A NEW WAY OF SEEINGDriving on line audiences using social media

The question

Can we create an on line audience for film on line using social media?

How successful can that be? How dependent is it on the subject

matter….ie. Can we surprise ourselves by creating an audience online for something we traditionally have difficulty with in more traditional screening contexts

What we did

Created 9 themed programmes from the collections

Uploaded them to Vimeo and restricted mentioning them to info on our own website for 2 weeks

Researched likely web based starting points to market them and started tweeting and using facebook to generate some interest

Looked at the comparative statistics and analysed how the audience had been generated

The programmes

https://vimeo.com/album/2098704

The statistics gathered

Explanation of the statistics For each of the programmes following information is supplied where appropriate. A brief description of the programme The dates when it was made available and during which the stats were measured The results for a period before we publicised the opportunity broken down as

Loads = The number of times the page was opened Vimeo plays = The number of times the film was played directly in Vimeo Embedded plays = The number of times the film was played through the MACE blog or other sites

which had embedded the link The period during which it was publicised The platforms that were used to publicise the programme The forums and websites who chose to place a link on their site back to the programme The figures following publicity broken down as:

The number of times the page was opened The number of times it was accessed through Vimeo The number of times it was opened in locations where the film had been embedded in another site

The top sites which had embedded the film A breakdown of where the material was being viewed from – which can be interestingly

international We reopened all of the programmes over the Christmas period and include those figures for

comparison too.

An example

  Title: Bits Stuck Anywhere: The Decline of

BSA and the Birmingham Motorcycle Industry Screening 2   Brief Description: BSA and the decline of the Midlands motorcycle

industry. How did the Midlands once mighty motorcycle

industry decline into industrial turmoil and eventual collapse?

The results

  Viewing Figures prior to marketing 09/08/12 to 11/08/12   Loads 18 Vimeo Plays 3 MACE Blog Plays 0 Total plays 3     Marketed period 12/08/12 to 09/09/12   Loads 1991 Vimeo Plays 791 Embedded Plays 101 Total plays 892  

Over Christmas

Note how the embedded plays now supercede the Vimeo plays

  Loads 1286 Vimeo Plays 264 Embedded Plays 537 Total plays 801

Findings-1

that there are niche audiences and significantly sized niche audiences for the kind of curated materials we can produce from the collections we have

that it is possible to research and develop programmes of interest

that it is possible to exhibit material this way and to use the web to develop and drive audiences

that in order to develop these audiences there needs to be a significant research effort to identify the places where there are potential communities of interest

That those communities of interest are not, and should not, be limited to the UK – audiences are worldwide

Findings -2

that this research needs to be carefully focussed that further work needs to be done to find ways to

appropriately contact and market the product to the identified communities of interest. The development of the archive as a trusted brand and a trusted source of material is fundamental to a long term relationship.

that really successful penetration represented by the conversion of arrival on the page into the viewing of the material is seriously enhanced by the product being recommended by peers rather than by the archive – and that is the logical extension of the development of trust

To conclude

Further to the detailed findings we did feel that subjects which did not attract audiences in cinemas were similarly harder to drive audiences to on line.