Adapted from a post on the message boards at the fantastic screenwriting site Wordplayer. Read everything everywhere on that site if you want a deep understanding of how to write a screenplay.
So with my web sketch comedy group Monkey With A Shotgun, I’ve got an actual revenue-generating video series over on Babelgum.
Babelgum is a distribution channel, like YouTube. Much lower traffic (less than one-half of one percent of Youtube’s traffic), but still a solid, reliable delivery system. What they are not is a marketing or promotional company. In fact, the whole reason they’re paying for webseries is to bring more traffic to their site. So for that to work, the series has to, you know, bring in traffic..
That leaves the filmmakers responsible for marketing. This is true for any independent project, from video series to feature film. If you’re on a studio project you’re less responsible for marketing the project, though you should still be very aware of marketing your personal career. But even if an indie feature gets theatrical distribution, the filmmakers will still be the primary marketers. Direct to video, you’ll live or die by your own promotion. And internet shorts? There’s no one but you.
The good news is that the internet makes it possible to pull off your own promotion. You still might get lucky and get some mainstream coverage, say a NPR interview, but even if you don’t you can do much for yourself.
The secret of a good internet marketing campaign is simple- Allow as many entrypoints into the campaign as possible and feed them all into a sticky, central site.
By entrypoints, I mean that you want people to have as many ways to stumble on your work as possible. You want to be on as many sites as can, hitting as many different audiences as you can. You don’t really know where your fans are, and you can’t rely on them to come to you, so you want to cast your net wide. To some extent this is a numbers game.
What does this mean in practice? Well, ideally you’d put your video on every single video site there is. That’s not practical with this particular scheme since the revenue is only being generated by Babelgum views, so you want people to watch there. That could change with other revenue sources, if you had a brand sponsor, or the video itself was promoting other sales, or merchandising of elements of the series itself.
But even in this case there are many other venues for promotion. There’s mentions on blogs. On sites that cover the internet video industry. Interviews with the filmmakers. I’d push hard to get every reviewer I could, pro and amateur to review the series. It almost doesn’t matter what they say, as long as they link back to you. Even a pan review will pique curiosity.
This goes back to an old web aphorism – “Links are the currency of the internet.” That is, links to your work have a definite value. The beauty of the web is that it is a web, a mass of interconnections leading from point to the next. It can all tie back into your site, everything leading to your point of revenue generation. You want those links, they’re your gold.
You can also use social networks. I’ve seen some effective work in promoting web series via facebook fan pages. Fan pages are an easy way to keep people in the loop and aware of what’s going on with your series. New episodes, where you’re planning to take things, etc. It’s not something you have to do, but it’s definitely a missed opportunity if you don’t.
Then there’s the king of the social media hill these days, Twitter. Twitter is a complicated beast to tame. A lot of people give up too soon on it, but Twitter is potentially the most powerful tool in your internet marketing arsenal (at least this year).
The one thing you need to know about Twitter is this- Twitter is personality.
It’s not about hawking your wares, not directly, it’s about making connections with people on the basis of you personality. Your Twitter persona can be a selective version of your personality (or maybe even a constructed version), but it has to be a personality. It’s about being intelligent, interesting, and entertaining. If you pull that off, people will naturally be interested in what you’re doing, and since they have that personal connection with you, they’ll help you spread the word.
I’ve been watching people build their careers with Twitter being a primary source for their advancement. Making the connections, building the interest in what they’re doing. It may sound sales-y to you, but I’m actually saying the sales-y stuff doesn’t work that well. Remember- intelligent, interesting, and entertaining. Personality. And if you’re excited about what you’re doing, it’s not exactly work to talk about it. And if you’re not excited about it, why are you doing it at all?
The nice thing is that a lot of the indie film community- filmmakers, reviewers, reporters, festivals, distributors – have really taken to Twitter, and there’s a nice community already there. For any of your projects, you really want to get as many of your cast and crew on and talking about the project as possible. Make those person-to-person connections.
So that’s many-entrypoints part. What about the sticky, central site part?
What you really want a central site that keeps people coming back once they’ve come to visit it once or twice. The key is to build a community around the site itself. The filmmakers should be producing longer form blog postings about the experience of making the project and the aftermath. More insight into the process, into the people. Allow comments, and RESPOND to those comments! Interact with your audience. Provide forums for people to discuss your project. What they think about it, what they would like to see, etc. Again, INTERACT. You want people to come to your site for your content discover there’s a whole world there to explore. And to return to.
One very important note here at the end- NONE OF THIS WORKS IF YOUR PROJECT SUCKS. Your project has to be good or all is for naught. Content is still king. But community has moved into the prince’s seat.
Anyway. Longer than intended, but there’s much more to say.
Later!
