Written by Lance Weiler

Last November the internet hit a major milestone, over a 100 million sites with registered domain names and active content. The web is considered to be the great equalizer for filmmakers, one which promises cost effective promotion and distribution. But where do you start and what’s the best way to design a cost effective online promotional campaign that can help you build an audience for your work? Here are few suggestions to help you get started.

It is never too early – There’s an old adage, don’t seek publicity too early for a project because the press won’t cover it twice. For some reason people apply the same theory to their online strategies and often wait until the last minute to create a site for their work. By waiting until the last minute they loose valuable time that could have been used to build their audience. For instance I used the audience that I cultivated for HEAD TRAUMA to help me promote the movie at my festival showings, during my theatrical runs across the country and most recently with the Cinema ARG screenings.

Identify your audience – This might sound simple but you’d be amazed how often filmmakers say, I made the film for people like me. Maybe this is true, but you need to take some time to identify your audience. Who are they and what will attract them to your work? Once you know who the audience is you can start to figure out the best way to reach them online. In some cases you will also be able to find partners to help you amplify your reach.

Know your hooks – You want people to keep coming back to your sites. What is it about your project that will get people to return or better yet subscribe to your RSS feed or join your mailing list? Is it capturing the process with updates on production or post? Or maybe creating additional content in the form of a video podcast? FOUR EYED MONSTERS created a podcast that’s been viewed over 1.5 million times, and helped to drive large numbers of people to the project. The podcast turned the cameras on their struggle to find distribution. Other hooks could come from storylines, characters or topics that could relate to your film. In many cases the hooks you need are the same ones that sets your project apart from the pack. Chances are the hooks you use to promote will also be the hooks that you can use when it comes time to do a press push.

The power of RSS – Break the static site trend ( trailer, news, cast, crew etc.). If people can not subscribe to your sites, then you are going to loose a large part of your audience. RSS (really simple syndication) allows your audience to subscribe to your sites. Most blogs for instance will kick out an RSS feed. The value of RSS is that people will be notified every time you update your pages without having to visit your site. The odds of someone returning to your site on a regular basis, without being notified of any new updates is low. RSS will notify them in a variety of ways – via a news reader likebloglines, or browsers like firefox and IE) OR via email thanks to services like feedburner and feedblitz. Allowing your audience to pull your content will make things much easier for you in the long run and most importantly keep your audience engaged.

Embed and Spread – Another cost effective way to promote or distribute your work online, is to give your audience something that they can take with them. For instance when it came time to promote HEAD TRAUMA, I created a variety of digital swag that could easily be embedded into my audience’s sites, blogs, and / or social networking pages. Once it was embedded it helped to spread the reach of my efforts. In a sense I was crowdsourcing my promotion, so that people could discover my content over the web. I created web shorts, an audio player with interviews, banners, and wallpaper. Not only does this help to reach more eyeballs, it also helps to engage the audience. It entertains, informs and most importantly is infectious.