The Sarasota Film Festival Scores Intense Social Love
Social Media Campaign
The Sarasota Film Festival is a favorite on the Indie Festival circuit. Filmmakers, press, actors and actresses as well as die-hard fans view this Festival as a feature presentation for independent film.
Challenge
As we entered into our 5-year partnership with The Sarasota Film Festival, we were given the opportunity to inject social media into their marketing. They needed a social media strategy, dedicated social media marketing resources and fan engagement that matched the awe-inspiring 2010 lineup of films, events and industry icons. With over 180 films from 30 countries, 10 days of events, and just 6 weeks until Festival kickoff -- we had to move fast.
Solution
We worked closely with the entire SFF team to deliver a full-blown social media strategy. It included social media guidelines, an editorial and promotions calendar as well as social media campaign goals. We also planned for social media customer service including monitoring, escalation and resolution. In-person social media trainings and marketing meetings were also inked to ensure communication during the frenzied Festival. The social media strategy also tied technology integrations with the SFF blog, web site and email marketing campaigns. Then, we let the hybrid team of atLarge digital strategists, SFF staff and volunteers collaborate to nail the social media strategy in one take.
Result
The 2010 Sarasota Film Festival continued its powerhouse assent with a digital presence that catapulted ticket sales by over 22 percent over the previous year. Social media marketing referred thousands of web site visits -- boosting social media referrals to the site by over 538 percent over last year. But that's not all, SFF web site traffic rose by over 40 percent with over 1 million page views -- a more than 100 percent increase in views over the previous year. In addition, social media followers across Facebook, YouTube and Twitter soared by over 150 percent and interactions like fan posts, retweet and contest participation skyrocketed.
