10.29

When you’re wearing the many hats of an independent filmmaker, the last thing you probably feel like doing is adding social media to your plate, but these days, you just have to.
Below is a sampler of articles, blog posts and resources for you to peruse while creating a social media plan for your film.
1. David Tames has some great tips in his post, Things self-distributing documentary filmmakers can do to integrate social media into their distribution efforts on Kino-Eye.com, including:
- Have a website for your film, preferably with a blog.
- Post a trailer on YouTube, Vimeo, or blip.tv.
- Set up a Twitter account.
He also recommends three sites: The D-Word, doculink, and DV Info Net.
2. In her article, Indie Film 2.0 – How Social Media is Empowering Independent Filmmakers, Monica Hamburg says filmmakers are using social media for:
- Cross-Platform Storytelling
- Getting their fans to promote
- Asking people to finance or contribute content
3. Hamburg links to a fantastic article by Lance Weiler in Filmmaker Magazine, When the Audience Takes Control, where he recommends 6 online tools for audience building that include (among others) Tangler.com, Freeconferencecall.com, ustream.tv, and Ning.
4. Chan Hsu’s post, A Tale Of Two Filmmakers: Making A Social Network Do the Work on socialmediamarketing.com, describes how two films, The Age of Stupid and Anvil! The Story of Anvil! used social networks to raise funds and create buzz.
5. IndieGoGo is a platform that provides filmmakers with tools for, “fundraising, promotion, and discovery.” According to the Mashable post, How Community Arts Organizations Are Using Social Media by Emily Goligoski, IndieGogo has also created an IndieGogo Facebook Application.
6. Jessi of Support for Filmmakers has posted a list of film-related people she follows on Twitter. Inspired by her list, Steve of 93 Studios posted his own list of people in film to follow on Twitter.
7. A few more online communities/tools for filmmakers I came across were Reel Connect, myProducer.tv, and StoryLink.
What other blogs, articles, books, online communities and online tools do you recommend for filmmakers who want to use social media to market, fundraise for, distribute, or create?
Flickr photo credit: Film Projector uploaded by Pedro Simões.
http://shootingpeople.org – an international networking organization dedicated to the support and promotion of independent filmmaking. Over 35,000 members help each other get their films made and seen!
http://filmnewsbriefs.com – a free resource for filmmakers to stay up to date on industry news, trends and new technologies.
Thank you very much for mentioning me here Britt.
!
Wonderful!
There is also
http://english.crew-united.com/ for professionals in the German speaking film industry,
http://www.filmnet.com/network/ the Network part on filmnet.com and there are some more links on my blog (Link list on the right).
And of course don’t forget to follow Wolfgang @eumagine (http://twitter.com/eumagine) on Twitter, THE indie supporter there.
Thank you very much
Hi Jessica and Ingrid,
Thanks so much for these additional resources!
Thanks for such a resource-rich post! We appreciate the WORK you put in and your consideration in sharing it–
ALL the Best!
Miles Maker
Writer/Director of “Brown Baby” (2010)
The totally FREE movie you can share, remix, re-use and rediscover!
http://www.indiegogo.com/brown-baby
http://www.brownbabymovie.com
http://www.twitter.com/brownbabymovie
Jessi and Miles-Sorry it took so long for your comments to show up–they were stuck in comment moderation.
Jessi-Thanks for the additional resources!
Miles-You’re welcome (: