The Free Guy Movie Executive Summary
Introduction
The social media marketing plan is a strategy for launching the Free Guy movie promotion campaign. To successfully achieve the mission and objectives of this campaign, we have outlined three primary goals that align with the standards and expectations of SMART goals. The plan includes target markets that identify the audience profile and engagement strategies for each platform. Our brand voice reflects a friendly, humorous, personal tone. The messaging is lightly humorous and incites curiosity of knowing more about how an average 9–5 professional turns into a hero in a video game world.
The messaging and visual effects of the media content are consistent on all four platforms, using the same two hashtags (#freeguy and #freeguymovie) in each post. Additionally, the plan highlights the partners and influencers that will drive the promotion of the movie release date, trailer, and ticket sales, which are leading cast members, 20th Century Studios, directors, movie theatres, etc.
The measurement and analytical tool is a dashboard that monitors each platform’s performance (e.g. likes, dislikes, comments, shares, views, etc.). The plan includes the three phases of the campaign with detailed information on the rollout. Lastly, a conclusion section explains our opinions and feedback of the campaign results — overall success of the three phases; platforms and content that received the most engagement; and suggestions of changes post-campaign.
Social media SMART goals for campaign
The social media SMART goals for the movie promotion campaign are increasing brand awareness and announcing the official movie release date. The goals are as follow:
- Goal #1: 20th Century Studios will grow social media followers before release date: Twitter by 20%; Instagram — grow following between 3k-5k, Facebook — grow following between 3k-5k
- Goal #2: Complete all three event phases timing/scope (kick-off date, post messages, and content on scheduled days/events)
- Goal #3: Monitor analytics and revise content/messaging as needed — develop a backup plan for revisions
Campaign
Outline the platform(s) you will be using & reason behind platform(s) selection
Facebook: Facebook is the largest social network, making it suitable for companies to engage and manage their business pages. 20th Century Studios has a large audience reach for advertisement through the management of their business page.
The goal is to announce the movie release date to moviegoers and conduct business communication with theatres and movie production studios. The social media engagement for the Facebook platform is to create a Free Guy movie fan page for groups to interact and share opinions about the movie, post photos, and stories, etc.
Instagram: The social media engagement for this platform is to post photos of actors, short movie clips, post-movie release dates, GIFs of movie clips. There will be several Live Instagram sessions to promote movie releases. We will also conduct audience polls to find out the number of people interested in seeing movies. We will share short stories of movie scenes without giving away details. We anticipate Instagram to be the most active, engaging platform for the movie release due to large audience reach and target market.
YouTube: The social media engagement for this platform is to post short 10-second video clips; video clips of actors interviewed about the movie; movie trailer releases. The messaging includes clues but no spoilers, release date, and storytelling elements. The audience will have the opportunity to purchase tickets on this platform and rent or purchase the movie through YouTube post-release date.
Twitter: The social media engagement for this platform is for actors to engage with fans; announce contests to win free tickets; tweet short messages regarding the movie release date and share personal stories about themselves.
Target market for each platform(s) & reason why
Facebook target: The target market is primarily males, 55+ yrs old, and families that enjoy watching movies that consist of light action and comedy. These individuals will promote the movie to family members and friends using Facebook features such as share, like, post, etc. The business target market is movie theatres, movie ticketing agencies, and Hollywood production studios.
Instagram target: The target market is 18–34-year-old movie-goers and video gamers that use this platform for visual effects. They enjoy posting and viewing videos, photos, storytelling, participating in polls/surveys on topics of interest, and engage in Live Instagram sessions as a means of engaging with actors/influencers. Additionally, this market includes directors, actors, and up-and-coming actors. The business target market is movie theatres, movie ticketing agencies, and Hollywood production studios.
YouTube target: The target market is 18–49-year-olds who like watching movies and videos packed with action. These individuals will share, like, and post comments about the movie’s release date. The audience appreciates visual effects and would be interested in viewing the movie trailer and short clips
Twitter target: The target market is 35–65 yr olds, 34% female and 66% male. This market likes short messages that contain GIFS, photos, and short video clips. They will retweet, like, and post a comment in support of the movie release and ways to engage with actors
Define your voice(s) for social campaign
The social media campaign voice reflected across the four platforms is friendly, humorous, personal, fun, simple, engaging, and entertaining
Outline hashtag(s) you plan to use for campaign
There are two hashtags for the movie promotion campaign — #freeguy and #freeguymovie. The hashtags will be used on all four social media platforms and websites.
Highlight partnerships/influencer relationships
The influencers and partners are leading cast members, Fandango movie ticket seller, and AMC and Regal Cinema movie theatres. Influencer marketing in the theatre industry has proven to be an effective, profitable marketing tool for movie promotion and box office ticket sales. The leading cast members are well-connected; have a decent social media following, and have engaged in some level of public volunteer work, which resonates with their fan base.
Cast members are assigned their own social media project leader who will work with the actors to develop a social media calendar and schedule for posting messaging, media content, and dates/times on designated social media platforms.
A Social Media Manager is assigned to oversee the project leaders and serve as an expert witness to drive successful results. Fandango, an American ticketing company that sells movie tickets online is responsible for promoting the movie via their website, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook platforms. The Social Media Manager will partner with the movie ticketing company to distribute messaging, content, and posting schedules for the movie release date and ticket sales. AMC theatres and Regal Cinema, America’s leading movie theatres are partners of 20th Century Studios.
The Movie Production Manager and Social Media Manager will work with AMC Theatres and Regal Cinema to develop a social media plan for launching movie release, which includes movie trailers, movie previews, showtime schedule, social media plan to distribute messaging and content on their websites and social media platforms
Visuals — include at least (3) examples of content/posts created for campaign
