It’s no secret I love USA’s Psych. Just the thought of the characters on the show makes me all gushy inside. It helps that the people who work on the show are pretty darn awesome. They appreciate their fans and it shows. Recently they launched a new site/campaign that is basically for fans. Oh sure, they hope it’ll pull in new viewers too but I’d say fans benefit the most.
What is it? An online mystery that has you spanning multiple social media platforms in search of the Hashtag Killer. Best of all, they filmed things with the cast so it you feel like you’re part of the show. I love it.
It reminds me of the Help Me Veronica stuff I helped Sunil with did back in the day for Veronica Mars. Of course that was completely unofficial, to include the help we got from the people behind the show. Imagine how much cooler it would have been if we’d had Veronica herself helping us out?! Ha. Not that we didn’t still have fun with it. All the fans who got on board and filmed scenes for us? They were awesome. And we had fun doing it. Not that it did much for the show itself but I always felt it was the kind of thing networks should be doing for their shows. Even more so now that social media has become such a part of our daily lives.
So, yeah, I love that USA and the folks at Psych aren’t just using these sites throw up more ads for their shows. They’re finding fun and interactive ways to engage people and I think that’s more impressive than flooding our time-streams with boring promotions.
As for the mystery/game itself, I’m actually weeks behind. Sadness. (See, I need to find a house ASAP so it’ll stop interfering with my Internet pursuits!) Although, the way they have things set up doesn’t help. Every time I try to catch up, I can only move forward so far and then it’s like there are “pauses” built-in to the game. I sort of understand that when you want to roll out the info slowly for a specific week but I find it annoying that they’re still there once that week has passed. But it’s like I can never get caught up because I’m constantly forced to stop after I’ve gone so far. Frustrating to say the least. But, given that this is the first time they’ve done one of these online murder mysteries, I think it’s a small complaint. And one that isn’t likely to bother the people who haven’t fallen behind like me.
If you’re a Psych fan and you haven’t checked it out, you should! There’s still time to play along and, better yet, earn some Club Psych points while you do. Hopefully USA will continue to do these type of things for their shows. I don’t know if there’s any way to measure the results but I still believe these type of promotions are important and more networks should take advantage of the ability to do them. Even if they’re aimed more at current fans of the show… Because as networks should know by now, fans can be some of your best advertisement.
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