Having a social media strategy is vital to movie marketing. Having a direct to consumer marketing operation is vital when considering the power of word of mouth when marketing a new film. If you are like me, what do you do when you first hear about a movie? Don’t you go to YouTube to see if there’s a trailer? Do you check Instagram to see if any related content has been released there. Do you check Reddit to see if a fan community is actively engaging in discussion about its impending release?
The bottom line is that social media influencers have the ability to influence millions very quickly for a fraction of the cost of television and less than half the cost of an ad inserted on a streaming platform. A 2024 study on the impact of social media marketing of films and consumer behavior, has found that releasing trailers and teasers in advance of the release of the film directly and positively influences what they call “want to watch conversion rate.” this strategy is successful because of its engagement with the emotions of perspective moviegoers. This same study in the Journal of Business Research also found that even after the movie is released, many moviegoers, remain engaged with social media content releases pertaining to the success of the film in the box office, the famous celebrities featured in it any side stories generated as a result.
Consumers of movie related social media content are likely to share information about the movies they love with their friends with the hope that this would encourage them. The artist Taylor Swift has 280 million followers on Instagram. What does she wear to show her preference for a certain movie trailer and encourage everyone of those 280 million people to get hyped about the release date, and share a link to tickets with their friends and families? If you paid her $3 million to endorse a film on her Instagram page, the return on that investment would be significantly higher. however, what if she did it because she genuinely wanted to do it because the film resonated with her? Her personal marketing engagement with the movie content would be so much more slingshot the emotional engagement of her audience and potential interest in buying movie tickets to a much higher level.
Friends connected on social media and then went to see a movie.
The same is true in the negative. If a movie strikes a negative tone that comes over as unfavorable to certain group in society, negative feedback on social media that goes viral can have a retarding effect on the momentum of public interest in the film and consequently, falling ticket sales. A study in China (featured in Science Direct), examining the movie, consumption habits, and online engagement habits, and patterns of Chinese moviegoers had similar findings, showing a direct correlation between viral engagement and aggressive ticket sales and high return on investments for the film industry. It used a term I had never heard before – eWOM (electronic word of mouth)
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