Case study #1 FilmTiki Online Marketing for filmmakers course (supported by Skillset)

Ulrike is a documentary filmmaker, who has had quite a bit of success with her film “She should have gone to the moon” in festivals around the world. However, she knew that now that the festival life of her film was over, she could still see DVDs online. Ulrike had a website for “She should have gone to the moon”, but it lacked social networking possibilities, and also the option to easily buy the DVD online. So she came to us to brush up her Social Media marketing and distribution skills within the Skillset-supported programme.

Before the two-day workshop in November 2009, Ulrike had never even used facebook; on day two she set up her profile for professional as well as personal use, and in the weeks to follow she had her website built (with constant feedback from FilmTiki) as well as set up fanpages for both “She should have gone to the moon” as as well as her new project in development, “Dream Soldier”. She is actively marketing the film in the facebook groups we recommended to her during her consultancy phase, and the feedback on both her website as well as the facebook fanpages is overwhelmingly positive.

Ulrike originally came with the hope of getting her “online act” together, but she achieved so much more with our programme: she is now actively engaging her audience, which is not only positive for her existing film, but also for her future projects. This is what Ulrike said about the programme:

“It has been hugely beneficial. The contact for the Gender & Education Association website happened through having the trailer on YouTube and I've recently been contacted by a Museum in Croatia, who are interested in the film. This was made possible through facebook.

I'm really excited by the idea of using social media and am looking into crowd funding for Dream Soldier and connecting with the very large reenactment community worldwide. So thanks for introducing me to it and making it a very inspiring 2 days!”

Check out Ulrike’s website for more info on her work (and look at what she is doing in terms of social marketing...): http://sheshouldhavegonetothemoon.com/