Social media advertising in films

Evaluation

An advantage of using social media is that it's significantly cheaper than traditional advertising. They only have to make the advert and then they can post it online for free as opposed to paying for advertisements elsewhere. Although, it is likely that movie companies will still pay for some traditional advertising and not just rely on social media. Additionally, it has a much farther reach if it's on the internet, as anyone can see it instead of only the people that will be happen to see the advert. Additionally, by putting an advert on social media, you can then see the comments from the fans. These comments can help guide you to make the movie better if fans have a problem with it (looking at you, Sonic movie) and can also be good to see the overall reaction to your new movie. Fans can also interact with hashtags. Hashtags allow producers to quickly sort through the thoughts of the fans throughout the movie making process. However, social media does have disadvantages. For example, some people won't even see the movie and still know what happens. This can be because they pirated the movie instead of going to see it, or because of YouTube channels like 'best clips'. These YouTube channels feature short clips from the movies and have all of the important scenes so that you don't have to watch the full movie if you don't want to whilst still getting all the key moments (such as grinding before an exam and you need to quickly rewatch some clips but don't have a spare 2 hours hint hint). Additionally, the rise in pirating due to the overcrowded streaming market and slow death of traditional theatre causes problems for movie producers as they lose money to the people that watch the movie for free. Finally, it is far easier for people to be spoilt for a movie now than before, and there are a lot of people that don't see the point in seeing a movie if they've been spoiled.