The importance of marketing for an indie filmmaker cannot be emphasized enough. These days marketing is much more accessible by taking advantage of social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube as well as newer platforms like Clubhouse and Caffeine. Indie producers are even using platforms like LinkedIn and Pinterest to get the word out about their projects. Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are evolving with IGTV, Instagram Live and Reels, Twitter Spaces and Facebook Live. Many of these exploded over 2020 during the global lockdown, while already widely used prior to 2020, social media became one of the only ways to get the word of mouth out about a project and direct people to one of the many streaming or VOD platforms. Video conferencing sites (such as Skype, Zoom, Blue Jeans, Facebook Messenger, Houseparty, etc.) were also highly used for marketing, from indie filmmakers to film festivals to major studios (using these sites for education, interviews and panels with the filmmakers and talent from the project, for conventions, awards season events, even for filmmaking and production itself… The industry continues to pivot and get creative in their marketing sources.
It is important when utilizing these sites to do your research. Social media marketing can become just as expensive as commercial marketing in certain circumstances. If you decide to venture into this territory on your own there are some things you should keep in mind to optimize your marketing. Each platform is very different, while Twitter displays bite size info, memes, short video content, with Facebook you could write a full blog (although always suggested to keep the info short and to the point) and with Instagram its mostly about the visuals with a concise bit of info. Knowing how to use hashtags and tagging can be very important as well. Including popular hashtags that are related to your subject can help you attract more people to your page. Having a website link in your bio to send viewers to is crucial. Building a website for each of your projects allows you to give more details and information about the project, treatments, cast info, behind the scenes, artwork, publications, etc., and there you can list all of your social media sites to, in turn, send people back to all your social media sites for brief updates.
Being timely with your posting is important in keeping viewers engaged and interested and building your audience.
Pull the curtain back and give audiences varying behind the scenes content; live sessions, BTS interviews, outtakes, etc. having cast members and crew posting selfies from their time on set, sharing and reposting content from the production along with their own fun stories and experiences. Let the audience feel like they are a part of the journey.
Uploading videos natively to your social platform instead of proving a link to a YouTube or Vimeo clip will give your audience direct access without too many steps and without too many glitches, then creating fun thumbnail to click if they want to access additional content, easter eggs, etc. Utilize Facebook Stories and Instagram Stories, posting smaller clips that may drive people to IGTV for more extensive content.
Make your content visual! Viewers tend to scroll with their audio off, give them something to catch their eye and make them want to turn on the audio.
Marketing and social media are key to the success of your project. @guidetofilmtvpost #guidetofilmtvpost