A dedicated group of Fringe fans is trying to make history with an inspired Twitter campaign to draw attention to the show. Throughout its four amazing seasons, Fringe has been in constant danger of cancellation. Fox hasn’t made it particularly easy for the show, since it got moved to the traditional Friday night death slot during the last season. The move would have killed a lesser show, but not Fringe.

However, it’s still not a certainty that Fringe will survive for a fifth season. Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly recently mentioned that although he loves the show, it’s losing money for the network (due in part to the ridiculous Friday scheduling), and an unprofitable show will eventually have to be cancelled…

The hesitation in my voice is that it’s an expensive show. We lose a lot of money on the show. But with that rating on that night it’s almost impossible for us to make money on it. We’re not in the business of losing money. We need to figure out if there’s a [deal with studio Warner Bros. that] will make sense or will this be it.

I’ve been a Fringe fan since day one. I was never quite comfortable with the show’s X Files style ‘freak of the week’ storylines, but then the series started to take subtle risks and introduce strange new elements centered around the lead characters. When we discovered Walter Bishop’s disastrous discovery of the alternate Earth and his kidnapping of Peter, things got really intense and Fringe became the most complex and absorbing sci-fi show the world has seen.

Anyway, enter Fringenuity and sci-fi fan Annie aka @birdandbear. She and other Fringe fans across the globe – and possibly the alt-verse, who knows? – have grouped together for an ingenious hashtag campaign designed to get the show trending at airtime each week. The objective is to expose the show to other potential fans and hope that they’ll pick up on it and start watching. Using a combination of Twitter and GetGlue campaigns, here’s how Fringenuity is using social media to try and save the show:

Fringe has been the beneficiary of some very unique circumstances; the show needed support at a time when social media was really coming into its own, and for the first time ever, fans without Nielsen boxes had quantifiable ways to show that we’re watching too. Faced with ratings that would have been a show’s death knell a few years ago, Fox chose to use Fringe as a testing ground for a boatload of new data: namely DVR and other alternative viewing habits, and the growing influence of social buzz.

If you read the post I’ve just linked to, you’ll see that the group has successfully managed to get Fringe-related topics to trend on Twitter each week since the show returned. The campaign has very cleverly worked out the key to creating trending topics on Twitter: with some nifty organisation alongside carefully chosen hashtags, it’s possible to get Twitter’s attention for the briefest period of time! The post could very well be the blueprint for other niche TV shows that want to attract a wider audience.

Will it work? We’ll have to wait and see. A fifth season of Fringe would be a beautiful thing to behold, and to see a social media win on this level would be amazing. To keep up with the group and its activities, follow @Fringenuity on Twitter.