Create a voice. Decide on a personality for your social media, similar to the tone of your film—serious, irreverent, etc. No matter what, you want to be informative, insightful, smart, and feedback-friendly. Never insult other films or filmmakers.
Pick one handle. Whenever possible, keep the account names consistent across platforms. (It’s best to use the movie title without spaces.) If your title is a common phrase, add “Film” or “Movie” to the end (e.g. @RoomtheMovie).
Keep your visual identity consistent. Though your key art may change as you near distribution, you want to brand your film as soon as possible, so people start to recognize your project visually. Create an eye-catching title treatment that can be used as your profile picture across platforms, and pick a key cover photo image that represents your film.
Organize. Create an editorial calendar to plot your attack. Google Docs can be an ideal way to monitor key dates, schedule posts, track your goals and communicate with your team. You can also include columns for keywords, social logins, handles for your cast and crew, etc. Find a sample at http://bit.ly/SampleCalendar.
Brainstorm a list of keywords. Keywords (a.k.a. metadata or tags) are how search engines and other algorithms know what to show people who are combing the Internet. If someone enters the search term “pit bull rescue,” and your film is about rescuing pit bulls, you want your film to show up. So make a list of all potential search terms now. (In addition to “pit bull rescue,” your list would include “animal rescue,” “dog rescue,” “ASPCA,” “Michael Vick,” “animal shelter,” “save pit bulls,” etc.)
You will use this list all the time: when entering tags into your YouTube videos, when targeting ads in Facebook, when adding metadata to your website’s backend, as #hashtags on Twitter and Instagram. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.
Be sociable. Factoring in your production team, your community should start with your already-established social circle. Ask the crew to share and promote with friends and family, and give them clear instructions (and copy-and-paste graphics, sample tweets and Facebook posts).
If someone replies to a post, sends a private message, or tags your film page, answer them back—even if they didn’t ask a specific question. Just say hi, or thanks, or ask them how they heard about your film.
Acting as your film page on Facebook, “like” other pages. Follow Twitter #hashtags to know what people are saying about issues important to you and your film, and then retweet, reply and converse (but don’t spam). If people like what you say, they will follow back.
Keep it fresh. Update your accounts, even if it’s only once or twice a week. Space assets out. Repeating, “You’re going to love my movie!” will get old fast. Instead, give fans something to latch on to. Set up Google alerts for your keywords and then share relevant news about the topic. Introduce the film’s characters and what they have to say.
Use your team’s strengths. If there’s a great photographer on your team, task her with documenting the production. If someone is a snappy writer, have him write tweets. The Google doc is a good place to draft and refine posts; then have one person responsible for the actual posting.
Learn Photoshop. Pictures tend to get a good response on every platform (except YouTube). Memes (i.e. pictures superimposed with text) can be the best kind of shareable content. Choose stills from your film and superimpose quotes onto them. Introduce your team with photos and fun facts. Have the sound editor explain her job in a snappy sound bite.
Keep videos short. Under two minutes is best. Forty-five seconds, even better.
Give insider access. People who follow films and filmmakers are curious about how it’s done. Give them a peek behind the curtain in photos or video clips. Show them the movie set, the editing room, the festival premiere.
Be meticulous. Everything you do on social can be seen, shared and judged. Take time with your text, avoid mistakes, and make sure your key art and shared photos are professional, hi-res, and provocative or beautiful.
Don’t overthink. The flip side of the above holds true. Spending a day and a half vetting every post with your team is counter-productive. Get information out while it’s still timely.
Don’t set up automatic cross-posting. Instead, craft posts that make the most of each platform’s strengths. Twitter is limited to 140 characters, but Facebook isn’t. @Handles and #hashtags do not always travel well. Instagram photos on Twitter require an extra click to view. It’s more work, but it pays off.
Experiment. You’re a filmmaker! You have ideas! Try new things (a behind-the-scenes video blog? a pop quiz about your film? a confessional about your filmmaking fears?). Social media is fleeting—no matter how perfect it is, your tweet will probably be forgotten tomorrow, so if you screw up, try, try again. MM
A Facebook Ad Budget?
With even a small budget, you can use Facebook ads to drive new likes to your page. You can target your audience by geography, age, interests, gender and more. Think about what kind of budget you have and how long your promotional window is—one month? two years?—and do the math to come up with a monthly spend.
- Start with $2/day budget to promote the page. Use your key image and a strong logline.
- Strategically boosting selected posts increases your visibility when you need it most—e.g., when you want to tell the world you got into Sundance, boost the post for $5-10. You will see a huge increase in the post’s reach.
- During the month before a release, a $500-1,000 budget is ideal, to promote your page ($10-20/day) and boost your posts for $5-10 each, targeted to difference audiences.
- Don’t be bamboozled by how cheap and easy it can be to attract fans in other countries, a.k.a. “click farms” and bots. Spend your money on an authentic audience that makes sense for you. One hundred real fans beats a thousand fake ones who will never even look at your page again. MM
This article appears in MovieMaker‘s Complete Guide to Making Movies 2016.
Kristin McCracken is a professional social media and digital content strategist. For over four years, she led the digital media team at the Tribeca Film Festival, winning two Webby Awards for the website and creating a vibrant, year-round social media presence for the brand. She now consults with filmmakers, festivals and other organizations, enhancing their profiles through digital media and editorial content across platforms. Kristin occasionally contributes filmmaker interviews to select outlets (The Playlist, The Huffington Post). Her most recent book is entitled 101 Things to Do Before You Turn 40. @kmc1213, mccrackhouse.com
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