Here are some excellent examples of Hollywood movies that are leveraging social media for promotion. Have a look, for you can always find ideas or inspiration for promoting a campaign that you are planning for your business, or a new project that you're working on.
1. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
Harry Potters' latest Deathly Hallow Facebook Page has 26,145,890 likes as of now, which features interviews with the cast of the movie, a Harry Potter shop from where fans can buy everything and anything related to HP, from wands to bobbleheads, from Jewelry to HP coin collection, a divination ball, a very interesting “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good” photo panel, soundtracks, stationary and much more....which can be bought within Facebook.
You can also watch all previous HP movies on Facebook, with all other campaigns and contests like 'Join the Quest' and 'Muggle Hub' linked to the page.
There is an exclusive 'Deathly Hallows' Twitter account for Harry Potter with a great design and 293,877 followers as of now. This account is maintained quite professionally and ensures that they reply to 'reply-worthy' tweets mentioning the movie or HP. They tweet classic HP quotes occasionally (which manages quite a few retweets), latest offers, apps, teasers, images, sneak peaks, interviews and interesting articles. There is a whole different Twitter account for HP Quest.
HP Quest
A contest that invites fans to join a quest to explore the world of Harry Potter. “Join the quest and you'll be teamed with fans from around the world on a community adventure to unlock amazing content and rewards! Play games, watch videos, and earn points towards the goals and you'll unlock content that will take you deeper into the world of Harry Potter!” they announce.
Fans can play video games, watch videos, earn points and unlock 'exclusive' digital content and rewards related to HP.
Muggle Hub
A website where fans can view videos, download wallpapers, screensavers, themes, Twitter skins, iPhone wallpapers, generate profile pics and get buddy icons. (Link)
App
Harry Potter's iPhone app lets you view first 5 minutes of the movie and comes with exclusive behind-the-scenes videos. One can find movie posters, gallery photos, production stills and music tracks.
YouTube Channel
A wonderfully designed YouTube channel for Harry Potter displays, tweets, sweepstakes, photos, posters and even a countdown widget in its homepage; other than the videos of course.
2. X-MEN FIRST CLASS
Live Streaming
Before the release of the movie, X-Men's special screening took place in NYC and Marvel invited everyone to witness this event live. They streamed this event live on the internet which also included exclusive interviews with the stars in the movie and other hot-shots present in the event. The event was liveblogged with comments, tweets, information, Facebook questions from the participants sitting on their computers worldwide.
Its disappointing to see that X-Men's Facebook page has its wall as the landing page, rather than beautifully designed welcome page that lures the visitor to 'like' this page instantly. Nevertheless, when you click on 'First Class' tab, you will find trailers of the movie and can pose questions to the producer, director and characters of the movie. An interesting way to engage the fans by giving them the opportunity to understand the characters of the movie through Q&A sessions.
This page also has a X-change app, that invites fans to answer couple of questions to reveal their psyche and uncover their hidden powers; according to the answer the fan will be selected to be recruited in “Xavier's School for Gifted Minds” in exchange for a student or a professor in the school. An app that will definitely intrigue hard core X-Men fans. I was selected to X-Change with Charles. :D
As opposed to Facebook, X-Men's Twitter account has have fewer followers (3955 as of now). But they make sure they respond to genuine and sensible tweets, and also tweet about contests and movie tickets occasionally.
App
X-Men Extra app has been rolled out by Fox Mobile Entertainment Inc with features like flip pages, touch photos, touch text and hidden videos. Its more of a magazine, with news articles about the characters of the movie featuring updates every now 'n then. You've gotto to love the design of this app that brings a vintage look to your smartphone and is pretty interactive too.
3. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2
A movie that was made within $15,000 and earned $7.9 million in the box office. Just like the movie, their marketing tactics were quite spooky.
Top Horror Blogs
The marketing team of this movie realized that the best way to promote this movie is by generating curiosity online, therefore, they sent different clips to bloggers. This clips were around twenty seconds with a little scene of the movie, without any explanation. When posted online, it generated a stir with people guessing and analyzing the movie. They gave each site a different clip, thereby encouraging discussions, comments and interlinking.
Demand
Before the release of the movie, the marketers behind this movie encouraged fans to 'Demand' to see the movie. 20 cities with most demands was to win free screening. Once the movie received 1,000,000 demands, it opened nationwide.
They allowed the fans to share this 'Demand' campaign among their friends via email, Facebook, Twitter or via links. It spread like wild-fire on Twitter and became one of the most trending topic.
The marketers also posted videos with reactions of scared people watching the movie. :-o
Word-Of-Mouth
They equipped their fans with curiosity through videos and incentive through 'Demand' campaign and sat back to watch everything work in auto-mode. People talked and talked about it, guessing and analyzing what the movie could be all about.
Even today, word-of-mouth is most effective marketing strategy there ever could be.
Here's what Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com had to say about Paranormal Activity's social media campaign, “On the social-networking sites, everybody's talking about how freaking sacrt the movie is, this does not happen ebveru day. This is literally capturing lightning in a bottle.”
Guess what, Paranormal Activity 3 is already on its way, all we know is that it will be released on October 21st, it'll be interesting to see their marketing campaign for this one.
If you can think of some other movie that intelligently used social media for their marketing campaigns, then do share them with us in the comment section below.
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