Social Media Marketing: Selling Zombie with a Shotgun
Social Media following doesn’t appear as easy as many think…
It’s a job! It requires your attention on a daily basis.
When starting Zombie with a Shotgun, I was like many people, I didn’t want to go online and start selling myself. It took me about two years to finally realize that was the only way for me to get out there. So, I signed to all the social platforms that I felt would benefit Zombie with a Shotgun. I signed up for the usual suspects Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo, etc. Also, it’s very helpful to have a website/blog to update everything. (I used Tumblr)
Having my film under a popular genre helped. Horror with zombies made it a bit easier to connect with a lot of people in the social media world, but it still took time to get the word out about my film.
It took about a good year and a half to find a good rhythm on how to connect with people that would be interested in my Zombie project.
What helped was the Zombie with the Shotgun web-series. The web-series consisted of 5 episodes and with each episode, I would shoot out a post. Usually, I posted a still from the episode with the link, either youtube or Vimeo with the HASHTAG, #HORROR #INDIEFILM #ZOMBIE #WEBSERIES.
Twitter was the platform that had many hits when tweeting out the episodes with the stills, but after time it slowed down.
That’s when I came up with getting artwork for Zombie with a Shotgun and the poster was the right move. (If you decide to create a poster for your film, please try to commission someone that knows about movie posters.)
Once that poster was available and shown all over my social media platforms, a new wave of followers was created. People were asking all kinds of questions, such as, is there a feature/movie that is coming out???
At the time, we were looking for investors to come on board and help us to create this feature.
One of the benefits of connecting with a lot of people on social media is that you meet other amazing artists. Which comes to my next wave of followers.
I met an amazing comic book artist by the name of Simone Guglielmini, whose work is shown on IMAGE COMICS, NEAR DEATH. We agreed to work together on creating the 1st comic issue for Zombie with a Shotgun. One of the ideas we discussed was to get one sketched/penciled from one the panels of the comic and post it up on social media. Simone would create two to three sketches a week, which we post them up on social media with Twitter being our main source of getting attention with multiple tweets a day.
I would tag Simone with the post saying, THE SKETCH OF THE DAY, ZOMBIE WITH A SHOTGUN COMIC COMING SOON! #HORROR #INDIECOMIC # INDIEFILM #ZOMBIES #INDIEFILM #SKETCH #ILLUSTRATTIONS.
This was a continuous thing that was going on for about a year. Both Simone and I built an awesome following for each other.
With Twitter, I would have 30 tweets in the morning with the sketches combined with the episodes. I’ll repeat the process in the (4 PM EASTERN TIME) evening.
The next new wave of following through my social media occurred when the start of my campaign launched. After the campaign was done, having behind the scenes of the film during our production was extremely helpful. We’re working on the trailer of the film and screenings of the film which also would help with our following. (LOS ANGELES PREMIERE SEPTEMBER 2019)
With the web-series, artwork/poster, comic and the soon to come feature film of Zombie with a Shotgun, this has built the following of my social media. Just remember this is just the beginning of being an independent artist. The workload gets heavier and we only have our selves to promote our work.
Stay tuned…
The article was written by filmmaker Hilton Ariel Ruiz.
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