Movies on Facebook: Creative Ways to Promote DVD Releases

by Member of TrueSocialMetrics team ~ 5 min

Dedicated to Leonard Nimoy: Live long and prosper.

The main goal of Facebook pages for Movies is to promote their theater release and boost tickets sales. But when the show is over, the work continues for a second wave to come - disk releases. I was curious what creative content techniques film studios use to promote their disk releases.

So I looked at the best fantastic movies of 2014 and used the Content Segmentation feature to analyze the ways in which movies promote their disk releases on Facebook. I segmented out all the posts containing the keywords DVD|HD|Blu-ray|Digital HD, which, according to my research, are the keywords used in such promoting posts.

Performed with Segmentation feature

Then I applied this Segment to the Best/Worst posts report to analyze the exact posts each movie used to promote its’ disk release on Facebook during Feb 2014 - Feb 2015:

Performed with Segmentation - Best/Worst posts report

Surprisingly, it wasn’t easy to find some creative ideas of the content announcing releases. The majority of such posts were a simple constatation of the fact of the disk release using the most common keywords for such occasions: “Get”/”Own”/”Take home” the movie. Although that’s not a bad thing: Good movies will probably sell themselves and may not need any extra creative promo efforts. Alongside these simple posts, nice examples of creative approaches bloomed, which I’ll show you below.

Engage fans with funny questions

“Who’s the most villainous villain?” game from Star Trek is a good shot. It demonstrates their great understanding of the target audience. Because that’s what geeks love - long debates with friends about what I would do if I were Spock, and who’s the coolest villain of all time. Trust me, I know :) And one more great example is Star Trek’s most engaging disk-promoting-content - a classic finish-the-line type of post.

Collective activity to engage in the release

“Unlock the release with Snapchat” activity from the Maze Runner or “Create your own trailer” contest from the Edge of Tomorrow. They are going beyond Facebook to engage other media sources and continue interaction with fans outside of the page.

Video extras

The classic move is to advertise extra videos available on the disk: behind the scenes, deleted scenes, funny interviews with actors and other special featurettes. Since these extras are already available on the disks, why not to advertise them on Facebook? This is an obvious and easy way to boost the sales. Needless to say that this promotional technique was invented long before social networks came to be. Every single movie we analyzed used this method, here are just a few examples:

Bribing bonuses

Offering something extra with the disk purchase, besides the common extra videos. For example, Maze Runner offered a bonus mobile game character and a prequel comic for its’ teenage fans. And The Lego Movie bribed the kids (or perhaps their parents) with tickets to Legoland. Guardians of the Galaxy, in turn, proposed an exclusive collection of posters from Matt Ferguson for Groot-lovers.

There are always some creative bonuses a movie can offer, which will interest its unique target audience and will be related to the movie plot. Makes you wonder what bonuses a movie like Fifty Shades of Grey could offer to its fans. :D

Good old contest

The Edge of Tomorrow featured contests created by other brands with the main prize being copies of the Digital HD version of the movie. Every occasion to mention your product is a good occasion.

Sale! Sale! Sale!

And the good old sale, of course. Let's admit we all use this technique. Everyone loves sales. Almost every movie from my research has employed this technique - some more effectively than others.

Pretty nice, huh? Next time I shoot a movie, I will have to steal some of these cool ideas! :)

Takeaways:

• Content Segmentation will help you benchmark the ideas for your specific product from competitors for each occasion of your brand cycle.

• The absence of a creative technique doesn’t necessarily mean the content is ineffective - having few likes on Facebook doesn’t mean disks will sell badly and vice versa. But the increased level of engagement may improve awareness and loyalty of the fans, which may positively influence not only the brand image, but also the sales.