Marketing is a vital element of any movie production and often creates or breaks a movie’s fame. From brilliant trailers to creative social media promotions, there are several ways to generate fuzz and outreach audiences.
Furthermore, marketing can create a difference between a movie being a blockbuster or a flop. To create hype, appeal potential audiences, and develop an interest in their upcoming films, studios started to rely strongly on social media marketing.
Social media has evolved the way that films are marketed. Previously, studios solely relied on old marketing methods like TV advertisements, print ads, and trailers to promote the movie.
However, in today’s digital era, social media floors come to light as a robust element for marketing movies. Allowing studios to captivate their viewers with innovative and new approaches.
Moreover, the film industry now utilizes social media to make viral marketing promotions created to attain people’s attention and influence them to spread among their peers. People can share their thoughts and feelings about movie trailers, posters, or news related to a film in just one or two clicks.
Movie studios like MAPPA, Studio Ghibli, Wit Studio, Warners Bros. Discovery, HBO Max in Australia, and many others have gained significant followers on their social accounts.
Let’s dive deep into how movie studios utilize social media to create viral marketing promotion:
1. Generating excitement with trailers
Movie trailers are the initial and most vital part of the pre-release stage. Often, a well-designed trailer can help gain buzz for a film and create fame before it even strikes the cinemas.
Studios have been utilizing social media to boost promotion around trailers, teasers, and clips to create predictions for upcoming movies.
For instance, the trailers of Avengers: Endgame plagued up a record-breaking 289M views rapidly within 24 hours on YouTube, making a new record. It raises fan arguments after analyzing the trailer and starts predicting various theories for what the movie offers.
However, studios use social media to boost trailer releases, make fuzz around the latest releases, and motivate people to hold onto the content.
2. Creating interactive and Captivating Promotions
Social media platforms offer an interactive and captivating floor for movie studios to launch teasers and other content. Movie studios have creatively imposed social media promotions to attract the target audience’s attention.
Moreover, studios impose the power of social media via fascinating captions, innovative hashtags, and interactive interviews.
Take an example: during the launch of a DC comic movie, Warner Bros. made AR filters on Snapchat. These filters allowed people to be covered in the interested character’s costume, turning them into part of the movie.
This strategy made a fuzz around DC comics and created an everlasting stream of content on social media floors. Additionally, it attracts an enthusiastic audience to observe the new release.
3. Publisicing behind-the-scenes content
Social media offers an ideal opportunity for movie production studios to offer premium behind-the-scenes (BTS) clips of the films. And let’s be honest, who isn’t curious to know how things work off-screen?
Moreover, these BTS clips can be in various formats like pictures, videos, or GIFs to keep the audience entertained with the film from its pre-production to post-production stage.
Similarly, the beloved superstars used social media to promote their upcoming movies and increase fan curiosity. Instagram is one of many platforms where many production houses and artists share behind-the-scenes footage about the movie’s creation on the set.
The BTS content molds fans to feel invested in the movie, keen to see how the final outcome would reveal itself on the large screen.
4. Generating mesmerising experiences
Production studios generate mesmerizing experiences for their audience by imposing innovative technology to let viewers feel involved in the movie.
However, social media platforms are used by production houses for hosting digital premieres, Q&A sessions, and exclusive interviews, making these experiences more exciting and captivating.
For example, at the time of the premiere of Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel organized a ‘red carpet’ festive on social media, giving opportunity for fans around the world to engage in the excitement of a real red carpet.
Besides, Fans can enjoy interviews with the cast, directors, and team through live streaming on social media accounts. This made a buzz across the movie and connected fans to the crew and artist, increasing the hunger for the movie.
5. Leveraging influencer marketing
Social media influencer marketing changes the game for marketing movie campaigns. Studios are hiring influencers to boost their movies actively, developing a sense of awareness and expanding viewership.
Moreover, by partnering with famous influencers, production houses can use a mass audience base. It could cover the latest audiences and target desired groups.
Likewise, during the promotion of The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part-2, the company Lionsgate made a merged promotion partnering with influencers. Prominent influencers like Tanya Burr, Jim Chapman, and Zoella to gain extreme reach and engagement.
Influencers post images and videos on Instagram to boost the movie’s charm and increase interest in the movie.
Conclusion
Social media is an ever-changing platform that has evolved movie studio’s marketing. A film promotion that is handled correctly can be a remarkable weapon, resulting in increasing sales and extreme return on investments for a studio.
Furthermore, with the evolution of social media, movie studios are exploring new approaches to target audiences and increase profits.