Christians in Cinema BLOG

How do you get your film in front of as many eyes as possible? There are many options available in traditional media:

• Billboards can be effective to get a brief picture in front of people
• Newspaper ads - for those that actually read printed media
• Magazines? Not so much - they’re so full of ads now that you might get lost in the sea of ads
• Television - almost everyone watches television, but what channel do you choose? For a long time, there were 3 major networks, then Fox became the 4th contender. Now, there are hundreds of channels available, each one catering to a different audience

The goal is engagement

Then came the internet. You definitely want a website for your film. You can post pictures, trailers, capture visitor’s information so you can reach out to them personally and thus really engage people. But how do you get traffic there?

The options are myriad:

• Banner ads
• Pay-per-click - and there are plenty of netwoks to choose from
• Email blasts - you just need a list, or to build your own list
• and much more

The goal is really engagement. You want the person who locates your film to become personally involved, so one of the best ways to do that is use social media. A great example is Anita Renfroe. After her Momsense video was posted on YouTube and seen by over 15 million people. Then she came to the attention of ABC News, who has recently signed her to do regular commentaries on their morning show.

That’s effective use of social media! Not every YouTube video is going to attract the attention of Anita’s song. Probably the strongest appeal was that she spoke from experience to the largest group of consumers and gatekeepers - mothers. She spoke their language and voiced something that mothers the world over say every day.

Let’s take some notes from the success of her video:

• Be visible on social media, and on as many social media sites as possible. What social media names to you hear all the time? YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, blogs
• Make sure your content is engaging to a wide audience - look at what films have historically done well and use elements from them. Don’t copy them, but use them as a guide
• Make sure your website is ready once you start sending traffic to it. I can’t tell you how many trailers I’ve seen, only to go to the website and read “under construction.” Do you think think I’m going to remember the website and come back to it in a couple of weeks to see if it’s completed? I might not even remember it at that point
• Make it easy to find. The most common site name for films seems to be “www.xxxxx.com” where “xxxxx” is the name of the movie. To quote a famous philosopher “And, or, duh!”

So get out there! Show us your stuff and let us see what you’re doing! If you have something posted on a social media site, give us the links here so we can all go check it out!