In strategy, you first have to determine what is the goal. Is it to build up a solid base of supporters? Is it to activate them to do something (buy a DVD, go to a screening, donate to a crowdfunding effort, tell others about your film)? Usually that is a goal. But if you begin with a campaign where you launch into selling and goading without first building up the base, you will never accomplish that goal. To build up, you have to allow time to do that.

A social networking strategy will take many months to a year to implement and it will be an ongoing effort. First, you will determine whom you are trying to attract into your community and what you have to offer them of interest. Then, you will start to put those assets out there. You will build your engagement pages and populate them with interesting and valuable content. You will not be asking them for ANYTHING. Ideally, you will not need to ask them at all because when you become a valuable resource, they will want to help you in any way they can. You may call on your group for help in achieving a goal every so often and if they can truly see how helping you will help the community in general, they will be happy to do it. You should never do anything that will make them feel that you have formed the community in order to use it for your own purposes. Companies and filmmakers who do this stand to ruin the very thing they have spent so much time developing, a genuine and authentic community that is very loyal and connected to you. That kind of loyalty is extremely difficult to accomplish with advertising and it is really the ultimate goal of all brands.

Too often, filmmakers and companies wait to start considering social networking until they need to achieve set goals and they need them now (usually when selling something). The problem with that is they don’t have a base of support in place from which they can achieve anything. In order to use the tools of social networking effectively, you really must commit the time to grow your base, feed and cultivate it. If you cannot commit to that, social networking tools will not work for you and you should turn to more short term tools like mass advertising.

This week I attended an edition of the roving conference put on by WBP, filmmaker Lance Weiler’s outfit. It followed on nicely from seminars and conversations that were going on AFM the week before. I covered AFM for Microfilmmaker Magazine and the article will be out on December 1, but I wanted to share my notes from this event first.

The first speaker of the night was Weiler and his topic was Social Media for Storytellers. “There is more opportunity now than there ever has been to reach the audience,” Weiler proclaimed. He cited examples of his own work with his film HEAD TRAUMA where he used multiple media to engage the audience with comic books,  ARG, mobile phone components and live interaction during screenings. He also cited the work that the Mad Men TV show did to target different audience segments during their seasons to broaden the reach of the show. Their campaigns grew from building a buzz in the ad agency niche, then moved out to the entertainment media, early adopters WOM and then wide audience promotions.

He cautioned before you get a conversation going you need to decide what kind of voice you want to use. Should you engage from the characters’ perspective, a location- centric perspective, the voice of your staff or your own voice? There is no right or wrong to this, it just has to be determined and stay consistent.

He also advised to be realistic about time and resources. Choose outlets and accounts to use that will reach your audience best and these will change over time as new platforms come into fashion. Interaction will take up a measurable part of the day and there needs to be a routine. He utilizes interns or a full time community manager to handle this work. This has to be a conversation, no one likes to be talked to without any way to talk back or feel that no one is listening. Give them the tools to talk to you and to each other.

Weiler insists that building trust with your audience is key. You can’t just jump into conversation with them, you must slowly cultivate a relationship and it will take time to gather your audience. You must reward your audience by giving them access to content or access to you not widely available. You must respect them by not overusing your email list or making your content only self serving. This is important because you can’t control them and what they say. They can make or break you.

He closed by listing a few of the platforms he recommends for filmmaker audience building. WordPress, Flikr, Twitter, Feedburner and Delicious. He cautioned that you should mirror your audience list details from your online platforms because you do not own that information, the platform does. If you should ever lose privileges on a platform or want to change platforms, you want to have that information in your personal files for future access.

In part II, I will talk about Jon Reiss’ talk on theatrical releases and why the term needs to encompass more than cinemas. He has a new book out now called Think Outside the Box Office, the ultimate guide to film distribution and marketing in the digital era. I have read it and highly recommend it. He talks about his new philosophy in it in detail but highlighted it in this talk.

This is a repost with some adaptation of a post on digiday:DAILY by B.L. Ochman. I thought it was important to emphasize the points she made here because I talk a lot about the wonders of social media marketing for the independent filmmaker and how it gives the power to reach niche audiences like never before. But it isn’t the end all, be all of your marketing strategy. The use of social media is just one tool in the marketing mix and should not be the only tool relied upon for spreading the word about your project.

Social media can’t:   

Substitute for marketing strategy
A Twitter campaign, or a Facebook page that announces your latest activities is not a marketing strategy. Marketing strategy encompasses the type of film you have, the audience you are targeting, where you find that audience and how you connect with them. Campaigns only use the tactics (like Twitter and Facebook), but they don’t define what you are trying to accomplish. A complete strategy must be defined. 

Succeed without top management buy-in
Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers (that would be your audience), make changes based on feedback (changes to your script, your trailer, your rough cut etc.), and trust employees to talk to customers (this would be your cast and crew or other members of your production team). Using social media is meant to be collaborative and engaging, so if you aren’t going to put in that kind of time or trust someone else to do it, do not use social media.

Be viewed as a short-term project
Social media is not a one-shot deal. It’s a long-term commitment to openness, experimentation, and change that requires time to bear fruit. This is why I advise to set up your platforms as soon as possible, even during script stage but for sure during production. It will take a long time to gather attention and a core following. It also must be fostered on a regular basis or it will not gather an audience.

Produce meaningful, measurable results quickly
One of the complaints about social media is that it can’t be measured. But in fact there are many things that can be measured: including engagement, sentiment, and whether increased traffic leads to sales. Those results can’t be produced or measured in the short term. Like PR, social media marketing often produces its best results over a long period of time, like a year or two.

Be done in-house by the vast majority of companies
A successful social media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital, and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience, and the best social media marketers have experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content, and contests into online marketing. You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience–a combination not generally found in-house, so you are forced to reinvent the wheel or choose the wrong tools.

Provide a quick fix to the bottom line or a tarnished reputation
Social media can sometimes provide quick results for a company (or filmmaker) that is already a star. That’s why you see well known celebrities and directors gather large followings for their projects, seemingly overnight. However, there’s a lot of desperation these days and many seem been convinced that a social media campaign can provide a quick fix to sagging sales or reputation issues. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

Be done without a realistic budget
Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content, and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn’t come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing. Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce, creating style sheets that integrate with the company’s branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.

Guarantee sales or influence
Unless your effort can pass the “who cares” test  – and most simply can’t – your social media efforts will fall flat.  Unless you know how to drive traffic to your contest, video, blog, event, etc. you’ll have little more than an expensive field of dreams.

Be done by “kids” who “understand social innately”
You can climb Mt Kilaminjaro without a sherpa guide, but why would you? Experience and perspective can make the trip easier, or even save your life. Companies (or filmmakers) trying to run social media without experienced consultants waste time, money, and reputation on their efforts. And then, sadly, many decide that this new-fangled approach doesn’t work.

Replace PR
No matter how great your website, video contest, blog, Twitter strategy, etc. you still need publicity. Just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come.