There is a disconnect for ‘Creatives’ when it comes to
marketing. Not ALL creatives of
course. Top YouTubers, Bloggers and
successful film producers have understood it for years. But some of us like to think, “The Really Big
clebs/writers/actors don’t even run their own Twitter/Blog/Facbook page. Why should I?”
SMH… (That’s short for ‘shaking my head’ for the
uninitiated.)
It’s true – there are those whose fame and success predated
the days of MySpace, Facebook and Tumblr, who never have and never will lift a
finger to promote themselves online. But
those were the days of analog. Welcome to the digital world, Baby!
The best way to get noticed is online. When I tried to sell my first film, I was
working with a partner who insisted we DIDN’T develop an online presence.
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| ACTION!!! - the funniest film you STILL haven't heard of (now available on Amazon.com!) |
“The distributor does that for you,” he told me. I was only one person. I was doing a lot of work without very many
hands to help me – so I listened.
I wish I hadn’t.
We took the film to a festival and scheduled meetings
with several distributors. We had a
mostly finished product and a great pitch.
People loved the concept. They
loved the fact that the hard work of production was complete.
Then they asked me who was in it.
My answer included a couple local celebrities, but no names
with real ‘draw.’ So they asked me what
kind of fan base we’d built on Facebook, Twitter and our website. My partner proudly spoke up.
“Well, we figured we’d let the pros at your company come up
with a marketing plan…”
They said without a solid online fan base, it was too big a
risk to sign a comedy with only unknown talent.
So I went back, all by my little self, and tried to build an
online presence. But I really didn’t
understand how to leverage social media.
I also discovered that it’s practically a fulltime job. Back in the days of MySpace, everyone would
‘Friend’ everyone all willy-nilly. It
was the ‘Free Love’ movement of the Internet.
But with tighter privacy controls on Facebook and even Twitter, it was
almost impossible for low-profile people and projects to get much attention.
So my next couple blogs will include tips I’d like to pass
on to my fellow Creatives about using Facebook and Twitter.
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| "Online Privacy" is an oxymoron - get used to it! |
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT…
Thou Shalt Accept Requests and Follows from Everyone (who
isn’t a ‘porn-bot.’)
“But I don’t know those people,” you scream. “I need to protect my precious online
reputation and privacy!”
Get over it! Success
bears with it a certain level of notoriety – celebrity even. Don’t DO anything
online that doesn’t enhance your brand or represent you in a way you don’t want
people to see. Just because your friend
took a great photo of you passed out in your own vomit after a party doesn’t
mean you should post it for all of your online friends to see – ever! The
events (Snowden) of this past year should stand as more than adequate evidence
that nothing online is ‘private’ in spite of your preferred settings on
Facebook. Wanna be successful? Get noticed.
Wanna get noticed? Get online –
and do your best not to make an a$$ of yourself!
(PS - You might want to be careful about using words like 'a$$' in public online posts too...)
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