Twitter is the most powerful, bang-for-the-buck tool available to filmmakers, period. In fact it’s the most powerful tool for marketing anything that I’ve seen in years. If you’re not using it to promote your film and your career, you are leaving money, power and fame on the table! No joke.
If you still don’t quite “get” Twitter, and think it’s a silly fad, or that it’s just for telling strangers that you’re thirsty, prepare to be converted!
What You Used To Have To Do
In the recent past, to gain access to your interested audience, you had to get them to “opt in” to your mailing list somehow. To do that, you’d need to pay a web designer, pay a web developer, pay monthly for web hosting, pay monthly for an email management software… and spend god-knows-how-long in design meetings and calls, writing copy for all the web pages, proofing, and then writing compelling newsletters every week.
That process takes as long to get through as that run-on sentence. Now, along comes Twitter, and suddenly you can create a list of hundreds or thousands of “opt-in” followers whom you can access 24 hrs a day. You can reach them with nimble and timely messaging, and you can create warm, trusting 2-way relationships with them.
Before you know it, your target audience actually becomes your marketing department!
For free!
But What IS It?
Twitter is a tool that lets people follow the “tweets” of others, and lets others follow your tweets. A tweet is anything you write that is under 140 characters; like a question, a remark about something you’re seeing, or a link to an interesting article.
When you follow someone, every time they tweet, it appears on your page. Once you’re following dozens or hundreds of people, your page is continuously updating with interesting thoughts, quotes and links.
How To Start?
It’s easy to get started in the Twittersphere!
1. People relate to people, not titles
2. This exercise’s goal is to enhance your whole career, not just the fortunes of one film
3. If you sell the film, there could be rights issues with using the title
Congratulations, you now have your Twitter account. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Now, if you wish, Twitter will search your email contacts to see if anyone you know has a Twitter account so you can follow them. I recommend doing it. It’s not specifically relevant to finding niche audience for your current film, but it is relevant to connecting with people who are fans of YOU.
You can then follow instructions to set up your mobile phone. In Parts II and III, I’ll share how I use an iPhone app to use Twitter via my phone.
You! Who?
Now click on “Settings” on the menu bar at the top, and fill in ALL your info. Statistics show that people with a picture get many more followers, as do people with a bio, as do those who include their website. The more specific information you include about you, the more successful you will be on Twitter!
For your bio, you only get 160 characters (that includes spaces!) so you’ve gotta be pithy. Remember the goal of this enterprise: to find and connect with people who will be attracted to your film and to you.
So, with that in mind, describe at least a couple of different facets of you that cut across the professional and personal. For example, my bio reads: “Empowerer of independent filmmakers. Eternal learner. Chocolate: yes. Chili powder: no.”
Get it? If your film is a documentary about endangered tigers, but you also are an expert knitter, mention it! Sharing people’s contradictions is part of what makes relating enjoyable. Overcome your fear that you’ll seem weird, and flaunt it! If you can add a conversation starter, even better!
Now, Tweet!
Go ahead - you can always delete. But what to tweet? Remember, you’re trying to be interesting to your target audience (fans of your film and of you). So using that as your guide, I recommend Guy Kawasaki’s advice: Always Be Linking. Find a favorite blog that relates to your film, or to filmmaking in general, and post a link to it.
Search For Fun And Profit
Now, for the meat: accumulating followers in your niche audience. Do this with the Search function (in the box at the right). Search for terms that relate to the theme of your film. You’ll find all the instances that people are mentioning those terms in their tweets. Guess what? There’s a good chance they’re interested in your film’s core themes!
Follow them. In the culture of Twitter, most people will follow you back. Many people feel that it’s just rude not to. Before you know it, you’ll be following and followed by hundreds of people in your target market.
Learn And Do
Spend some time with all the functionalities of Twitter. Read others’ tweets. Get the hang of it. Learn. And you’ll grow into a pro. Of course, follow me, too! I look forward to getting to know you.
Soon I’ll elaborate on this discussion, with 3rd party apps, communication, and strategies for building your follower list.
Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/adamchapnick.
This article was originally posted by Adam Chapnick on blog.diydistribution.com.