Social Networking For Indie Filmmakers

May 16th, 2010 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in 17 West | Design | Technology | Web

Twitter

I joined Twitter on May 26, 2009. It’s been nearly a year but I didn’t really understand how to use it until November. Back then, I was following about 30 people with about 26 or 27 following me back. I tweeted once a week at best and really didn’t see myself continuing with the social networking giant.

Then I started researching how to really get the most out of Twitter. More and more I understood how Twitter could benefit both myself and 17 West Productions.

So I started tweeting at least once a day and I followed tons of people. I skipped following celebrities and big companies and focused more on people like me: Filmmakers, Editors, Motion Graphics Artists. I followed people who tweeted about things I wanted to know more about like Graphic Design, Distribution and Social Networking Experts. Many followed me back.

I’ve now gathered over 500 followers and it’s steadily rising.

I can now use this resource as a way to market and promote 17 West’s films as well as The Athletic Nerd. Marketing experts would say that you have to know your audience and go after them hard. I’m making progress.

Tip: If people follow you. Follow them back. It works both ways.

Beyond that, I always have film related tweets streaming through my feed so it’s easy to stay up to date on trends and breaking news.

If you’re an independent filmmaker looking to gain some exposure, I recommend sifting through Twitter Lists of fellow film enthusiasts and follow them all. (In moderation of course.)

Tip: I try not to let my follow/follower ratio get out of hand. There is usually a 20-30 difference between the two.

Facebook

The King of all social networking platforms is Facebook and 17 West has a group but I’m still trying to work out how to use Facebook to our advantage. Between the new ‘like’ feature and groups/pages, I’m still working out how to organize our presence on the massive site.

Regardless, I try to post exclusive content on our group every few months. Especially when it comes to photo galleries and major updates.

However, I do regularly post updates from my blog. Not everything mind you, only the posts I think people would enjoy. (Top 10 Lists, Reviews, Featured Articles) I’ve got enough friends to drive some traffic to my websites and that’s really what it’s all about.

Tip: Don’t post EVERYTHING. I find that people who post too often, whether it’s business or personal, become annoying over time.

Youtube

17 West’s Youtube channel is about to get a complete overhaul. With new films in production and a ton of new clips and trailers on the way, I’ve been working on a new design for our page to better reflect our company.

This presents some challenges as recently, Youtube redesigned their channel layouts which will require some research before I dive into a new design. Luckily, I’ve built up so many graphics elements over the years so I have a library to turn to I need to.

Blogs

Without a doubt, the best decision I made over the last year was to separate my blog from 17 West’s main website. In the beginning, I wrote about anything and everything related to film. Eventually, I wanted to expand my blog and launched a completely different brand, The Athletic Nerd, to compliment my production company.

Now I have two separate sites that play off of each other.

From a technical standpoint, my new blog was built on the WordPress framework so it was easier to update and freed me up to post as often as I wanted.

Even further, this allowed me to focus on SEO and really build up some traffic from search engines. It’s not easy to accomplish a first page listing on Google but as traffic on The Athletic Nerd rises, so does 17west.ca.

Portfolio Sites

I also decided to launch new sites dedicated solely to Eric and I. We each have our own site to promote our work with dozens of links to our main site. The goal is to promote our work as individuals as well. Each of these sites have gone through changes and relaunches but the more I refine them, the better it will be for the entire network.

jaymckinnon.com and ericgamache.com will continue to evolve with the rest of our network.

The Goal

When I first started building up our presence on the web, I wanted people to visit our sites and stick around for a while. We’ve built up enough content to satisfy curiosity about our work but the greatest lessons lies in the way our sites work together.

Each destination drives traffic to another because people who find the trailer for Playing Through on Youtube may have never found 17west.ca.

It’s a small network but a powerful one when we launch new projects.

For example:

Imagine we complete a film.

I can upload a new trailer to Youtube, 17west, The Athletic Nerd, Facebook and our portfolio sites. Then I can write a post about how I edited it on The Athletic Nerd and link them all together. Once that’s done I can send out updates to Twitter, Digg, Stumble Upon, Zimbio and more to further promote the updates.

It’s beautiful. I’m not saying we get 10,000 hits a day by any stretch but we are certainly getting more than we would I the network didn’t exist. Best of all it’s virtually free! All it takes is time and effort.

We just need to create more content now!

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