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Get NBC 'Swag' by Tweeting, Facebooking About Network Shows

by Matthew Zuras on May 17, 2010 at 02:20 PM

nbc's new affiliate program 'fan it'NBC's marketing team is either full of geniuses or really, really lazy. The network's new affinity program, called Fan It, asks MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and myNBC users to promote and discuss the network's shows in exchange for NBC merchandise, store discounts, "virtual goods" and early previews of new episodes.

We don't really like the term "affinity program," because it's nothing more than the network enlisting potentially thousands of fans to do the company's flack-work by offering some NBC-branded baubles. Don't get us wrong -- we love us some '30 Rock' (even if 'The Marriage Ref' ruins the experience right after, like eating a delicious crème brûlée followed by warm dose of stale asparagus and anchovy water). This just feels a bit icky to us.

But we suppose that this is the wave of the future. Some companies offer up high ratings for apps in the Apple App Store in exchange for a fee, and even Ann Taylor was caught offering paltry bribes to bloggers in exchange for writing about stretchy lounge pants. When you can crowd-source your entire marketing campaign, why even bother showing up to work? Just let the drones in the Social Network (or pathetically underpaid bloggers) do the work for you.

We understand that the fan base for many of NBC's shows, especially the Thursday night lineup, would be more than happy to post messages to friends about that knee-slapping episode of 'The Office.' Hell, they already do. We also recognize that, in these economically strangled times, TV viewership has gone down while shows have resorted to blatant, if reflexive, product placements to compensate for all of us HDRing through commercials. You know, now that we think about it, we don't want '30 Rock' to go the way of 'Arrested Development.' We take it all back: watch NBC shows!

Update: Ugh, maybe not. [From: Colloquy]

Tags: 30 rock, 30Rock, affiliate-marketing, crowdsourcing, facebook, marketing, mynbc, myspace, nbc, nbc universal, NbcUniversal, SocialNetworking, television, the marriage ref, The Office, TheMarriageRef, TheOffice, top, tv, twitter

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