How to advertise your film?

Quality

Quality

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After you've made your short or feature film, what is the best way to advertise it to the media so that as many people as possible can view it? In terms of trailers, behind the scenes etc. What is the best way to advertise your production?
 
Is this your first film project? And when you say "advertise it to the media," what do you mean? Local news? Networks? Social media?

Too much is unknown to answer your question without spitballing. But I'd start with a trailer, and pushing it on social media.
 
I think a Superbowl is a little bit too imaginary. But yes, after you've finished your film, where do you take it from there to be known?
 
If you're looking for a theatrical release $10-$15 million is about minimum for distribution and advertising costs. On the low end, you can hire a press agent to place stories in magazines, trades, etc. (some of which come with a five figure fee you pay on top of hiring the press agent, but on the low end this is a good investment) but if you're truly broke the festival route seems to exist to support that. Generally expect to spend more on the promotion than on the movie.

If it's just online and you have no money, flooding message boards and social networks, posting ads. If it has an audience, it'll be shared. But a press agent isn't a bad idea.
 
i always got the impression flooding message boards and places like that annoyed the regular patrons of that site. like the way people here react when someone's first post is "HEY CHECK OUT MY THING!"
I think what youre supposed to do is join the communities, participate, etc. etc., THEN share your stuff. do that it in a few places and youve now basically got another full time job.
 
You can make screeners of a trailer and see if buyers from the distribution companies will take a look at them or you can set up a screening in LA when all the buyers are at the AFM next month in Santa Monica.

Also like others have said. You can also try and build a social media campaign to create some buzz about your film.
 
The first thing to do is to find out if your film is really good. This is very subjective and is often a matter of finding the audience for it. Once you've done this:
-One other thing to add is that if there are themes, or subjects in your film, you can start to join those audiences in forums. So if it is about social justice, or cooking, or soccer, you can start to find where those communities are online and in the real world, and start to interact with those communities. But you'd then be expected to contribute to those communities prior to asking them to look at your trailer.
-Send to blogs who may not specialize in filmmaking, but the issues or themes in your film.
-Do a festival run
-Reach out to local media in cities where you may show at a festival with clear talkinig points they can easily copy and paste.
-Instagram every day with BTS and screenshots...and trailer.
-Twitter every day with BTS and screenshots...and trailer.
-After you build somewhat of an audience, sometimes a kickstarter campaign for a small amount of money can also serve as promotion in a sense...and get some finishing funds or funds for marketing. But don't get greedy :)
 
If you go about it yourself, be prepared for it to take a while, even proper SEO work. I uploaded my last feature to YouTube for free about 4 years ago and it's only now almost at half a million views. It was slow going at first, but eventually the right audience found it and started sharing it.
 
We're an online video marketing company in the UK, and we've found that in the current market place, short snappy trailers go down a treat online. Social media is great for getting people to see your work, create pages for your film on Facebook and LinkedIn, and take to the rooftops to shout out about those pages. You can posts lots to them, snippets of BTS as well as the trailers and even adapted versions of the print collateral you're putting out.
 
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