The new season of Glee starts today. As you may know, it aired just one episode last season and nabbed the prime spot following the season finale of American Idol. However, that was four months ago and Fox obviously needed to re-air that episode before today's premiere. So, it was shown again a few days ago. But this wasn't just your ordinary repeat—it was a tweet-peat!
What's a tweet-peat, you ask? At first glance, you might just think it's pop up video (a.k.a. culture notes) that show small, on-screen boxes with bits of trivia. However, it is much, much more.
Here's how the Glee tweet-peat worked. Fans were invited to tweet with three actors from Glee during the East Coast feed and three different actors during the West Coast show. The boxes that popped up on the TV screen during the show were tweets from those actors (including @replies to fans on Twitter). Again, in real time, both on TV and on Twitter.
As a pop culture junkie with a healthy curiosity about new marketing tactics, I had to participate. For an hour I watched the on-screen tweets and scampered back to my computer during the commercials to look at the tweets on Twitter. And, might I add, my tweet was answered by @MsAmberRiley (Merceded Jones on the show) and shown on TV at 9:46 p.m. (PST), complete with my Twitter username. Very cool.
I have to say, I think this new spin on an old gimmick is a really smart way to engage viewers. It was fun, it was real, it was live, and it gave unprecedented access to the actors.
I give a big thumbs up to Fox on this one.
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