Seven Ways to Fail at Promoting Your Film Online (Broken Record Edition)

"Since repetition in the form of rote memorization is a major element of education, I’m not going to apologize for this, one of my periodic rants on the ways in which filmmakers (and, sometimes, their publicists) fail in the promotion of their films online and through social media. I’m sure that over the years I’ve posted every one of these points before, as have other writers on our site, like Jon Reiss. But, based on my encounters with filmmakers, their films, and their websites these past few weeks, these are worth repeating.

Want to decrease press interest and the size of your audience? Then do these seven things.

1. Include, but fail to utilize, your social links. I wrote about a film recently that had been in production for several years and finally premiered at a festival. But when I decided to include the film’s Twitter handle, I noticed that the account didn’t have a single posting. If you don’t want to tweet, don’t, but if you do set up an account, make it active. Don’t give the impression you are too lazy to promote your film and don’t care about communicating with your viewers.

2. Let your blog or Facebook page lie dormant. Here’s a related one. I’ve checked out a few websites and Facebook pages recently for films I know are in post. There are blogs and timelines, yes, but no updates within the last year or even two. Did these films disappear? Has truly nothing happened?

Launching a blog or Facebook page is a double-edged sword. Once they are up, people expect updates, and wonder what’s going on when they’re not. However, a constant string of inconsequential updates can be detrimental too. It can look like a film is flailing. I have two pieces of advice here. The first is that you don’t always have to post about your film. You can update your fans and followers with posts about topics related to your film, or the work of your collaborators. You can maintain dialogue, maintain the impression that you are still alive, while not micro-announcing every festival rejection. My other piece of advice? If you’re not willing or able to keep posting, announce that you are taking a break. Inform your readers that the next time they’ll be hearing from you is when your film is ready to launch, and you’ll have a new, 2.0 version of the site. To my mind, that’s better than making your last post a 2010 folder of shots from your wrap party."

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