• by Kurt Abrahamson , May 12, 2017

With summer around the corner, marketers are deep into their campaigns to promote their seasonal blockbusters. These films are the signature of summer with people turning out in droves to see their next installment of their favorite franchise and remakes of old films during the warm season. With an overwhelming amount of new movies releases, how can studios distinguish themselves when communicating with audiences? 

Studios should use tactics and strategies to reach and target viewers where their attention is — on social media. 

Here, we take a look at three key social strategies the biggest blockbusters use and how brands can learn from them.

Personalize Content

With more channels than ever, cutting through the noise and getting content to resonate with users is becoming more difficult. Social media users, especially millennials, are skeptical of marketing content, particularly when it’s irrelevant or inauthentic. Millennials are responsive to personalized and interactive content.  

Alien Covenant is working to increase engagement before the May 19 premiere by personalizing their messages on social media. They have been showing their Twitter followers a message saying “Retweet to get Alien: Covenant personalised reminders” by the film’s official account. The message has already received thousands of retweets. Over the course of the campaign, people who have engaged with the tweet receive personalized updates and exclusive content, starting off with a crew badge. 

The film plans even more content down the pipeline for this campaign to solidify the bond with Alien fans, making seeing the movie a must. The takeaway for brands is that personalization is crucial for engagement, especially given the growing distaste for marketing messages. 

Understand What Your Audience Likes

For the May 26 release of the fifth installment of the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales, Johnny Depp made a surprise visit. He showed up in full character, to The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland, much to the delight of the riders. While this wasn’t a typical social media campaign, Disney knew that dozens of the riders would post videos and photos of the stunt on Twitter and Facebook which, of course, drummed up excitement for the new film.  

This campaign worked for Disney because it delighted audiences with a targeted message. Consumers want to have unique experiences and share them with others. But the message has to make sense. Having Johnny appear on the ride in character was much more impactful than having him show up anywhere else. What Pirates fan wouldn’t count their lucky stars at seeing Johnny Depp on the corresponding Disney ride and spread the word?  Brands need to emulate this special feeling by catering to the desires of their audiences in a timely and relevant fashion. 

Be Creative

X-Men launched the first-ever Snapchat Lens takeover last May to promote the release of the new film by allowing users to warp their faces into their favorite mutant characters. What’s remarkable is that they didn’t create one sponsored filter, but they owned every single filter available that day. This allowed fans to interact with the characters from the film series and become more excited about seeing the new installment. In addition, the campaign exposed new people to the fandom who might not have seen the previous eight films.

In this era of attention-deficit, brands need to be creative to get consumers to interact with their content and remain engaged. Getting consumers involved with a brand in a way that encourages them to share is the best path to becoming viral and achieving marketing success. 

Make a huge splash with your target audiences by taking a page from these Hollywood blockbusters.