Building A Bigger Audience

We all have something in common here at WSN.  We've made a web-series.  Not the easiest feat, whether it be raising money to make it in the first place or assembling a cast and crew.  Then, once it's completed, you slap your video on YouTube or Vimeo and then......then what?  Sure we can promote our web-series heavily through social networks like Facebook or Twitter, but that's only gonna get so many views.  How do we get the big numbers on our view count?!

So these last few days I've been scouring the internet looking for some new marketing avenues for our recently released web-series 'Castle Siege' and was curious what some you guys have tried with success and some things you've tried that didn't work so well.

Has anyone tried marketing more heavily in their own neighborhood first (the city you live in) and with what kind of results?  Are you strictly using social media networks and is it working? 

I hope everyone participates in this conversation so we can help each other grow and get some great exposure for all our hard work. 


Stephen

Castle Siege's Official Website

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Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on December 9, 2011 at 10:22am

Awesome thread Stephen! 

"Has anyone tried marketing more heavily in their own neighborhood first (the city you live in) and with what kind of results?"


Your neighborhood is NOT your audience. You should be targeting your audience (if you know who they are). I like to use the skateboard analogy. For instance, if you're making a series about skaters, you should be speaking with skate/surf shop owners in your neighborhood to see about posting posters of your series in their establishment. Printing and applying posters illegally across town is a complete waste of time and money.  

"Are you strictly using social media networks and is it working?"

Social media should be a supplement to offline/paid marketing campaigns. As mentioned tweeting and Facebooking can only get you so far. 

Permalink Reply by Elisar Cabrera on December 13, 2011 at 3:14am

To be fair, the concept of neighbourhood depends on where you live.  If you are in LA then you don't have a "neighbourhood" so to speak because LA = H0llywood and therefore the studios and everything around them dominate.

But there are municipalities within cities and towns where local radio stations and local newspapers are very, very supportive of local filmmakers and artists and will promote their endeavours to the "neighbourhood" as it brings a hint of glamour to their area.

But as Rich says this is not targeting who your personal niche audience will be for your series, its more general and therefore the response can be hit or miss and will be harder to develop long term audience loyalty from. But its certainly good for some positive press clippings and to get an initial local interest in what you do and maybe could improve your local profile for when your next series is in production you can tap into local journalists who will want to come on set and report to begin the publicity early.

Permalink Reply by stephen folker on December 16, 2011 at 11:39am

@Rich

I agree with finding your market and hitting them up.  I myself need to do bit more prodding in that area and define what type of market will get the most out of my web-series.


@Elisar,

Some very good points.  By neighborhood, I guess I meant for those of you living in a smaller area than LA or Chicago or NYC.  Local ads in papers, local magazines, etc. 

Anyone have some feedback.  Would love to hear more about what people are doing.  Being newer to filmmaking (less than year) I notice so many people inquire about raising funds....vs... marketing which I feel is so very important.   If people can't see your finished product, or don't know where to go, then you've lost.   I want people to see my work. 


As of right now, I've posted to Vimeo & YouTube.  Since posting to YouTube, I'm been pushing that channel bit more, but either way it's exposure on two sites.  I'm trying to find some Web Series Sites that will host our videos.  I'd love to get on Mingle.  They seem like a great site that pushes the web-series that are on there.  Not sure of what's out there other than Koldcast.  Anyone know of other sites?  I know there's Blip.



Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on December 19, 2011 at 1:29pm

The problem with distribution sites like Mingle and Koldcast is that you're one of hundreds of shows on there, so you're ain't gonna get that special one-on-one attention that only you could provide. It's okay to hyper-syndicate, but the key it to push your own show and grow your base! No one can promote you better than you can promote yourself!

Permalink Reply by Kim Watkins on January 16, 2012 at 2:12am

I am curious too.  I know that you won't get far asking your facebook friends to be the best direction, but you can design a simple facebook ad and customize the frequency of your ad appearing on facebook pages around the country.  You can choose the age group(s), gender, occupation, geographical locations, and many more variables that you want your ads to be limited to... or you can have an unlimited target pool.  You can choose and change your frequency and quantity of the ads per day depending on the results that are graphed daily for you, and you can make the ad itself a hot button that will take you directly to your show.  It really is a gold mine if you ask me.  Make your icon/photo eye-catching, and make your tag line enticing and then, make their curiousity rapidly satisfied by getting them to your content as fast as possible... by clicking on the ad.  With all that considered, is it still considered a supplemental marketing scheme? 

Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on January 16, 2012 at 11:16am

Great post, Kim. I advocate marketing and advertising, but how many people really click on these expensive Facebook ads? I don't. I think pre-roll advertising is where its at. Reach out to other creators for pre-roll swaps and product placements. Join the WSN marketing group and link with those interested in these sort of hybrid marketing campaigns. It's all about experimenting and you never know until you try.

Permalink Reply by Kim Watkins on January 17, 2012 at 3:47am

Ah, yes.  that would be our plan if the series is a hit.  Is there any hope for getting product placements for the first season and/or the pilot? 

Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on January 17, 2012 at 10:16am

"Is there any hope for getting product placements for the first season and/or the pilot?"

Don't understand. Please expand.

Permalink Reply by tbonepearson on January 17, 2012 at 10:28am

@Kim It would be pretty hard to get a product placement in your first season unless you were getting AMAZING views, it took us until the second season of Spellfury and around 4 million views.

Permalink Reply by Kim Watkins on January 17, 2012 at 12:40pm

That's what I thought.  Back to expanding your audience, this is why I believe facebook and other social networks are good for getting views (expanding audience).  After that, providing the results are favorable, then product placement can be an option.  That's all I was trying to point out.  I click on those ads.  I know countless companies whose business comes from nothing but Facebook ads.  I have run ads successfully and for very little money (you dictate your budget and they adjust to it).  So, naturally, I think of it as a good place to expand from the  audience that you have built from YouTube and Vimeo. 

Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on January 17, 2012 at 12:45pm

Kim, I like that you take out paid advertising to supplement free social media push. I encourage creators to experiment with both paid and free marketing/advertising initiatives.

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