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Digital LA’s Movie Marketing: Online, Social, Mobile panel

September 30th, 2009

Last night, I attended Digital LA’s “Movie Marketing: Online, Social, Mobile Panel”  where industry experts from Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Lionsgate discussed the digital marketing landscape and how they use online tools for promoting their films.  While the marketing budget alone for most of these films is tens of times larger than the entire budget for the documentary films and grassroots campaigns that I usually work on, there was definitely some relevant take-aways.

Over and over again, we heard there is no one way to market a film online, and the key is  identifying your target audience.  Is there an existing audience for your film?  What is the demographic you are trying to reach?  Where does your audience hang out online?  How do they use the web?  Different age groups and demographics use the web differently – are they using email, facebook, twitter, blogs, game sites, mobile apps, etc.?

The panel talked about the importance of identify key influencers in the community in the early phases of marketing.  Maybe this is a blogger, maybe this is a celebrity with a fan base, maybe this is a popular gamer …  In the case of docs and grassroots campaigns, maybe this is an organization with a large or active membership, maybe this is a politician or grassroots leader, maybe this is a niche website that your audience spends a lot of time on.  Reach out to these people – ask for an endorsement, offer them early clips, sneak previews, ways to get involved.

In the inner circles of outreach, offer materials early and continue giving them material in the lead up to your launch.  As you approach your D-Day, you start to reach out farther and farther in your outreach, as you can see in the graphic below.  In the farthest circle, you should only outreach/advertise when there is an immediate action to take (see the film, buy a dvd, sign a petition, etc).

Circles of Outreach as Launch approaches

Circles of Outreach as Launch approaches

In addition to roll outs and audiences, the panel talked about different online tools used to market/reach audiences/supporters.  This list comes as no surprise, but is useful nonetheless.

  • Online Ad Buys
  • Search campaigns
  • Viral Videos
  • Social networking profiles
  • Email Lists
  • Games
  • Mobile campaigns and apps
  • Blogs
  • Homepage skins
  • Distributing clips such as trailers, behind the scenes, and DVD extras

If you have any adds to this list or thoughts on the graphic, please leave them in the comments!

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A Favorite Time Saver: Ping.fm

August 31st, 2009

For months, I spent cross-posting the same status update or message across all my social networking profiles.  First, its was my Facebook, then copy and paste over to Twitter, then to my MySpace account, and don’t forget LinkedIn … wait, did I do Twitter yet?  Grrrr ….

Well, no more!  Now with one ping, I hit up all my social media profiles.  Ping.fm updates your status on all your profiles at once.  They supports over 40 social networking sites.  And you can set your account up to ping a message from the web, your mobile phone, an instant messaging program, or other third-party apps!  Check it out! It’s free to sign up and a total time saver!

P.S.  If you know anyone who would like to receive these updates, please pass it along.  Anyone can sign up to receive these emails by joining the google group.

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Tweet Progress

August 25th, 2009

Last week I wrote about 10 Ways to Find Cool People to Follow on Twitter. Well, here is one more way to find twitterers and be to be found! This week a new Twitter Directory for Progressives launched, called Tweet Progress. Browse the directory not only to find cool progressives, but list yourself in the directory too!

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What the @#!? Twitter Punctuation

August 25th, 2009

So you are getting started on Twitter, you’ve found a few friends to follow, and all of sudden you are looking at a stream of tweets filled with @’s #’s and all sorts of weird abbreviations. What in the world does it all mean?!? Well, here’s some basic twitter punctuation to help get you started.

@username Use the @ symbol before a person’s username to refer to them on twitter, especially when posting a response to one of their tweets or “retweeting” a post of theirs (see below). For example, “@codepinkalert Thanks for sharing that link about the cost of the war in Afghanistan!” By adding the @ symbol, it creates a link to their profile in your tweet and also includes the tweet in their replies section of their account (the @username link on the right navigation bar when you are logged into your account).

RT or rt Means “retweet.” If you find a tweet useful or interesting, pass it on by writing “rt @username” followed by a copy of the message. If you are not quoting exactly, you can also put “via @username” at the end of the message. It’s polite to retweet messages or information you like, and the original twitterer will appreciate it!

#hashtag A word preceded by the # symbol is called a “hashtag.” These are keywords used for searching or organizing content on Twitter. #followfriday or #p2 is an example of hashtag.

d username Used to send a direct (aka private) message to another twitter user. Direct messages can only be sent to users who are following you.

h/t “Hat tip” is used to tip your hat, or credit, another twitter user for their idea or reference.

For all sort of other abbreviations and acronyms twitterers use to keep messages under 140 characters, check out this post on Oh Wow!

P.S. You can receive social media tips every day in your email inbox, just sign up here.

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Ten Ways To Find Cool People to Follow on Twitter

August 24th, 2009

So you’ve decided to take the plunge and join Twitter.  You’ve created an account and … crickets … well, now what?

Well, let me just throw out a couple of quick definitions first:

“Followers” are people who follow your tweets and receive your updates on their home page when they log in.
“Following” is the list of Twitterers that you have chosen to follow and you will receive their updates on your home page.

Unlike Facebook where you send a “Friend Request” which has to be accepted and mutually agreed upon, Twitter allows you to follow anyone and allows anyone to follow you (unless one of you have your updates set to private).  If you follow a person, it does not mean they will necessarily follow you, and vice versa.  So here we go …

Ten Ways To Find Cool People to Follow:

1.  Find your friends that are already on Twitter through the email address book importer.

If you have a Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL email account, Twitter can use your contacts to find your friends who are already tweeting.  Simply log in to your Twitter account.  Click “Find People” on the Menu Bar.  Then click “Find on other networks.”  Enter your email address & password to your email account.  And Wala!  Twitter will show you all of your contacts who are tweeting.

NOTE:  Personally, although I love my friends, I don’t necessarily follow all my friends on Twitter.  I like to use twitter as a personalized newsfeed, and I don’t necessarily need to know that Jane is standing in line at the grocery store or Paul just dropped his kids off at school.  I prefer to follow most of my friends on Facebook and follow more news type sources on Twitter.  But that’s me – and lots of people do use Twitter to follow their friends – either way, this step is a good place to start …

2.  Search for people you want to follow by name.

Click “Find People” on the menu bar then “Find on Twitter.” Please note this only works if they have entered their real name in their profile info.  Not everyone does.  And if you want to check if your name is listed on your account, you can look under “Settings.”

3.  Look for organizations, bloggers, media outlets and personalities, experts, and others that you might want to follow.

You can either search for them using the “Find People” option, or check out their website.  They will usually have a link to their twitter account on their homepage.  Then you can just click on the “Follow” button under their profile name.

4.  Look for people you don’t like and follow them on Twitter.

It may sound like an odd suggestion, but this is great for birddogging, watchdog, or corporate campaigns.  Take Karl Rove or Bill O’Reilly, for example, both active tweeters. You could follow Karl’s tweets to keep an eye on upcoming events that he will be at, or follow O’Reilly’s to correct his misinformation.

5.  Find your Congressional representatives on Twitter.

You can see what they are working on, and send messages their way via Twitter.  There are also some great applications for petitions on Twitter, which I’ll cover in a future tip.  But for now, check out http://tweetcongress.org/ to find your reps.

6.  Search for conversations you want to be apart of.

Go to http://search.twitter.com/ and search for keywords or hashtags that you are interested in discussing or reading about.  Look for people who are active in the conversation or putting out interesting links or information, then follow them.  I have done this for CODEPINK campaigns around Afghanistan, Gaza, the Mother’s Day knitting project, and the boycott of Ahava beauty products.  It’s a great way to find tweeters.

7.  Twitter Directories.

There are dozens upon dozens of Twitter directories that list Twitterers under categories – everything from celebrities to social media gurus to politicians to local regions.  Since most directories allow people to categorize themselves, they are usually incomplete and self-promoting.  But they can be a good place to start.  Check out WeFollow, Twellow, JustTweetIt, GeoFollow, and MediaOnTwitter.

8.  Who are your friends following?

Browse your Friend’s “Following” List.  You can see who other people are following by visiting their Twitter page.  On the right hand side, you can see thumbnails of the profiles they are following.  Click “View All” to browse the list.  Add any interesting profiles.

9.  Who are your friends having conversations with?

Look at retweets and replies of your friends in your Twitter feed.  Who do they think is interesting enough to retweet or reply to?  When you add an @ before someone’s profile name in a tweet, it creates a link to their profile.  So check out your Twitter feed, and click on any potentially interesting Twitterers to view their profile and start following.  Also, keep an eye out for “Follow Fridays” where people suggest other Twitterers they like.  On Fridays, some people tweet a list of recommendations of others to follow using the hashtags #followfriday or #ff.  And you can participate too by suggesting your own favorites on Fridays!

10.  And with that, here are a few twitterers that I recommend:

http://wwww.twitter.com/codepinkalert
http://twitter.com/afsc_org
http://twitter.com/AFSCpeace
http://twitter.com/MADREspeaks
http://twitter.com/peaceactionwest
http://twitter.com/g_a_r
http://twitter.com/therealnews
http://twitter.com/medeabenjamin
http://twitter.com/CREDOMobile
http://twitter.com/HuffPolitics
http://twitter.com/AfghanNews
http://twitter.com/afghanwitness
http://twitter.com/Siun
http://twitter.com/Fempeace
http://twitter.com/AfghanistanDocu
http://twitter.com/DemocracyNow
http://twitter.com/AlterNet
http://twitter.com/robertgreenwald
http://twitter.com/heartofj

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