Eric Cedo - Getting Social

Social Media + Oscars = And The Winner Is..."James Franco"

About 70% of Oscar viewers tune in annually to see what the stars are wearing. About 20% view to see who actually wins the Oscar for "Best Cinematographer", "Best Visual Effects" and "Best Animated Short". The other 10% watch because they are married to someone from the first two categories of viewers.

Regardless the reason for watching the 83rd Annual Academy Awards one thing is clear, viewers were tweeting in masses. Social media chatter and the Oscars now go together like Charlie Sheen and Coke induced diatribes.

And the most buzzed about celebrity? James Franco, followed by Anne Hathaway according to Mashable. In total it is estimated the Oscars were mentioned in nearly 1.27 million tweets and 1.9 million Facebook status posts.

And the Oscar for highest trending movie during the Oscars goes to 'The "F"ighter':

 

 

Social Media + Movie + Oscar Buzz = "The Social Network" copy-cats

I usually post about movie marketers using social media in their campaigns. BUT, the Oscar-nominated movie "The Social Network" flips the script - a movie ABOUT social media. FastCompany has this funny article on other Tech/Social Media movies that should follow this trend.

Toy Story 3 + Social Media = Mashable's Top 5 List of Winning Social Media Campaigns

Mashable's list of 5 Winning Social Media Campaigns to Learn From contains some brands you might expect: Gap, Starbucks, Mountain Dew, AOL (okay, I didnt' see that one coming...did you?).

One surprise to me is Toy Story 3 coming in 2nd on the list. PLACE EXCERPT HERE:

Aside from traditional banner ads and billboards, Disney created viral videos including fake, vintage-style ads featuring the new characters, an iAd featured on the iPhone 4, and a Facebook Page complete with a built-in ticket-buying app.

Nice to see that movie marketers are starting to get "social media" right. With a universally loved brand as Toy Story has become engaging an audience intelligently through social strategies shouldn't be that difficult. At the same time the possibility exists that things could go horribly wrong (Skittle's anyone?) making the risk/reward for studios very high. The fact that you only get one weekend to make a first - and really - last impression makes the movie marketing stakes much higher than for brands that have time enough to "rebrand" should things go awry.

As with any successful social media campaign, the same rules apply for movie marketers;

• know your audience extremely well and cater to them in niches...not in bunches
• keep things light and fun...should be easy to do when you are a "child's play thing"
• be real...even when you are promoting fictional people in fictional stories

But most importantly, provide content that is why I call "share-worthy". Keep your content - blog posts, videos, games, etc - easily accessible by going to where people are (read: don't put all the good stuff on your website where no-one really goes to anymore). Social media marketing is only social when it is someone else marketing the product (or movie) for you!

Social Media + Movie Marketing = Powerful Punch

Some interesting tips in this article on social media in film marketing. A few excerpts:

Movie fans and visitors love behind the scenes marketing of movies

“You have to type what’s going on behind the camera for fans all over the world,”  Bennett explained. “It might be the director of photography on how he lit the shot, or in the case of Peter Jackson in King Kong, before Facebook, YouTube and Twitter; he was literally posting photos of prop guys, costume fittings with actors, on the scene location scouts activities and video blogs. Jackson built this buzz that topped a million fans, who were already engaged in the process and the movie by the time he finished it for distribution.”

“You need to target your community groups, mobile interaction, action platforms, and set your goal,”

While these nuggets are pretty relevant to just about any social media campaign, be it film or otherwise, this one is very specific to film marketing:

"The concept is Production is the new Promotion, and the sooner you engage your audience the sooner they are going to grab onto it, and follow the different phases to the point where you get to your last news release or airing."

 

Hollywood's version of "viral video" errrr "audio" - Christian Bale rant opens up door for movie viral campaigns

Whether or not Christian Bales' recent rant captured in audio form and posted on youtube (warning: this audio contains about 1,000 occurances of the f-bomb) was authentic or staged the fact still remains that, as reported by Adam Ostrow on Mashable.com, the video..errrr...audio caused a great deal of buzz in social media circles and especially amongst the twitterati.

What this also means is we can fully expect similar "leaks" from hollywood sets to hit YouTube soon as production companies, already struggling to keep budgets under control and cutting back on marketing spend, try to generate early buzz for their movies through social media.

In the past movies like Cloverfield used online buzz to generate box office sales. However, the tactics used were a combination of virtual reality gaming, online ads and social media pr. This may be the first case of an unauthorized leak of on-the-set goings ons that resulted in a nice traffic boost for the upcoming Transformers movie.

So for those movie marketers considering not so "accidental" viral tirades at an attempt to boost buzz, beware: the line between cool viral video and really pathetic attempts to con people is a fine one indeed. Don't forget that social media is rooted in authenticity. "Fool me once..." well you know the rest.