How To: TV Film Social Media campaigns

Social Media Entertainment campaigns for TV and film. Click for bigger.

Australia TV and Film industry is heating up – Gary presented this at SPAA Fringe, and I’m on the panel in Gold Coast next month.

This is pretty well the format to how I teach my How To Do A Social Media Campaign workshops – not the little 1 hour or 3 hour things, the proper ones. Heh. It’s evolved over the years, and layered a whole bunch of different aspects in. For example when to use content networks and when to use distribution networks – some of the networks above belong in multiple locations.

• Involve: Read a lot, get into the core audience, find out their buttons, get involved well before
• Create: your content, not just the film but also the periphery content. DVD scraps/extras isn’t enough
• Discuss: make sure there are a thousand opportunities, for the audience to participate.
• Promote: let your audience promote into networks for you, add your voice to their voices
• Measure: monitor, analytics, figure out what did/not work. Learn.
• Rinse and Repeat

Most of this is/has been applicable to television and film campaigns. Why are TV and film different from say, a corporate social media campaign? Because the primary content has been created by the film maker, not an agency. Therefore there is a basic assumption – and this helps AND hinders – that compelling content is the primary focus. Sure it is, if you have a Harry Potter hit on your hands. But an offbeat movie with no core audience is more challenging. In a world where there are a billion channels- no exaggeration, a billion people create a billion channels – how can your voice be heard, your film seen?

Or put it this way: if a film is shown in a forest, and no one is there to talk about it, does it exist? Err maybe I should forget the tree/forest/hearing analogies. Anyway, when the primary content has been created by a filmmaker, it can be challenging to allow the secondary content to come up out of the social network. And after all, if you don’t have social media content, then you don’t have a social media strategy: you have a viral marketing one instead.

Most of my work in the last twenty years of online community dialogue has been in the entertainment industry. From Twin Peaks to Australian Idol and Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Heh. It’s fascinating to see it coming of age in Australia.

You might enjoy Gary Hayes presentation from SPAA Fringe – he really knows how to explain to a film and tv audience how to maximise audience participation in their ideas. No ranting at audiences about how TV and Film are dead but a clear perception on how the film and tv industry will evolve in the future.

Do not, repeat, NOT listen to social media ‘experts’ who counsel against a marketing mix of traditional and social media campaigns. Also do not listen to ‘experts’ who do not have any experience in marketing your TV and Film properties. While I feel for them, and understand they need to gain experience, letting them practice on your product will leave them richer and you poorer. Work only with agencies that will pull in experienced social media campaigners with a background in promoting TV and film into social networks.

Here’s Gary’s post The Future of Social Media Entertainment. I do try to not blog too much about what he blogs about – after all, we chat about it at home, so why should we inflict our breakfast discussions on you dear, readers? But I thought you would like this one. Plus it has that pretty picture at the top. 🙂

See you at the Gold Coast Screen Producers Association of Australia conference! I’m on the second day. I think…