The world of social media opens new doors in attracting an audience for films, books, and business says Erica Hargreave.
Hargreave, who spoke at the Yorkton Film Festival Friday, said Internet sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube offer an opportunity to engage new audiences in projects.
"It can do all sorts of wonderful, amazing things," she said.
Hargreave said there are several social media sites which people should be looking at in terms of connecting with others, adding each has its own following.
"The different social media feeds all have different ways of telling the story," she said.
In the case of Twitter, Hargreave said it essentially provides "short sound bites."
Twitter "builds up an audience you don't know."
By comparison Facebook and blogs offer the opportunity to share more information, although they tend to attract an audience you already know.
"I've had an ongoing love and hate relationship with Facebook," said Hargreave, adding within the industry "the film community likes it" so you do connect with people already involved in the business.
The key though is creating a 'voice' to best reflect a project, and to engage people on the Internet.
"One of the things I've had a lot of fun with, laying in this space, is with character having different online voices," she said.
Hargreave said how she chooses to interact with people as herself, her new book character, and her business are all different in approach.
"When I created a voice for our business, it was different from my voice," she said.
It's a case where interaction on social media sites are very much about portraying characters, telling stories, offered Hargreave, adding for filmmakers that makes use of the tool somewhat easier since they are used to telling stories.
"Most of you are storytellers. You're used to creating characters this is just in a different space," she said.
However, Hargreave said the 'different space' needs to be approached somewhat differently from the way many filmmakers traditionally think.
"Typically in broadcast it's all about drawing eyes to our project," she said.
In the realm of social media "you do that by building up the community around you."
Hargreave also said social media sites are a place of interaction, and that is important to remember.
"This space, it's not all about you," she said. "You build yourself by building community "You want people to feel they are part of the creation. They become way more invested in you, more invested in your success, if they feel they are part of the success."
Hargreave said people feel invested through interaction.
"If you allow your audience play, to have some sort of say, they are more strongly invested," she said.
Even in cases where you are online as yourself, it ends up being interaction controlled much like any other character.
"I'm only telling people what I want to in that particular space," said Hargreave.
The first step in taking projects to social media networking sites is determining how you will interact with followers, said Hargreave.
"On a new identity the first thing I have to decide is what is the voice for the project?," she said.As an example, Hargreave said she was asked "to create a voice for the festival" online. She said the event dictated how she approached that 'voice'.
The festival "has such a wonderful and unique character to it. Yorkton has this incredible warmth to it," she said, adding the festival embraces anyone attending whether a first time filmmaker, or film students, and she wanted to reflect that warmth on the social media sites.
Once you have decided on an approach Hargreave said you need to get online and begin honing the voice.
"Don't be afraid to go out there and start creating ... You do a lot of your experimenting in the real space," she said.
