With the advent of the World Wide Web, a movie’s website address was used at the end of movie ads, then came ‘Like us on Facebook’ and now Twitter is the social network of choice when it comes to film promotion.
The upcoming Bond film Skyfall displays the #SKYFALL hashtag on the outro of the official UK cinema trailer. There’s no mention of the website or Facebook Page. Use of the hashtag in this way centres the conversation in a single stream and encourages fans to talk about and promote the film. The Official @007 account and @sonypicturesuk tweet news and info although there’s no engagement in conversation with fans.
The Sweeney trailer also omits the Facebook Page from the official UK trailer and with no website for the film the focus is entirely on Twitter. Viewers of the trailer are encouraged to ‘TUNE IN @THESWEENEYHQ‘ a message which is displayed on its own frame at the end of the trailer.
The account is regularly updated with news, information and engages fans in conversation and gets them involved in competitions. Note the use of the competition hashtag #SweeneyBoss which helps spread the word and makes it easy for competition organisers to identify entries.
For a chance to win @hugoboss_uk sunglasses, tweet us a picture of your cinema ticket using the #SweeneyBoss tag! yfrog.com/moc2qkj
— The Sweeney HQ (@thesweeneyHQ) September 15, 2012
The language used is in the style of the film – ‘shlags’, ‘you spanner’, ‘break your legs!’ which makes it highly entertaining and good fun. The account uses #thesweeney hashtag to bring all the conversation around the film together.
If you see any interesting examples of social media being used to help promote movies please let me know.