I gave an early 9-10.15am keynote presentation to the trendy young filmmaker folk at SPAA fringe on Saturday. It was received well by all who I spoke to and on the grapevine. It was sympathetic to the many case studies shown by Peter Broderick in his two sessions highlighting a range of filmmakers selling DVDs off the web and direct to fans. My talk though looked more specifically at social connection and examples of new form media that went beyond ‘flogging’ the linear video story or doco, or just reaping the benefits of cutting out the middleman. I was keen on trying to get under the skin of what new forms are being developed by the audience themselves – this will be developed in a further post. But…

It was clear that the fringe crowd have moved beyond web 1.0 (brochure sites promoting theatrical or TV), many are half way into web 2.0 (starting to share and discuss) so, introducing the concepts of trust’onomics (tm), web 3.0, (the live and immersive web) and instant communication with communities of interest, did not fall on deaf ears – as it would have done last year.

Laurel Papworth (who was winging her way to Singapore at the time) and I also worked up a simple (albeit complex looking) social media marketing campaign diagram to focus on a few simple phases and steps.

  • INVOLVE – live the social web, understand it, lurk, listen, this cannot be faked
  • CREATE – make relevant content for communities of interest
  • DISCUSS – no conversation around it, then the content may as well not exist
  • PROMOTE – actively, respectfully, promote the content into the networks
  • MEASURE – monitor, iteratively develop and respond or be damned!

Related to this I was surprised by the number of film people who I spoke to at SPAA, who now ‘get it’. They have come to realise the need to engage and surround themselves with experts in this field, helping them develop strategies, hand-hold them through the technology. I was not shy in saying that they need to choose their advisors carefully – not be swayed by marketing hype from new kids on the block or traditional web companies – who are suddenly experts! Effective social network marketing comes from deep understanding and experience of communities and how they operate and what motivates them – not the ability to fiddle with facebook groups, learn a few catch phrases or make cute viral YouTubes. Implenting a campaign the wrong way and you will get your fingers seriously burned, and rather than only being ineffective, have no results it can actually have a negative impact if not handled with empathy and integrity…anyway enjoy the slides above and the ‘simple’ SME Marketing diagram below…

 

Social Media Campaign

Social Media Campaign