Building an Online Fan Base

Long term net positive in generating an online fan base.

What are people been doing to develop a fan base?

• Swanberg. Has a personal website linking to his work. Has a presence on myspace. Its easy for younger audience to follow and digest content.
• Weiler. For his movie, headtrauma, developed a website with an immersive experience with a lot of visual aspects. Incorporate ARG aspects such as phone number, text messages, ring backs, easter egg site - all tied closely together. for example, text messages back and forth WHILE the user is on the site - then a phone call to the user, and playing back the user’s audio on the site - using IVR platform. (whoah) He was also involved in social networks, social media, spoke at universities, and had an extended street team. Lance also created link-farm websites to increase page rank on google. More info at workbookproject.org. Create short content clips (on social websites, internet radio, etc) and notify fan sites.
• Miller. For each film, for example “Iraq for sale”, reach out to activist groups to view film and effect a street team for the films and have house-screenings. Creates a network of interested parties. Brave New Theatres. Creates a network of people willing to support movie and cause through investment and donations.
• Schafer. Clerks II, for example, has myspace member friends list initiatives to gain links back to clerks, ie MySpace bribery and gained target of 10,000 within 6 hours. This got people into the theatres by keeping in contact with members. Further, Kevin Smith stays in close contact with fans with open conversation.
• Straus. “Take fans from one movie to the next to the next. Advertise your new film through acvertising your previous film.” Without a box - Audience by Withoutabox brings together filmmakers, film festivals, film industry and film-loving audiences. - destination to house, host and manage content for filmakers.

A few other random points:

• User generated content (ala Snakes on a plane) may create evangelists. Snakes on a plane user-generated content was seeded by film company.
• Starting a fan base for a film: grass roots. Phone calls, get into festivals. Initiate conversation with potential audiences - people actively seek new movie information a month out from the release. Public relations and conversations need to be started around the movie - nurture personal relationships (director to fan) through blogs, myspace, etc.

Panelists:

• Scott Kirsner Editor, CinemaTech
• Scilla Andreen Co-Founder, IndieFlix
• Jim Miller Executive Director, Brave New Foundation
• Ian Schafer CEO, Deep Focus
• David Straus CEO, Without A Box Inc
• Joe Swanberg Dir, Hannah Takes the Stairs
• Lance Weiler Filmmaker, Workbook Project