March 14, 2010

FNB Notes From The Front: SXSW, Day One

By Jessica Kantor

Getting settled at South By Southwest, after the hoopla of checking in and having a few hours before the kick off screening, I stopped by the Tweet House and caught the panel entitled “Mining the Buzz.” The major question is whether box office success can be predicted by measuring the buzz on Twitter (and also other relevant social media sites, obviously, but this panel was focused on Twitter).

Steve Broback of the Parnassus Group spearheaded The Tweet House — which is showing up at conferences and festivals around the country — and said that, based on the data he’s found on Twitter, there is a direct correlation between quantity of tweets and a film’s success at the box office. Damon Berger, director of Digital Marketing for 20th Century Fox, agreed, saying that was the case for “Avatar,” which used social media to accelerate the already large anticipation for the film.

Shira Lazar, CNN Digital Correspondent and the panel’s moderator, raised the point that Ashton Kutcher’s film “Spread” had a large push on Twitter, but the film still performed poorly at the box office.

Which brings us to the point. How does one mitigate a negative response to their film and keep that from tainting box offices gains? Broback monitors the social responses while the film is being tested and uses that to alter the content. He emphasized four major moments in a film’s release to create social media campaigns and measure the data: The film being announced, the trailer going up, following preview/test screenings and throughout opening weekend. The earlier the measuring begins, the easier it is to adapt to the responses.

Berger emphasized how important it is for films of all sizes to utilize social media as, at this point, it could make or break a film. Broback even went on to say that strong early buzz could convince exhibitors to put a film on more screens and increase the potential for larger opening weekend numbers. He also believes there’s a prediction formula in there — one that could provide very helpful when the Hollywood Stock Exchange opens to real money.

Finally, Broback went through a list of different tools to measure and manage social media campaigns. These tools include: trendistics.com, trender.com, socialping.com, cotweet.com, houtsuite.com, cloud.li and searchtastic.com.

The best way to learn how to use Twitter effectively is to just start using it. Track responses, interact with friends and (shameless plug alert!) follow us at www.twitter.com/FilmNewsBriefs.

Jessica Kantor is the founder and CEO of Film News Briefs. You can reach her at Jessica@filmnewsbriefs.com.

Posted in: 20th century fox, Ashton Kutcher, Avatar, cloud.li, CNN, cotweet.com, Damon Berger, Hollywood Stock Exchange, houtesuite.com, Parnassus Group, searchtastic.com, Shira Lazar, socialping.com, Spread, Steve Broback, sxsw, Trender.com, trendistics.com, Tweet House, Twitter

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