infiltrate what’s left of CTU.
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