Category: Bill Sweetman

Who is Will Traveler?

I don’t know, and apparently Facebook (or someone) doesn’t want you to know either.

Last week, I wrote a blog post about how I found myself briefly running the social media marketing campaign for ABC TV’s new show, Traveler.

As you may recall, after watching the first episode of the series, I realized that ABC and the producers of the show had completely missed the social media boat. I logged in to Facebook to search for "Will Traveler," the missing character at the core of the show, and found nothing. Not even a basic Facebook profile. Talk about a lost opportunity.

So I did what should have been done in the first place. On May 31, 2007, I created a Facebook profile for Will Traveler.

I tried to make the profile as realistic and as ‘in character’ as possible, based on the facts I was able to gather from the show. I identified the school he apparently attended. I listed his interests (electronics, politics) and favourite movies (The Manchurian Candidate, The Conversation). I even cited a quote from Jack Kerouac, one of the character’s favourite authors, and had Will join a Jack Kerouac Facebook group.

I was particularly proud of the photo I chose for Will; I thought it was suitably ambiguous and mysterious:

In other words, I created a Facebook profile for Will Traveler that fans of the show would instantly identify as his.

The next day, June 1, I began finding friends for Will. I started with me (Bill Sweetman) and my colleague Collin Douma (of Radical Trust fame). I had let Collin in on my little experiment, and he was all in favour of it.

Since there were already a half-dozen or so ‘unofficial’ Facebook groups devoted to the TV show (created by fans of the show), I had Will add the creators of those groups as his Facebook friends.

By June 4th, Will Traveler had a growing collection of Facebook friends and was starting to get unsolicited Friend requests and messages from fans of the TV show.

Clearly I was on to something. And fans of the show were having fun.

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For a few days earlier this month, I found myself running the social media marketing campaign for ABC TV’s new show, Traveler.

After all, somebody had to.

Allow me to explain…

On May 30, 2007, ABC TV launched a new summer series, Traveler. No doubt inspired by the success of rival FOX’s Prison Break, Traveler follows the misadventures of two young college guys who are on the run from the FBI for a crime they didn’t commit.

The reason they are accused of the crime (the Oklahoma City-esque bombing of a New York City museum) is that one of their college housemates, a sketchy, technologically-savvy guy by the name of Will Traveler, appears to have framed them. Now Will has gone missing, and our two intrepid heroes must track down the elusive Will Traveler in order to clear their names.

Here (below) is a 3-minute trailer for the show that will give you a sense of how the whole thing revolves around the quest to uncover ‘Who is Will Traveler?"

I caught the first episode of the series a day after it premiered, and while I quickly deduced the show wasn’t for me (it was too predictable) I was struck by one thing: ABC and the producers of the show had completely missed the social media boat.

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