As Comcast readies its army of more than 100 lobbyists to sell the deal, some opponents also are taking aim, launching two pages this month on the social sites as unofficial hubs for stories and statements that slam the $45 billion megadeal.

There’s little that reflects the pages’ authorship, and the effort itself seems minuscule. But it actually demonstrates the new, early coordination among consumer groups like Public Knowledge and Free Press, and companies like Netflix and Cogent Communications. While many potential dissenting voices have been slow to surface, these and other players are making noise as they devise a strategy to fight Comcast’s well-funded campaign for Time Warner Cable.

“It’s interesting how, by hanging up a shingle against the merger, all kinds of people come out of the woodwork wanting to work with us,” said Gene Kimmelman, president and CEO of Public Knowledge, in a statement to POLITICO.

For now, these influential companies and groups haven’t formed a formal coalition, according to sources familiar with the effort. Public Knowledge largely has served as a convening force in bringing opponents to the table to discuss their concerns. And Public Knowledge also has worked closely on a public-relations push with SKDKnickerbocker, a top media-relations firm, which helped launch the Facebook and Twitter pages, the sources said.

Many other companies — including Cogent, DirecTV and DISH — otherwise have sounded early alarms on their own to oppose the deal. Charter Communications, whose own bid for Time Warner Cable was spurned, fired its first shot in the boardroom on Friday. And independent programmers like TheBlaze TV have started making noise on Capitol Hill.

Those wheels are turning just as Comcast prepares to submit its deal for an official government review in early April. Asked to size up those forces, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said last week it’s just the “same group of people” who have been rallying against “any telecom transaction that has been unveiled in the past 20 years.”

“Any time there is any consolidation in the telecom space, the sky is going to fall, the world is going to end as we know it, the Internet is going to end as we know it,” he said on C-SPAN’s “The Communicators,” adding that the doomsday predictions historically haven’t come true.

For opponents, though, their early, ragtag efforts only underscore the tough haul ahead. Comcast is a well-stocked Washington player: The company equipped its lobbyists with talking points on the very day it announced its ambitious deal, sources previously detailed. The cable giant also boasts a formidable political action committee, through which it has donated to almost every member of the four congressional committees that regulate it. And Comcast also lobbies extensively in state capitals and city halls nationwide — potential wellsprings of public support as the company tries to sell the deal back to D.C. regulators.

Public interest groups, in contrast, are without those resources. Many groups don’t lobby Congress, much less state regulators, and they don’t have PACs. And so far, they don’t have big-name Washington allies in the coming fight either. Internet leaders like Google, programmers like Fox and other companies that might be affected by the merger have stayed relatively neutral at this point. Smaller companies, especially in the tech sector, have been reluctant even to talk about the issue.

Others, though, have picked up the microphone.

“We have a problem with Comcast and the other big telephone companies,” Robert Beury, chief legal officer at Cogent, said in an interview last week. He said these ever-consolidating providers are hurting Cogent because they “refuse to upgrade the connections through which we exchange traffic.”

Among those who also are talking to Public Knowledge and Cogent: the New America Foundation and the Writers Guild of America, West. Both have raised early red flags over the deal.

The New America Foundation, back in February, slammed Comcast’s latest transaction as an “unprecedented move to consolidate market power even further.” And the writers guild earlier this month filed a “position paper” that stressed that a combined Comcast-Time Warner Cable would give the company “far too much power over cable and Internet distribution.”

SKDKnickerbocker, for its part, quickly distributed the guild’s statement to reporters. Beyond that, it’s also been sharing on the opposition’s unofficial Facebook and Twitter pages a series of critical posts — from Free Press infographics knocking the deal to journalists’ stories about its potential obstacles.

Netflix has been in some of those conversation, too, according to sources. Even after the company struck an agreement that ensures its movies and videos stream more seamlessly to Comcast subscribers, Netflix publicly slammed Comcast and the broader telecom industry for its continued consolidation. The video streaming giant hasn’t yet announced an outright opposition to the deal — and it wouldn’t comment for this story.

Meanwhile, Charter Communications, which once tried to buy Time Warner Cable, urged Friday that the company’s investors not back a Comcast merger, according to securities filings. DISH and DirecTV previously expressed early reservations about the deal, but the two companies also reportedly are weighing a combination of their own. And TheBlaze TV — the independent programmer started by Glenn Beck — last week registered a lobbyist to focus on “program carriage” issues. It didn’t mention Comcast in its official filing, but the channel already has expressed fears that a merger might threaten its transmission.

The American Cable Association similarly has aired concerns with the Time Warner Cable deal, even if it hasn’t yet officially opposed it. But ACA has not been formally approached about forming a coalition, said President and CEO Matthew Polka. He said most groups, for now, are “just waiting for the application to be filed by the companies; then we’ll start digging into it.” But Polka also noted that ACA has had a few “casual” conversations with consumer groups, even if it’s “not involved in anything formal right now.”

ACA previously expressed its fears that Comcast, which already owns NBC, would gain too much power through the purchase of Time Warner Cable. The deal would “vastly increase the number of cable homes served by an operator affiliated with [NBCUniversal’s] popular programming, creating new incentives for NBCU to demand unfair terms and conditions from TWC’s pay-TV distribution rival,” the group said last month.

Comcast “may have lobbyists and seemingly unlimited resources, but they don’t have consumer trust,” said Sarah Morris, senior policy counsel for the Open Technology Institute at New America Foundation. “By harnessing a small but mighty team of committed consumer advocates and allies, we hope to stand up for what consumers deserve — a robust, competitive communications market.”