The phenomenal Twilight Saga continues with New Moon… in the weeks leading up to its opening weekend it has garnered a great deal of attention and awareness. This is not a surprise given the techniques they have adopted.

So how have they generated so much publicity and how can it be applied to an independent film?

The producers and marketing team behind the series have gone to great lengths to take full advantage of social media techniques, but have recognized the importance of offline PR techniques in providing interesting material to promote. Here are some of the online techniques used:

Twitter – Twilight allowed, through its Twitter account, the opportunity to directly ask the actors questions about the film. Proving once again that access is crucial to the success of the film.

Some links:

@Twilight – Twilight from Summit Entertainment
@Peter Facinelli – Dr. Carlisle Cullen
@Billy Burke – Chief Swan
@Ashley Greene – Alice Cullen

iPhone Apps: Twilight clearly felt the need to create an iPhone app. The concept was to encourage interaction with fans, and for them to pay a small fee for the privilege: Peter Facinelli and Billy Burke created an app that provided insight into characters, biographies, etc., giving additional background and depth to the story. movie.

Facebook – By providing exclusive opportunities to their fans prior to the film’s release and by providing one-of-a-kind interviews with the main cast, the production team allowed fans who weren’t able to meet the cast and crew in person the chance to get more information and approach. them by becoming a fan on Facebook. They opened discussion forums and provided images to provide some behind-the-scenes opportunities.

Red Carpet Live Stream: A live online broadcast from the red carpet showed the arrival of the film’s stars; they used ‘UStream’, which worked particularly well for this and generated a record amount of traffic. There’s no reason independent filmmakers can’t do the same, with a bit of effort… that said, there needs to be awareness, which can be generated by some of the other techniques demonstrated here.

You Tube – Many imitations on You Tube of many of the ‘Twihards’. This was smart as the knock-offs themselves promote the movie. It may be possible to get some team members to do an impression of the movie they’re working on for you and post it on YouTube.

offline promotion

Meet People In Person – Create Massive PR Offline

The entire cast, which includes the werewolves and the Volturi (the organized coven of “real” vampires), are making appearances everywhere you can imagine! This means that by meeting people in person, they are creating connections. These connections will be equivalent to the sale of tickets and merchandise. They also held press conferences in Japan, Brazil and Mexico, to give their advertising a bit of global exposure.

trailers

Of course, there are many of the more traditional methods used to promote the film. The trailers appeared prominently in theaters and online months before the film’s release and were made as soon as post-production began. Something definitely recommended by movie marketers to spice up the movie and create interest.

brand share

All the usual ‘big brand’ accompaniments followed the film’s release, which naturally meant reaching all big brand customers: AT&T ringtones, for example, are typical for generating publicity and awareness.

Of course, this is not something small independent film producers can do. But maybe there are local companies willing to support the production and promote it at launch, especially if they have multiple clients.

competitions

Twilight adopted several competitions. For example, the chance to win a trip to Italy is one of the big opportunities offered to the brand’s customers through sweepstakes and hide-and-seek-style participation to find clues to win the trip. Volvo offered the opportunity to win the car that Edward drives. We can’t do that, but could you win some of the props?!

Even without a big brand on board, this is something that could go viral and a small budget allocation could provide a huge promotional opportunity.

conclusion

Therefore, most of these techniques are entirely possible to adopt on a very small budget; is simply a case of:

1. Go where the audience is
2. Take them to something they find interesting
3. Create “Buzz” through offline and online PR
4. Content is king: create something!
5. Do it early, while it’s still in production or even before you start promoting your film.
6. Create a website to generate traffic

My recommended online tools are: Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, plus the new movie marketing tool, One Fat Cigar.com. To learn more about online promotion, I recommend reading the following article which provides some details on techniques to generate online traffic for your movie.