Mastering the Facebook Fundamentals

By Brooke Shelby Biggs

Managing Editor of Independent Lens Brooke Shelby Biggs runs through some best practices on how to create and maintain an effective Facebook page.

One of the biggest mistakes people make with Facebook is presuming that their page (for a program or a station or a film) is basically an online brochure for the brand. In fact, your Facebook page is much, much more than that — it’s an information source, a conversation, a customer service center, and a content platform. Getting the most out of your Facebook page requires attention to detail, especially at the beginning. Here are a few basic rules when you’re starting out:

• Post enough, but not too much. Posting on a Facebook page is a delicate dance. You don’t want to be so quiet that people forget about you, but you don’t want to be such a blowhard that they tune you out (hide your posts from their newsfeed or “Unlike” you). Once or twice a day seems to be the sweet spot for new pages. Opinions and research differ on the optimal times of day to post, but it is common wisdom that you’ll do best if you space your posts out liberally.
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Tags: brooke shelby biggs, Facebook, Independent Lens, online engagement, Social Media, Twitter

First Things First: Pick the Right Platform

By Brooke Shelby Biggs

We will be offering weekly tips for independent filmmakers and public media entities on getting the most out of social media. Visit BTB Thursdays for some good advice for your Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking strategies.

No matter if you are a filmmaker, a station, or a public media brand, the very first place to start is by creating (or switching to) a Facebook page. Note, I say page, and not group or profile. This is an absolutely crucial distinction.

A Facebook profile is designed to be the outward-facing real estate for an individual human being. In fact, brands that use profiles rather than pages are in violation of Facebook’s terms. While Facebook has not yet shut down brands using profiles, they have made clear that it is within their rights to do so, and it’s not worth the risk.
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Tags: brooke shelby biggs, Facebook, filmmaker tips, multiplatform engagement, Social Media, tips, Twitter

Note to Independent Producers: Be More Social!

By Jonathan Archer

As part of ITVS Programming’s ongoing mission to serve the filmmaking community, Jonathan Archer has been seeking out filmmakers to provide their perspectives and experiences from the trenches. First up, The Weather Underground producer, Marc Smolowitz. He recently presented on a panel entitled The Power of Storytelling and was kind enough to share some of his thoughts and strategies with BTB.

Scene from The Power of Two by Marc Smolowitz

Last month, I presented at the Netsquared Meetup in San Francisco on “The Power Of Storytelling.” I decided to connect my remarks to two current labors of love — The Power Of Two — my feature documentary inspired by the life stories of twin double lung recipients; and The HIV Story Project — a new nonprofit that I co-founded in 2009.
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Tags: Facebook, funding, independent producers, indies, ITVS, PBS, producer tips, Social Media, the weather underground, Twitter

Lessons from the IndiesLab: Digital Survey in Review

IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins

This month, IndiesLab is launching a new feature, “Lessons from the Lab,” a regular blog with new marketplace data and observations about what’s working and what’s not in the digital space for indies. This month, we are building on the knowledge gleaned from our 2009 ITVS Digital Survey which polled nearly 1,000 independent filmmakers about their attitudes and strategies towards digital distribution and promotion. Here’s what we found:

Survey Finding: Only one in five respondents generated any revenue from digital distribution, and those who did reported income in the low four figures.

Lab Report: Although it is true that the revenue we are seeing for the average-performing film is very modest. The overall revenue generated by our library is increasing as a result of careful branding under the newly created “PBS Indies” brand, the addition of high-quality titles, and the growing consumer adoption of devices suited for long-form viewing, like iPads.

A few of our films have broken out. These exceptionally good films share another characteristic: filmmakers who thought about digital distribution and promotion from day one. Their production workload included managing a blog, growing a Facebook page, building a Twitter following, and creating digital enhancements as part of production activities. Our survey indicated that nearly 40 percent of producers have a blog, and 35 percent of domestic producers use Twitter, compared to 23 percent of international producers.

Lesson: Keep in mind, the people who follow you during production will be the film’s future marketers and market. If you wait until broadcast to think digital, you lose valuable audience-building time.

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Tags: digital distribution, documentary, independent films, Social Media

IndiesLab participates in The Conversation at Columbia University

The Independent Digital Distribution Lab –– IndiesLab for short –– is a joint initiative of ITVS and PBS designed to help filmmakers navigate the marketplace and to generate revenue streams while also having a social impact. Last weekend, IndiesLab’s Director Davin Hutchins, attended The Conversation, a one-day conference held at Columbia University to create a dialogue and an exchange of ideas around social media, digital distribution and the future of film.

IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins

This past weekend in New York City, several hundred filmmakers descended upon Columbia University for The Conversation. Although years have passed since the first Conversation was held in Berkeley, California, this year’s pow-wow – organized by Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain and Cinematech blogger Scott Kirsner – featured many luminaries from the independent film world. The goal: to seed new ideas and pollinate older ideas to chart a course of online distribution.

Clear answers on the best direction forward were elusive. IndiesLab shared the stage on a panel with Matt Dentler of Cinetic Rights Management/FilmBuff, Scilla Andreen, CEO, IndieFlix and Ryan Werner, VP of Marketing, IFC Entertainment. When pressed by the moderator on what constitutes a successful online film title in monetary terms, our panel fumbled for encouraging data.

One of the most sobering thoughts came from Ira Deutchman, head of Columbia University’s Producing Program. He asserted that because inexpensive production technology and free distribution is available to everyone now, the democratization of filmmaking is in full-force. But that’s a double-edged sword. Hundreds more auteurs in the marketplace does not necessarily mean hundreds more Michael Moores. In fact, it’s quite the opposite; it takes that much more talent to rise above the noise. Deutchman suggested that the independent filmmaker’s future career may more closely resemble that of musicians or painters, where tens of thousands eek out a subsistence living while only a few dozen secure critical acclaim and lucrative returns. Richard Lorber, CEO, Kino Lorber, summed up online distribution this way: “Everything is possible and nothing is working.”

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Tags: Columbia University, digital distribution, IndiesLab, Social Media, The Conversation