After the Academy Awards were handed out in the past days and Leonardo DiCaprio went viral, it became necessary to mention the importance of viral studies and the most effective use of new media in the film industry.
While marketing movies and television programs, there are some must-haves specific to this market. One of them is the right timing. Since the time interval is short, you have to create campaigns that will create maximum impact as soon as possible. Another is the mine in the sector's own soil, that is, the content. Before a movie or program is released, a strong marketing strategy needs to be developed. Generating original content is at the forefront of things to do; The search engine and the audience you are addressing are fed by it.
Filmmakers around the world need to use social media to promote their films and reach more consumers. There are 3.42 billion internet users in the world and 2.31 billion of them are active social media users. It is important that you turn these numbers in your favor, the job does not end with just uploading trailers to YouTube. Unfortunately, movie marketing is not a science, there are no proven methods. But it is possible to draw lessons from the success or failure of previous campaigns. So, what can be done for a successful movie marketing by taking inspiration from them? What are the tactics and strategies that can be applied to create an extraordinary campaign? Let's examine it with examples that will give us all ideas.
Create an Attractive Campaign
World-renowned marketing guru Seth Godin says, “The fact that something is talked about is what decides whether it is being made, bought or built; whether it is notable or not.” One of the most powerful ways of marketing is to create a "Word of Mouth". If you want to go viral, you have to start by doing something worth talking about.
For the third season premiere of Game of Thrones, a dragon skeleton nearly the size of a bus was placed on England's Dorset Coast, creating the appearance of being washed up. These images, which astonished everyone, took place in many media tools outside the internet.
If you've created something for everyone to talk about, you don't have to open your mouth to exist on traditional broadcast platforms. Three remote-controlled human models flying in the skies of New York on the day of the release of the Chronicle movie, which was released in 2012, provided the promotion of the movie in all media without any extra expense.
According to psychologist Ropert Plutchik, theorist of the Circle of Emotions, there are eight basic emotions that drive our behavior. Surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, dislike, joy, confidence and fear. There are also commercials prepared solely on the basis of these feelings . The presence of details that will arouse these feelings in your content will have a more significant impact on the audience you will convey your message to. Namely; To go viral, it's important to give your audience something that can change their mood.
Prepare In-Stream Video Ads
Running in-stream video ads is an effective way to generate interest. This advertising model is relatively cheaper and even if the viewer hits the “skip ad” button after the first five seconds, we cannot talk about any loss for the advertiser. By using services such as TubeMogul and Hey! Spread, you can upload videos to multiple channels at the same time and analyze them. One of the things that can be presented when preparing in-stream ads is an invitation to action that can be done simultaneously, that is, at the same time, to the viewer. These; This could be a visit to the film's Facebook page, a call to win an invitation to the premiere, or a visit to the film's official website. Of course, more interesting things will always please the audience.
Give the Audience a Chance to Experience the Story of the Movie
Hunger Games has launched one of the most forward-thinking digital marketing campaigns of the last decade. Among the competitions, games and applications on Facebook pages, perhaps the most innovative move was the "Virtual Hunger Games".
In the game, users join a zone just like in the movie and compete with other zones. This virtual game allows the viewer to experience the characters in the movie and to integrate with other fans. With gamification, the movie is used as a social interaction tool and reaches more users.
Involving the audience in the filmmaking and promotion process is another option. With 15 months left in The Dark Knight's release date, Warner Brothers is releasing an award-winning "Why so Serious?" launched the campaign. Certain points were determined and approximately 11 million people from more than 75 countries flocked to America with Joker makeup on their faces to become citizens of Gotham City, to vote and to shout slogans. More than a year before the movie's release, this campaign became one of the most successful virals in movie marketing.
Presence on IMDB
They say that the hardest place to sell books is in the bookstore. But no matter how many varieties, it would be a little ridiculous to refuse your movie to be on a platform where users search for new movies on a daily basis. There are different recommendations for your movie to be listed on IMDB. One of the most sensible things to do is to write as comprehensive descriptions as possible while filling in the requested information, taking into account any and all things that might attract the user to view the movie. A search engine like IMDB, Google or YouTube. Its algorithm is based on relevance and popularity. For this reason, you should make sure that your page contains as much information as possible, and of course, that this information is linked to your movie. Another tip is to create movie lists. You can prepare “Top 10” or “Top 50” lists in the appropriate category for your movie and attach your own movie to a suitable place in the list. Besides, IMDB also has various ad models.
Make Your Social Media Accounts Interactive
In the social media arm of film marketing, it is generally positioned at the center of Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Instagram. Social media is very useful, especially in the marketing of visual arts, as it is a medium that allows the user to produce content. From the making of the movie to the final scene, the glitches and the night it was awarded; It gives the user the freedom to present what's on his mind through lines, interviews, caps, gifs and voiceovers. Although not always in a positive way, users manage to keep the production and the actors on the agenda or bring it up again. Film marketing is not just about the box office, it also means promoting the legal consumption of industrial products such as DVDs, models, posters or toys after the vision.
At the time the Academy awards were handed out, more than half of the interested audience was not watching the television broadcast. Simultaneous sharing on social networks has mobilized millions of users who are either related to the subject or, on the contrary, have no knowledge at all.
The rise in the dates when the Oscar nominations were announced and the awards were distributed shows that the history of vision does not limit the popularity of the film. If you're not a rising name on this chart, you can come up with other things that are popular as well. The table below shows the interest in user-generated content, caps are in demand.
As many of us know, Facebook is a network where unlimited written and visual content can be shared together. The most interacted posts are photos or videos. The behavior of liking or sharing on social media is not in a certain order, so you may not always get the interaction you planned. There are various explanations for this in terms of "human's digital practices as a social being". For this reason, the content we will share on our social accounts should be as inclusive as possible.
We said original content, emotions, videos, images. Now let's get out of the likes, comments and shares in the posts. When you look at the social media usage strategies of science fiction, action or animation productions that have done well at the box office, you will encounter various games, competitions or applications that have been popularized through social networks. Facebook apps allow the viewer to engage with the plot and characters and get more excited. The audience using the applications increases the popularity of the page by inviting their friends or sharing their movements within the application. As we all know, mobile internet usage is at an extreme, with 1.9 billion people accessing social networks from mobile devices. There are services where you can have custom-made applications prepared for marketing with a low budget. If you want to provide maximum conversion and a different movement in an easier way; Draws, prize competitions, competitive questions, quizzes or surveys are the most effective options for this.
Instagram, a filtered photo and timed video sharing network, is a somewhat more intimate platform where sharing behind-the-scenes footage, fragments from trailers, and then premiere photos or videos is welcomed. Particularly during the production process of the film, the posts that include some information about the "Set state" and the actors attract a lot of attention. Of course, we should not forget about the posters, the traditional marketing products that have shrunk into our pockets. It is very important to be able to use the tags correctly and to create a special tag for the name of your movie. Your fans will also be able to access the posts made by the actors or other fans through these tags in order to follow the developments about your movie and maybe contribute to your announcement. In addition to all these, sharing strategies suitable for the theme of the movie can also be followed.
The advertisements of Facebook and Instagram, which exist with integrated or isolated options and are highly advanced in reaching the right user, can be preferred during the promotional phase of the movie before it is released.
Since we are talking at a time when Twitter has turned into a platform where we can use ready-made gifs from 140 characters text content and visual content receives exponentially more retweets, it will be easier to reach our target audience with our photos, videos and trailers that affect the followers more easily. You can determine the tags suitable for the name or theme of your movie and share them within the appropriate strategies. When this is most popular, it is the day you go to the theater and attract the most audience, and the days after you stay in the theater, although it continues to decrease. Other than that, what else can we do? We offer something moving and long-winded with a theme and character. Of course, what we can do is not limited to agglutinative content. Almost all movies have a character that the audience connects with. Some movies revolve around only one character, some movies are remembered with their lines. Keeping the character in the movie alive on a social account - Twitter would be the best for this - speaking with his mouth would be an excellent move for the film to retain its current fan base and move beyond it.
There is a network that cannot be passed without mentioning, which is just starting to become popular in the marketing world: Periscope. “What is going on behind the white curtain?” or “What's going on at the gala night?” This may be the network where you can answer your questions in the most sincere way and you will be in demand at the same rate.
Film marketing is not an easy process. But the idea that if you find a way to stand out from the crowd and produce something truly remarkable, if you set your goals and work with the right guides, it is a bit of an urban legend that you have to allocate significant budgets to get successful results.
Money makes things easy, but the currency of marketing is ideas.
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