‘The State of New Media’ highlights the role of social media at aTVfest

During a panel at SCAD aTVfest 2018, “The State of New Media,” producers and heads of development for digital content from AwesomenessTV, Crackle and Vox Entertainment sat down to share their experiences in production and expertise for students who are looking to break into the industry.

The over-arching theme and the underlying message of the panel was for creators to do what comes naturally—create. They urged filmmakers to make films, writers to write the stories they need to tell and for artists to make art and put it out into the world.

Companies are looking for content creators who can prove they can do the job by having work already circulating in the world, and by using social platforms to build audiences and tell their story while also building a portfolio.

Award-winning playwright and writer/director of the hit show, “Eastsiders,” Kit Williamson got into producing and the creation of “Eastsiders” because he wanted to, “Create LGBT stories that resonated with me—that had flawed, messy and complex characters.” He made the first two episodes out of his own pocket and uploaded them to YouTube.

Williamson also spoke about generating attention for his show. “We used social media in a lot of different ways,” he said. “Our entire strategy centered around Twitter outreach and forging meaningful relationships with people. Not just trying to get a lot of numbers, but trying to forge relationships with people online. Because they are social networking platforms, right? So, if you’re just putting out content you’re not necessarily doing the whole job of connecting on social media.”

After the initial two episodes, the show was picked up by LogoTV for the rest of the season. When making season three, Williamson talked about his use of individuals with social followings to generate advertisement for the show. “We don’t really have a marketing and public relations budget, so we have several, kind of notable influencers. We put the drag queen Willam [Beli], and we also cast Max Emerson. Then, we armed them with clips to put out on their social media which did very well for us.”

Anil Kurian, director of digital development at Crackle, chimed in on how involving people with large social followings helped their show, “The Oath,” saying, “We have to cast movie stars in our shows at the first couple levels, but we do try to put influencers into our shows somewhere. The biggest one is “The Oath” — we put 50 Cent on there. He’s a producer, he’s not in the show, but he’s got a lot of marketing power. He puts out that trailer and it’s out to 50 million people.”

While most don’t have access to 50 Cent or famous drag queens, it’s obvious that social media has become one of the largest tools for advertising. Most of us use it, and while we may not have 50 million followers waiting for our posts, social media can get the word out about your projects and create an online portfolio of your work while building an audience of people interested in your work.