the$social$media$ guide$for$ filmmakers · introduction...

THE SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDE FOR FILMMAKERS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

7 Ways to Use Social Media Capitalism

The Social Media Toolkit for Filmmakers

The “18 Minute” Social Media Plan

13 Social Media Missteps to Avoid

About Raindance

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Introduction

This e-book is intended as a social media guide for all filmmakers and those of you who aspire to enter the world of filmmaking. There is more to the process of producing and getting a film out there than merely finding a crew, shooting it, and organising a place to screen it – you also need to find an audience for your work. Social media can be a great help in this endeavour and should not be neglected.

Of course, nowadays social media is a big part of everyday life and even though some of the advice that has been compiled here will seem to be common knowledge at first glance, especially to the younger generations, it makes it easier to remember certain rules and tactics if you have them collected and edited somewhere in a comprehensive manner. Say, in the shape of an e-book…

Sometimes it can be difficult to find a starting point - managing social media for your projects on a professional level differs greatly from the way you use your private online profiles. We hope this guide will be helpful on your path and make it easier to organise the way you utilise the internet to help promote and market your films to a growing audience of online followers and supporters.

Good luck!

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by Patrizia-Amaliah Ciuta (Editor)


CHAPTER ONE


In 2009, Pinterest was launched and became an instant success. As you may know, people use it to post photos and create albums/ mood boards of their favourite themes or places. Now you might be wondering why this is relevant to you as a filmmaker, and here is how: Pinterest also adds a referral code to each picture its users upload and then collects a commission whenever a person goes to another website from Pinterest and ends up buying something - and this is exactly where social media and its capitalist elements become interesting for us.

In order to capitalise on the traffic generated by Pinterest, or any other affiliate online marketing campaign, you need to understand and appreciate the economic advantage of creating, building, and maintaining a solid social media campaign that is designed around the product you are trying to sell -in this case, your movie.

The internet presents filmmakers with a range of new opportunities for engaging audiences with your work. The effort in learning and maintaining this is not glamorous. It is hard and demands dedication, but is ultimately rewarding.

The following points will help you on your journey and hopefully teach you how to capitalise on this system.

1. There is No Such Thing as “Free” Social Media

・Social media profiles may be free to create, but they are incredibly time consuming to maintain.・What if Facebook and Twitter decide to charge businesses for their profiles? This is unlikely, but ultimately possible.

If you are reliant upon privately owned websites such as Facebook and Twitter, you make yourself dependant. You can only retain full control of your content and analytic data on your own website or blog, which is why relying solely on third party websites could be a mistake.

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by Elliot Grove


2. You Need to Invest into Marketing

Any marketing activity has a cost structure which is defined by the amount of time and materials required to produce and distribute your message. Your movie's revenue-potential correlates directly with the amount of traffic your site receives - and generating traffic on your website costs time and money.

Investing into Facebook and Google ads will pay off if you take the time to understand how to utilise those advertising tools in order to support your project and its campaign. Learn from your statistics and strive to create engaging content in order to attract more followers and supporters.

3. You Need to Develop Your Brand

Apart from the fact that every movie requires its own dedicated campaign, the principles of branding a movie are the same as they are for any other product. It is a good idea to clearly define your film’s genre and use that to your advantage. If your film falls into a specific genre type like horror or into one of the popular genre blends like romantic comedy and action adventure, you will find that it is much easier to establish a brand.

Perhaps you should also consider developing your own personal genre/ brand in order to attract a dedicated audience and promote yourself along with your movies.

4. Look into Employing a Social Media Producer

Nowadays, filmmakers need two people in order to be successful:・the traditional line producer who makes sure all the things and all the people you need end up at the right place at the right time・a social media producer who makes sure that all the content needed for a successful online campaign is created in the correct format and distributed over the appropriate blogs, notice boards, and social media platforms.

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5. Don’t be Afraid of Engaging

Some filmmakers get shy when it comes to selling their wares. Don't be one of them!

If potential customers find their way to your website, they will appreciate a clear and precise call to action. Having a "Buy Now" button on your site is not enough. You need to present your movie and ask people to sample and engage with it on all of your carefully cultivated social media platforms. By the time people get to your product page, they will be reaching for their credit cards with hardly a nudge from you.

Crowdfunding websites can also contribute to this. Motivating people to donate in exchange for a DVD copy means that you can start building an audience before the movie even enters production.

6. Create Content that Your Followers will Love

In order to avoid boring your followers, you should talk about more than just your film. Create content that solves key problems your audience faces and if possible integrate these problem-solvers into your movie. Try to come up with content that you or your friends would really like and be willing to share with others.

Once you get someone to read your posts, guide them to your website via social media and search engines. You can present people with film-specific information once they get to your site.

7. Learn How to Analyse Results

There are useful (and free) analytics tools which allow you to track a site or blog visitor's journey through your website and social media. Learning how to use these tools will improve your understanding of how to maximise your website's potential and the results should be readily apparent soon.


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CHAPTER TWO


Building and keeping up a social media presence has become mandatory for filmmakers. Some artists may be more resistant to technology than others, but if used correctly, social media can do wonders for a film. We are social creatures and filmmakers need to know how to use social media in order to appeal to this more subjective level of marketing. The following toolkit will teach you how to reach this goal and make the most of your social media presence.

STEP ONE: WRITE YOUR SCRIPT

Have a Good Logline:

Loglines are the taglines, the slogans, of the filmmaking world.Raindance has 2 different loglines For the festival itself it is "Discover. Be Discovered" and for our training programme it is "We've been making filmmakers since 1992."

Coming up with a logline that works helps you create your brand. Branding is not always about logos or websites. It is what people think of you, and in this case it is about what they think of your movie.

As the big brands demonstrate, a good tagline is simple and at the same time effective: everybody knows classics like Nike’s “Just Do It,” Apple’s “Think Different,” and L'Oréal's “Because You’re Worth It.”

Identify the most characteristic elements of your film and try to shape them into a simple, clear, and focused logline. The marketing department of every single distribution company in the world will love you for it.

Start Your Marketing and Social Media Campaigns From Day One of Pre-Production:

A great film is worthless if nobody knows it exists! Social media is the perfect bridge between your film and your audience - it creates a sense of connection that is often the root of audience support.

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by Baptiste Charles-Aubert

Because of this, you need to use a range of social media sites in order to gradually cultivate an audience from day one of production. Additionally, social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to incite crowdfunding with such accessible websites as IndieGoGo and Kickstarter.

Get People to Care!

The best way to get people invested in your project both emotionally and financially, is through inspiration. You have to make them believe in your story, your cast, and your crew. Engage with them and make them know that you care about them. Ultimately, they are the part of your team!

If you create a connection with your potential audience via your online presence, marketing, and work-in-progress updates, they will have more incentives to help you push your film towards success. The excitement you generate will help you build and maintain a fanbase for your film and will make people spread the word to their families and friends in time for the release.

STEP TWO: KNOW YOUR GENRE

Now that you have defined a goal and a strategy for your online presence and social media campaign, you need to make sure you know your media.

Create Original Content:

You will need to acquire or create content in order to keep your sites going. Remember that simply copy-pasting someone else's work into your blog, Twitter, or Facebook profiles will do more harm than help you in the long run. Apart from the intellectual theft, search engines could classify you as spam or a bot, and push you further down the rankings.

Email:

This advice might seem odd and even redundant, but it is surprising how many people fail to keep up with their inbox. Open all of your emails, read them, and reply in a timely manner. Even if it is only a line or two, you have to do it.


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Facebook:

Everyone is on Facebook, therefore your audience is as well. This means you and your movie should be, too. Your posts can be longer on Facebook. This means that you can surpass 140 characters and write complete, grammatically correct sentences. Do not post more than a few times a day at most. This is a great platform for you to curate an active community and discussions around your film, but you do not want to oversaturate people’s dashboards with an abundance of daily posts.

Twitter:

This is where you can post (almost) as often as you like. Post information about your film, links, and anything else which is related and tickles your fancy. It is also more interactive than Facebook. You can tweet at people, tag them, and it is also the go-to network to start a crowdfunding campaign.

The downside of Twitter is that information will get lost. Unless your followers have a serious case of “fear of missing out,” they won't look at the tweets they have missed during their time offline. So, important information needs to be repeated from time to time, ideally in pre-written tweets.

Develop content for Twitter that works with an online-persona and a general tone that resonates with the spirit of your film. You should also leverage the star power of some of the film’s actors in order to utilize their fanbaseseffectively to promote the film - of course, this goes for all social media platforms.

Instagram:

As a filmmaker you have a knack for communication through visual media and you will find that Instagram is tailored to your visual and aesthetic promotional needs. Show “behind the scenes” snapshots, show how cluttered your desk is, show the magnificent star that just joined your cast. Show us everything: involve us!

Instagram displays posts chronologically, but considering that posts take up the entire phone screen, the engagement level will differ from, say, Twitter. Therefore, the posting rate should be closer to that of Facebook.


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Pinterest:

Did you know that The Intern by Nancy Meyers had its own Pinterest account? This is an interesting case study: Nancy Meyers’ films have a very distinct visual style. While it may not be showy or terribly innovative, the homely environments which her characters inhabit are always lavish and make you wish you lived there.

In a brilliant marketing move, Meyers capitalised on her penchant for stylish interior designs and shared her inspiration boards for the sets of her new film with the public. Remember this example when you want to engage people who are curious to see what happens behind the scenes.

Youtube:

If you are a filmmaker, why not make videos that will help you promote your film and your career. Here is the dilemma: it has become so easy to shoot, edit and publish a video that nearly everyone can do it. You need to decide what type of promotional movie would best represent your vision and your progress and find a way to make your content unique enough to attract attention.

Incorporate a self-branded Youtube channel into your programme and highlight the video content you create there - you can also put those videos on your other social media. When you start, keep the videos you create within your comfort zone. It is likely that you are going to be shy on-camera at first. Rehearse, practise, and ask friends for feedback until you feel comfortable.

Pro Tip: Use Tags and Titles Properly

As you spread your online media wings, it is only a question of time before you have to deal with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Basically, you want to make yourself easier to find when people enter specific keywords into the search bar. It takes some experimentation and research to figure out the parameters and keywords that will make your online profiles more visible.


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STEP THREE: GO INTO PRODUCTION

Know your Audience

From the conception of your project on consider your target audience and the ways in which you can make your film appeal to them.

In doing so, your audience will feel more included in the filmmaking/ promotion process, making it easier to succeed. By finding an audience who is passionate about your film, you will have the added advantage of free word of mouth promotion between like-minded people.

Strategize

This has three key parts:1. You need to take a good hard look at what is already out there and on what is coming soon. Set up your Google alerts to keep you up to date with what your competitors are doing.2. Think again about who your intended audience is and how what they would like to see on screen.3. Plan in advance and know how you are going to promote your film.

Assuming you already know how to create great content for your site, you will have to decide what you want your social media sites to look and “feel” like and how you are going to ask your fans/ followers to participate (or purchase).

Compartmentalise your Resources

Now you must ask yourself: How much budget are you going to dedicate to this? How much time? Can you afford to buy targeted online ads?

People and tools - they cost money and you need them. Remember, it’s about how and what you want to invest into the marketing of your film.

A WordPress template for a website can cost a few dollars. Hootsuite and other social media tools have beginner modules that can be used for free. More professional media marketing tools, such as the ones offered by hubspot.com, start at several hundred dollars a month.


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Distribute

Promoting your content to your existing group of followers is an excellent way to start. This also justifies the time and effort you should spend building these groups in the first place. You might also consider hiring a publicist to distribute a press release about your project in a more formal way once the time for its release draws close.

STEP FOUR: REALISTIC OUTLOOK & MEASURE

Most things don’t go smoothly the first time around.

Creating and maintaining a social media presence is hard work. In order to see the effectiveness of your strategy, you need to monitor the views, clicks and page impressions of your content. The results/ analytics will give you an idea of the effectiveness of your social media strategy.

Track your experiments, elaborate on successful campaigns, and change or abandon the ones that didn’t work.

Before long, you will be able to reap the fruits of your labours.


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CHAPTER THREE


The following tips will show you how to successfully engage with your newly acquired followers by investing approximately 18 minutes of your day into the upkeep of your social media and the direct engagement with your online audience. You can use this model as an inspiration and change it according to your needs and preferences.

1. Engage (~ 6 minutes)

After successfully establishing your online presence, your first job is to engage with your audience/ followers. Your followers are your potential film festival attendees, crew, cast, or even financiers (either through the industry or crowdfunding). Successful indie filmmakers have meaningful relationships with their audiences.

Youtube: Scroll through comments on your videos and reply to some of them. Give a few of the rest a thumbs-up!

LinkedIn: Check in to see who is following you or who might have read any articles you have published. Look for comments that need a considerate reply.

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by Elliot Grove

Twitter: Check your mentions to see who is interested in your Tweets. Thank them where appropriate.

Google+: See who has joined your circle and thank them. Be on the lookout for anyone who has shared your content.

Instagram: Check your newsfeed to see if your pictures have been tagged by anyone - and, you guessed it, thank them. Make a note of any images you might want to use on your own account.

Facebook: Like posts shared by your followers and reply to any comments or questions.

2. Monitor (~ 2 minutes)

Having responded to the people that have reached out to you, spend a couple of minutes to see what is happening on the various networks you are using. See if there is anything out there happening that might be of interest to your followers. Google alerts will help you stay on top of things in this situation.

Check in a few times during the day to see if there is a hot/ trending topic which would be worth sharing and discussing with your followers.

3. Post (~ 5 minutes)

As a filmmaker you should always have something interesting to say. You should schedule your posts according to a plan: hourly, daily, weekly etc. in order to become popular with your social media audience thanks to your original content. Develop your unique voice.

Youtube: Your vlog or video is a great asset. Preparing a strategy for these visual elements will help cement your reputation as a filmmaker or storyteller. Don't forget the huge advantages of the 'making of' videos that you can create quite effortlessly when shooting. Try to establish a posting schedule if possible/ feasible (once a week on the same day, for example).


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Twitter: Use the “6-4-2” posting schedule. 6 posts to direct people to your website and its contents, 4 re-tweets of interesting tweets by your followers, and 2 direct calls to action, for example: “come to this screening”. And make sure you use pictures if Twitter doesn’t generate its own for the links you are using.

Google+: Share an original piece of content.

Instagram: Post a picture per day.

Facebook: Post an original piece with a nice picture to go with it or share something from a source you admire and trust.

4. Analyse (~ 2 minutes)

Having spent all this time creating and publishing content you now have to analyse and see which content did the best. There are two routes to analysing content: one is to use professional analytics tools like Hootsuite and Google Analytics, or you can use the native analytical tools provided by the social networks you are using.

5. Schedule (~ 3 minutes)

Nothing destroys your followers’ trust quicker than the impression that your profiles are being managed by a robot. You need to prove that you're a real person - a follower who takes the time and effort to respond to you deserves more than an automated message. In the beginning, an automatic scheduling-tool like Hootsuite can help you find out when you should release your new content. After a few weeks you will start to get a sense of the times during the day when your audience is more likely to respond to you and when it is feasible to change it up and interact with your audience in real time through retweets and direct replies.


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CHAPTER FOUR


For most filmmakers and screenwriters, one of the things we fear is losing all the fans we have worked so hard to earn. As you demonstrated on the previous pages, gaining a fan/ follower on social media takes a lot of hard work. You spend so much energy to cultivate a potential audience, then put even more effort into getting them to watch a trailer for your movie, and yet more to get them to buy, rent or see your movie at a screening. In the early stages, to lose even one fan is disheartening.

Here are the 13 blunders which could potentially scare fans off and which you should avoid in any case.

1. Being a Stranger

The most sure-fire way to be look like a stranger to your audience on social media is irrelevant content. If you post content that doesn't connect with your fan base you will appear disconnected, which will turn away people faster than you can say "unlike".

Remedy: Pay attention to your followers. Give them the kind of content they want. Is it advice and tips? Or is it your own unique look at the film industry? Listen to your followers and earn their trust and attention.

2. Posting too Much or too Little

Bombarding your profiles with messages and posts is a sure way to lose followers. Conversely, posting rarely means you could get pushed down the search engine rankings because you will appear to be inactive. Most sites like Twitter and Facebook use algorithms which filter content according to how users engage with it. What is more, having a profile that only posts once a fortnight could make you look unprofessional or like you are not being serious about these things.

Remedy: Post regularly - even if it is just once a day. Creating an interesting Facebook or Twitter post only takes a few minutes at the most.

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by Elliot Grove

3. Heavy Selling

If your social media is only about selling your movie, your t-shirt, or screenplay, before you know it your audience will start to dwindle.

Remedy: Want to make friends of your enemies? Surround your sales messages with really great and interesting alternative content. They'll come back for more and more, and end up being your biggest fans.

4. Being Whiney

Rudeness and whining never bring success or fortune - especially on social media. People don't log onto social media to get flooded by negativity. Remember - social media is meant to be primarily fun and informative.

The following 3 behaviours might make people avoid your social media profile:

・ Trashing others: Bad-mouthing anyone is a really bad strategy and will bring with it misfortune. Don’t start arguments on your profiles (or even via private message) even when you are in the right. ・ Complaining: Complaining invites negativity. Before you know it your social media profiles could be flooded with negative feedback and your followers will be unliking you in droves.・ Lashing back emotionally at negative feedback: Face it - there will always be people (and some insistent internet Trolls) that will dislike and maybe even hate your work. You need to handle negative feedback correctly. If you respond too emotionally, you can make yourself look bad. And if nothing else helps: the block button is there for a reason.

5. Same Time, Different Day

Don’t bore your audience with posting similar content day after day or reposting the same article/ video without waiting at least a day.

Remedy: Mix it up. Photos, infographics, blog posts, videos, and podcasts make really interesting content that will draw followers to your social media profiles. Plan ahead and see how you can use all of the content creation tools at your disposal and how to schedule the content you pick for your profiles for maximum effect.


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6. Politics

Of course you can have a picture of Prince Charles when he visits you on your set or attends your world premiere. But keep it to that - a picture. The minute you start banging on about how great the monarchy is, all the anti-monarchists will start to complain in your comment section.

Remedy: You are an entertainer and entrepreneur, not a political campaigner. Always keep that in mind.

7. Rudeness/ Sensitive Topics

The minute you lose sight of the fact that different people have different levels of sensitivity is when you are exposing yourself to audience backlash.

Remedy: Think before you post. Of all the social media mistakes try and avoid this one, tempting as it may be.

8. Not Engaging

It’s baffling, but it keeps happening: a filmmaker gets a really good group of people together, manages to generate a lot of support for a screening or an online voting for an award - and then drops their entire fan base like until the next project comes along.

Remedy: Engage with your audience in the quiet times as well as during the frantic peaks. Surveys, questionnaires, and updates will help keep you to stay visible to your audience.

9. Getting Personal

People want to know what inspires you and what you stand for. They don't want information about your personal life or unnecessary details. This may sound like a no-brainer, but sometimes it is hard to stay objective.

Remedy: Social media is great for organising your personal life. Try to keep the TMI contained within your private social media accounts that you only share with family and close friends.


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10. Gross Content

Who knows, you might be producing a film that comes with grotesque and even gross imagery. It doesn't mean you need to share everything on your social media without thinking about representation and repercussions.

Remedy: Show yourself and your project in the best possible light. Shock rarely works on social media and could end up turning people away. Save the jump-scares for the screenings.

11. Making People Read (too much)

People don't go online to “read”. Text-heavy posts don’t work well on social media.

Remedy: If you need a lot of text to explain something, point your reader to a supplementary page, or get them to download a PDF. Better yet, dispense with text altogether and do the explaining with great visuals via picture or video.

12. Not Responding to Feedback

People are more apt to respond or comment via social media than call or email you. One of the worst mistakes you can make is to neglect to respond.

Remedy: Make sure your blogs are set up to receive feedback. When you have new feedback, acknowledge or comment on it. Don't shy away from negative feedback, but remember to stay polite and know when to back away before you cast yourself in a negative light.

13. And Don’t Forget About the Offline Experience

Alright… you've overcome the basic social media missteps. People have been following you for months and even supported your project via crowdfunding. Now you’ve even convinced your followers to go attend a screening of your film. But what’s next?


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The Final Step:

‘Wow’ your fans when you meet them! After investing into your social media presence, any event (such as screenings and even informal networking occasions) that you will organise or that will focus on you and your work, should display that care and thought have been put into the planning process.

Be friendly, shake hands, try to remember faces and names, and maybe have goodies ready for your long-time supporters.

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The moral of the story is, ultimately, you should put your film and your career first - the fans and likes on your social media profiles will follow if you learn how to manage them properly and if you are willing to invest a bit of time, effort, and resources. These small details and careful long-term planning may very well become deciding elements of your success as a filmmaker.


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Since 1992, Raindance has been offering advice and support for independent filmmakers. We founded the Raindance Film Festival in 1993, and the British Independent Film Awards in 1998.

Most of our year is spent training thousands of new and established filmmakers in all aspects of the film industry. Over the past 25 years we have seen some talented alumni and members which went on to becomes successful filmmakers - Christopher Nolan, David Yates, Guy Ritchie, and Matthew Vaughn were some of them, to name a few.

The Raindance training schemes and courses cater to over 3000 students per year. Additionally, we launched an innovative Postgraduate Film Degree with Staffordshire University and the Independent Film Trust in 2011.

In 2014 we re-opened our film production division, Raw Talent, with the independent feature Deadly Virtues.

10A Craven Street,London WC2N 5PE

Tel: 0207 930 3412 www.raindance.org

ABOUT RAINDANCE

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Thank you for reading!If you liked this e-book, consider visiting us online and signing up for our official tips & tricks emails and newsletter for more useful advice and information about our events and courses.

© Raindance Film Partnership, 2017

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