As I sit here looking out of the window next to my desk; staring out at the, grey, wet, summer storm that rages outside, watching the endless streams of water rushing into the gutters, and people running to their cars I find myself constantly thinking one thought:

“How fucking AWESOME would it be if a shark fell out of the sky, landed on one these cars (hopefully that Porsche) followed by a random octopus and other water based predators and unleashed hell upon those people, before getting struck by lighting and exploding for absolutely no reason other then it would be funny as hell to watch?”

… Um, that thought may have gotten away from me…

I am of course referring to the film Sharknado 2: The Second One, which aired on Sci-Fi UK last night…

(For which, clearly the writer had the exact same thought process when doing the script)

*WARNING* MINOR SHARK INFESTED SPOILERS AHEAD.

Having digested all the teaser trailers, swam through all the press (good and bad) and thoroughly indulged in all the Facebook chatter about the upcoming shark attack TV sequel, I sat down expecting to be blown away (get it) by Sharknado 2.

And I was.

I admit, I enjoyed it, maybe I shouldn’t have, having just graduated with a degree in film, but I did.

My point however, in this impromptu blog post, isn’t to sell Sharknado 2 to you. You either love it or hate it. There is no in-between.

But to talk about the  Social TV experience that existed around it.

It wasn’t just the hilarious story, CGI sharks, and green screen work (that was still green even with effects)

It was the live, real time reactions from the rest of the country that were watching it with me while on Twitter.

Working in Social TV, I thought I’d be used to the real-time Twitter Feed conversations that occurred during TV, but NO

They had me laughing just as much as the movie itself.

Picture, if you will, a scene where-by a shark swims into an elevator and attacks the helpless slabs of meat trying to escape it… it’s pretty funny trust me.

Add to that image, a comment from someone over 500 miles away, watching the exact same scene and tweeting the lyrics to “Love In An Elevator” and replacing the word “love with “SHARK”.

Oh, and the endless romance tweets when an arm is pulled out of a dead shark’s stomarch and it’s engagement ring used to propose after a brutal bout of shark killing/ survival.

Yes, romance CAN “be fishy sometimes”.

And it seems I wasn’t the only one who was all over this.

Initial findings from Twitter and other Social Network Analytics have already revealed that Sharknado 2 broke the record of receiving over 1 BILLION impressions across multiple Hashtags during it’s airing.

You can check out the report here.

That’s pretty impressive for TV movie franchise that is notoriously known for being “Terribly Good”

And it only proves to highlight the growing popularity of combining Social Media with TV to create new levels of audience driven entertainment. The likes of which hasn’t been seen before.

And (like this summer storm) it doesn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon.

Now, if you excuse me… I have more imaginary sharks to hunt down.

Be sure to check out our previous social TV articles on the blog, or view our free Social TV Primer Report here.

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