Have you guys heard about social media marketing? I don't think I was really aware it until a few monthes ago. When it happened to me, well I sure it has happened to me many more times before but I just wasn't aware, and it's probably happened to you many times as well. So, it goes like this, you're online, messing around facebook and you see a friend of your's has shared an article or a trailer to a new movie and you click on it to check it out. You like it or not, you've just experienced social media marketing. I find it very fascanating...and a great way to get the word out about your product, your blog, or like us our movie, Clombies.
It seems simple enough, you post up interesting things and someone likes what they see and thinks "hey I think my friend Bill would really like this" or they just think "everyone I know should hear about this." And away it goes, right? Well, for those that use the web for more then just email and Facebook, they probably would have a pretty easy time getting their message out there...for me, not so much. I love the web, but I really don't spend that much time on it. At least not much surfing.
So, when we started working on our distribution plan we went to an expert in the field. She's great, if you need any enlightment on distribution you should pick up her book "Guide to Independent film distribution" by Stacey Parks, it's a very honest and straight forward look at film distribution for Indie filmmakers. Anyway, after she looked over our film and our plan, she told us that traditional distribution would work but that we should really consider the new hydrid distribution strategy. We didn't really know what she was talking about. So, she explained that we should still plan for a traditional distribution plan, do the film circuit and try to find a distributor that way, but also we could do our own distiribution along the way online. But we didn't need to wait for the film to be finished, actually that could slow things down if we waited until the film was finished. The thing is we want to find our audience now and hopefully they will be excited to go on this journey with us.
Well, it sounded awesome to me...I don't think I thought it was going to be easy, by any stretch of the imagination but I don't think I realized that in reality the web is a very big place.
So, I've signed us up for a few sites that can help drive traffic back to our website, blog, and in the future our Fan page on Facebook for Clombies. But just like with any marketing stragegy, you have to have a plan. And when it comes to a plan you have to do research - so research as I said before really isn't my cup of tea, but because this whole idea of actually reaching beyond Austin, Texas...reaching beyond the US, to be able to reach people in Australia for example is just amazing to me. So, research will be done and I will make it through. Because how much fun will it be see someone clear on the otherside of this planet asking to see our film, and if we're lucky and do a great job at this social media marketing, they may be demanding it at their local theaters. Now what could any Indie filmmaker want more then to have an audience demanding to see their film.
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