Social Networking
Social networking has been vital for our production company from start to finish. It's rapid growth over the past few years has made it an essential for most companies and brands. It raises product awareness and allows companies to interact with it's customers. The fact that the internet is so widely used across the World and so many people are computer literate allows for companies to reach out to most of their clientele - which has huge benefits for them. This is very similar for our production company and has allowed social networks to adapt to these marketing strategies across the board, for whatever type of company. In terms of research, social networking has played a huge role in gathering lots of information. Through the use of our Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram account and use of hashtags we have been able to reach our audience very efficiently. Within minutes of posting on Brony Facebook pages under our Red Cherry account, we saw a rapid response from many potential good resources - including officials from Brony organisations. In response to the posts, we had our project featured on official Brony websites.
We then created a Twitter account, as once again the Brony subculture has a huge presence on the social networking site. Hashtags are mostly associated with Twitter, as the first major Social Networking site to use them. We have been able to reach our Brony specific audience through these hashtags - gaining followers, 'favourites' and 're-tweets'. The fact that Twitter is rapidly expanding, similarly to Facebook with shares on the market etc., it is a popular site to use to reach our audience. We also increased this audience by contacting someone to give us over 5,000 followers for free. This has not only allowed us to reach further, but it gives potential followers who are looking at our profile the impression that we're an established, interesting user to follow.
New Media Application
The fact that the Brony subculture all stems from the internet, as primaries, the internet is their home. This has worked in our favour in terms of contacting people efficiently. We set up an email account which allowed us to formally contact different people via our social networking accounts. Hashtags have been very beneficial, as with many media organisations incorporating them, they act as a database of all things relating to the hashtag. For example, '#Brony' has allowed us on both Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to reach out to people who are discussing the sub-culture, and as hashtags are constantly used they allow us to reach out to fresh media as it happens.
Initially, we created a Facebook page due to its huge popularity, we were able to 'like' and follow pages and groups relating to the Brony subculture and post on those pages. This has helped us reach out to our specific audience and allowed them to easily respond and potentially 'like' our page. The groups and pages have allowed us to reach these people who have the same common interest, despite being from all over the World, acting as a hub for information.
We also created an Instagram account. This has been a good tool once again for its use of hashtags which are hugely popular on the photo-sharing app. We decided to use this to take photos of our production process and share it with our followers across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. We synced the accounts so we reach all of our followers over the social networking platforms instantly. For example, at the Brony meet in London, we shared images of our attendance at the event whilst we were there and used the hashtags to reach to other Brony users.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding has grown rapidly ever since the early days of crowd-sourced fundraising such as when the New York World urged its readers to donate towards The Statue of Liberty’s pedestal after the creative project ran out of money. Worldwide, crowdfunding has raised $0.89bn in 2010, $1.47bn in 2011, $2.66bn in 2012 and is expected to raise to $5.1bn in 2013. ArtistShare was created in 2003 and was the first major crowdfunding site. It describes itself as “a platform that connects creative artists with fans in order to share the creative process and fund the creation of new artistic works.” This idea of fans funding and investing into projects they would like to see materialise would be a great opportunity for our company to try out. The current three main crowdfunding sites that would be most suitable for us are; Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and Crowdfunder. Due to our low budgets our potential work practice becomes restrained by costs, such as not being able to film decent primaries in different locations due to travel costs. However, crowdfunding provides us with an opportunity to present our ideas and have them invested in - reducing a huge restraint.
Kickstarter is currently the World’s largest crowdfunding platform. Over 50,000 projects have come to materialise – all covering a wide range of subjects and project types. Kickstarter’s policy is that fundraising has to meet the specified target stated in the video pitch otherwise the project won’t go ahead. Fundraisers also often get rewards and stakes into the projects – however this could fail if not all goes to plan such as project budgeting could be miscalculated or fall short. This means investors are taking a risk. IndieGoGo offers the same service as Kickstarter, but there is also an option to disburse whatever funds raised 2 weeks after the campaign finishes. This has an advantage for the producers, but fundraisers may be reluctant to donate as their money is guaranteed to be taken away – despite the success of the project. Both crowdfunding sites take a percentage of the funds raised.
Infographic: Statistics weighing up both main crowdfunding platform's productivity.
(source: http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/14/infographic-kickstarter-vs-indiegogo/)
DIVISION: A full, feature-length Instagram Film
When researching into new media applications, I found a Kickstarter project just hours before reaching its goal. When I researched further its became evident that it uses different platforms of media to reach to its audience – much like our project. Although not a documentary, its an ambitious idea that looks into putting over 1,000 Instagram videos into a 90 minute film. To reach its goal it has been able to reach to multiple users and backers via different social media. It has its main website, a Twitter, a Facebook, an Instagram and a Kickstarter. All these work hand in hand to build its audience and gain successful backing and audience awareness.