Winner special contest

The lucky winner of last month's special contest has been determined. Congratulations Jeske Bleeker! You win a film voucher of 10 Euros, redeemable at every movie theater in The Netherlands. Congratulations!

#Winning

The interaction with viewers and fans via Social Media is booming buisiness in TV-land. Especially talent shows like The Winner Is make use of Facebook, Hyves and Twitter to enable viewers to feel connected to the show and the contestants.

The nation's ice skating pride Sven Kramer must have liked this concept. He held a contest via his Facebook and Twitter accounts. His fans were asked to predict Kramers 5km time at the World Distance Championships in Thialf, Heerenveen. An awesome reward was reserved for the winners, something worth winning for any single one of Sven Kramers fans: A real Sven Kramer skating suit! The winner on Facebook wins a TVM suit, while the Twitter winner receives a KPN suit.

Special contest: Win a film voucher

To celebrate our two month anniversary, Social Media TV is organizing a special competition. The price? A film voucher of 10 Euros, redeemable at every movie theater in The Netherlands! You can enter the competition by answering the following 9 questions. The answers can be found in the blogs we have posted up until now.

1. What was the title of the first blogpost on this site?
2. Name 2 programs that participated in the RTL-Tweetweek.
3. What was the name of the girl that Noel Deelen was looking for in the Valentine’s Day episode of RamBam?
4. When will Tenacious D’s new album be released?
5. Which local TV-Station was responsible for Fijnfisjenie during Carnaval?
6. What type of sandwich did Chuck fans buy at Subway during the show’s second season finale?
7. What was the name of the film that Woody Harrelson tried to plug on Reddit?
8. Which television channel created the official Tumblr-pages for Doctor Who and Top Gear?
9. Name 1 hashtag that fans on Twitter used in order to save Community. 

Send your answers to uvtbit@gmail.com, along with your name, address and postal code. The contest ends at April 12, so make sure you've submitted your answers by then. The winner will be announced in the following week. Good luck!

Tenacious D (aka The Greatest Rock Band in the World) returns with a new mini-movie

No, this is not just a Tribute. The D is back. Six years after the cult rock comedy The Pick of Destiny hit the theaters, Jack Black and Kyle Gass are releasing a new album, called Rize of the Fenix, in May. And to promote it, they released a six-minute-long mini-movie on Youtube, obviously hoping that the powers of social media make it a viral success.

Subway: Savior of tv-shows?

In recent years it has become difficult to watch television without seeing a certain brand pop up somewhere. Product placement is a much used marketing technique since the ‘90s, and television functions as a perfect medium for it. Not only because every new episode provides new possibilities for product placement, but also because television shows are practically always looking for ways to expand their limited production budgets. But some companies go further than a mere casual shot of their product. They get incorporated into the show itself.

The brand that is most notable for this kind of advertising is Subway. The restaurant franchise was a pretty big sponsor of the beloved but criminally low-rated series Chuck, so their sandwiches appeared frequently, as you might expect. What’s more unusual is that the Subway slogan was actually mentioned by the characters. This is a pretty big commitment on the part of the Chuck production team, since too obvious product placement might alienate viewers. In this case however, it proved to be hugely successful, for Subway as well as Chuck.

Community returns: A social media success

The wait is almost over. March 15 marks the return of the beloved sitcom Community, aka the show with that extremely passionate fanbase. It had been put on indefinite hiatus back in November, so the last few months have been excrutiatingly painful for the loyal fans. But there worries have turned into joy, as NBC will start airing episodes come tomorrow. We like to think the various social media campaigns to save Community from cancellation played at least a small part in that.

Tumblr: Passionate about television

When you’re a big fan of a tv-show, it is very easy to become obsessed with it. When combined with designing skills this can lead to all kinds of awesome fan art. Take this incredible Game of Thrones fan poster for example. Tumblr is a site that largely thrives on these graphics made by passionate fandoms.

Tumblr is a microblogging platform where people can post (self-generated) content, or reblog things they see on other blogs. Usually these things are graphics of some kind, animated gif’s mostly. Users can follow blogs, which causes its content to appear directly on their dashboard. When following enough blogs, this makes for a fast, continuous stream of new images.