I love my favorite TV shows, but I never remember to write down the exact day and time each new season premiers. When I see commercials I’m excited, but it usually doesn’t cross my mind to pull up my calendar.

What I’ve noticed recently is that once I “Like” those shows on Facebook, I don’t have to worry. Some can regularly keep me engaged, even in-between seasons. I’m more eager for the return of those shows because of the added build up from their presence in my newsfeed.

I commend the shows that make an effort to hang onto their audience between seasons by going beyond traditional TV advertising. The best way to make absolutely sure I’m glued to my TV the night of the season premiere or mid-season return is to hammer it into my head that IT’S ALMOST HERE and DON’T YOU FORGET IT!!

I’m not usually watching AMC, in fact I wasn’t even sure what shows aside from The Walking Dead (TWD) are on the channel before they started cross promoting on their wall for Comic Book Men and Hell on Wheels. But I’m dying to see the new Walking Dead (pun intended) and it looks like I’m not the only one…

For each post TWD puts on their page (and consequently into my newsfeed), thousands of people Like the post and write comments. When TWD posted “happy birthday” to one of the cast members, 23K people Liked the post and 7.6K commented. When they posted one simple picture asking people to “Caption this”, nearly 55K people Liked and commented. That’s an incredible amount of engagement which was so simple to incite and free (beyond cost of time spent posting the update).

Granted, TWD page boasts nearly 5.5 Million Likes and more than 300K people currently talking about the show – but you have to keep in mind that the show first debuted in October of 2010 and has only aired 14 EPISODES total.

Needless to say, AMC is doing a few things very right to keep their fan base secure. I’ve ignored their Twitter efforts in this post simply because I find their tweets repetitive of the Facebook content (but 223K followers strong is nothing to turn my nose up at, with only 883 tweets).

Here are 4 simple ways TV shows can increase/maintain viewer engagement via Social Media:

1. Quality vs. Quantity – I appreciate when the content is more engaging and less forced, even if it only comes every few days. It’s not worth it to dilute likeable and comment-worthy posts with open questions like “What did you do this weekend?!” Unless the show responds to each individual comment, I don’t care what 2,000 random people did over the weekend.

2. Good News and Bad – Post any news/articles that affect the show (positive or negative, we can take it). While TWD doesn’t repost every blog post from AMC, I was thrilled to learn that they announced a 16 episode order for the third season. Everyone rejoice!

3. Sneak Peeks – Hook me up with sneak peeks of next season! I’m already on the edge of my seat, make me fall face forward into the screen in anticipation!

4. Meet the Cast – Help us get to know the actors/characters better. I love when TWD posts interviews or Q&A’s with characters to find out what they think about the show or how a certain scene was done.

And generally speaking – keep it true to the tone of the show and don’t annoy me. Agreed?

Which other shows do you think are doing it right?

Connect with Rebecca on Twitter @raslotkin.