How Nollywood Filmmakers Can Leverage Social Media For Publicity -By

A lot has been said about how social media has impacted various aspects of our lives and businesses. No matter how “old school” you are, no matter how much you loathe the “exposure” social media brings, one thing we can all agree on, is that businesses have benefited tremendously from social media.

For businesses, there has never been a better time to build brand awareness; engage with the audience, generate leads and reward brand loyalty.

Social media has created the opportunity for production companies to apply innovative ways to communicate, engage and promote their films. Filmmakers now have multiple channels to tell their stories and promote their movies; and individuals also have the freedom to voice their opinions about a film.

Read on to find out how you can maximize social media for your next movie.

• Choose your audience and don’t make a film for everybody: I have heard a number of filmmakers say “This movie is for everyone” … No! If it’s for everyone, it is for no one. Quite frankly, your decision to target a certain audience and the depth of your understanding of this audience can represent the moment of truth in your marketing — your choice could make you or frustrate all the effort you’ve put into making a movie. When marketing a film, you’ve have to be as specific as possible. Who is this film for? What category of people will be interested in this content? Where are these people and how do I reach them? Fortunately, Facebook is great at targeting specific audiences, from age to location, interests, behavior, occupation etc… Thus, the first step to marketing on social media is identifying the audience (s).

• Build your fanbase before you need it: Start early, create pages across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and fill out each section correctly with information regarding cast, crew and movie synopsis.

• Involve the stars of your movie: Ask them to share pictures, short clips, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks.

• Allocate a budget: Once you’ve earmarked the audience you wish to engage, allocate a budget. Yes, as wonderful as social media marketing is, you need money to extend your reach. This means, you have to advertise on selected channels to increase your reach and constantly be visible to the audience. You also, have to create activations, fun competitions, digital publicity stunts, and virtual games on your social pages to excite and grow your fanbase. These activities help fans further relate to the movie and its characters, and lures them toward cinemas to see the story in full giant-screen glory.

• Stay away from badly written press releases distributed on mainstream blogs: A better strategy would be to engage top bloggers; and invite them for a special screening where they can ask questions and write independently (note, you might need to insist on seeing the copy before it is published).

To Sum Up

The way to get the attention of the audience is by creating rich, creative and sharable content.  The ability to converse with your target audience is the best part about social media. If you cut a virtual trailer and it’s not working with your audience, you can play around with it; till you form what’s going to resonate with your audience.  That is how you build a fanbase and get your film into the hearts and minds of your audience.

About the Author

Soyem Osakwe is a Social Media Marketing Consultant. She blogs at nollywoodobserver.com