Social Media Research.
YouTube – YouTube ads are quite easy to implement and seeing as YouTube is still the world’s second most popular social media platform after Facebook. With over 2 billion users and an estimated 1 billion hours of video consumed daily the potential reach is enormous. So, no matter what your demographic is, YouTube is most likely the best place to advertise on. Adverts appear before pretty much every video so it’s the ideal place to advertise your project. As for YouTube itself as a website, YouTube is still the world’s second most popular social media platform after Facebook. With over 2 billion users and an estimated 1 billion hours of video consumed daily the potential reach is enormous. Globally, the average viewing session is now 40 minutes, up 50% from 2 years according to Omicore. And this seems to be increasing further. Many brands are now using YouTube to host longer form content. Unlike other social networks, where users scroll passively through news feeds, Youtube users are intentionally searching on the platform for videos to watch. So, in my opinion YouTube is most likely going to be the easiest platform to advertise on seeing as my demographic is going to have the most reach.
Twitter – Although like YouTube, where you can reach every demographic and every age range by advertising here, Adverts are not necessary to watch to continue using the website, so this means that you can easily just scroll past the advert without even looking at the advert.
Instagram – Instagram statistically features my target demographic as it’s core users by a mile according to the chart below that took every user into accounting and the website https://www.statista.com/statistics/1018012/instagram-users-united-kingdom/ managed to make a chart that shows these results as of September 2020. According to the source there were 27.25 million Instagram users in the UK as of September 2020, with 23.1 percent of those users being between 18 and 24 years of age. My ideal target demographic, so Instagram would have a big impact if that is where i choose to put my advertisement.
=================================================================================
The social media platforms that are most popular for my target audience is Instagram and Twitter. These two have the best chance at reaching my target demographic. According to the website https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/divisions/communications-division/digital-communications-team/assets/documents/guides/A-Guide-To-Social-Media-Platforms-and-Demographics.pdf they say that Twitter is a micro-blogging platform and last officially updated their user statistics in 2013, so stats for this platform are less reliable. Twitter has around 317 to 328 million active users, of which around 16 million are in the UK and 79% are outside of the US.
In terms of gender split, 24% of all male internet users and 21% of all female internet users are on Twitter. The largest demographic group of Twitter users are between the ages of 18 and 29 (37%). 25% of users are between 30 and 49 years old.
=================================================================================
My target demographic will be teenagers. People aged around 13-20. The reason i am aiming for this target demographic is because of the fact social media campaigns like Instagram pages or Twitter accounts for TV Shows / films that are aimed at this target demographic are quite unique in how they are formatted and show off a lot of interesting content on the pages that easily pull in their target audience and the way most accounts format their tweets to appeal to their demographic makes it seem like teenagers are writing the tweets the accounts put out. This helps relate to the audience much more than other social media accounts may do for a different target demographic
=================================================================================
Common successful techniques are using Instagram stories to engage with the audience. On the Stranger Things instagram page they have story highlights that have polls and quizzes as well as showing off behind the scenes footage. Stories are quite popular with a young audience as the owners of the account know that their target audience knows a lot about them and will view them. This is used to their advantage as the like to type and post things only people who view the stories would like.
The Doctor Who instagram page uses stories in a very good and unique way. They currently have 4 highlights on their page.
One of them shows off pictures in front the camera and behind the scenes of the main character throughout the show. This gives new viewers an insight into the shows history and helps them if they’re new to acclimate into the show. So, not only do they have content old viewers will enjoy, there is tons that will appeal to new viewers.
The second is wallpapers that you can screenshot and set to your own wallpaper. These are really cool due to the fact that a lot of people comment on posts saying they want screensavers so the people behind the account obviously listen to the fans and do what they want. They keep asking for more suggestions of what people may want to see added to the stories and what wallpapers people would want to see.
There is also a highlight that showcases behind the scenes for the most recent series. This gets updated every series with new things added to keep viewers updated on the behind the scenes on the series. This means that any viewer can get a quick and easy access to the progress of the series being filmed and can also see facts they may need to see and may get any important update via this highlight.
=================================================================================
According to https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-tips/ common successful
techniques for using the social media platforms that I have chosen are…
Be consistent
How consistently you post should be specific to each social media site you’re utilizing. Some platforms like Twitter and Instagram Stories require you to be active multiple times per day to get the maximum potential from your audience. Other post types, like regular Instagram Posts and Facebook updates, don’t have as much urgency and can be used less sparingly. When determining your post strategy, look at factors such as how the algorithm works for each platform and whether content posts chronologically or is curated based on other factors.
Keep an eye on what’s trending
Once you have your key messaging determined, keep an eye on popular trends emerging on each platform. If you notice a pattern or strategy rising in popularity and it aligns with your messaging, then it’s a great idea to capitalize on it to drive engagement.
Be wary of jumping on board every new internet trend you see. Creating posts that don’t align with your overall messaging to appear relevant is a quick way to alienate your target audience. You never need to create a particular type of content just because you see other brands doing it.
This is why it’s so essential to create a focused message that you can use as a baseline against which to measure all of your future social media posts.
One way to have a steady supply of popular content is to create a list of sites in your industry that publish high quality trends.
Invest in video content
The fact is that video content is booming right now. With the birth of IGTV and the rapid growth of YouTube, Facebook Live and more, social media users are consuming more video content than ever before.
In the past three years, video views have increased by over 99% on YouTube and 258% on Facebook. A Tweet containing a video is 6x more likely to be retweeted than a Tweet with a photo or just text.
Interact with your audience
Social media users crave authentic interaction with the brands they follow. So on top of posting high-quality and relevant content, make sure you’re keeping an eye on each platform you use and engaging with your audience. Answer questions that come up on your posts, handles or hashtags.
If you notice other users having a conversation about your brand or product, don’t be afraid to chime in and add additional value. Users want to know that there is a real person on the other side of the computer and not just a robot that sends out links all day.
Make sure your social media strategy includes answering questions posted on each platform. You should promptly respond to people who mention you, thank people who share your content and add value where you see people mentioning your brand.
You can also start conversations with your audience by asking them questions and then responding or adding to that conversation. Most platforms make it easy to ask people questions and respond to them in the comments of that post.
You want your social media presence to represent a two-way line of communication. Engage WITH people rather than just talking at them.
So, from this secondary research i have learnt that i need to focus a lot on video content, with features such as IGTV booming right now over on Instagram, a lot of people prefer to watch posts on social media rather then read them or experience them in any other way. After learning this i checked out the social media pages of Stranger Things, Doctor Who and Hunger Games and they all have videos in IGTV. These are lengthy videos that are possibly too long to be uploaded onto instagrams usual pages. Here i will post a lot of behind the scenes and anything my target demographic may want to see from my film. I have also learnt that storys do very well in terms of posting things like wallpapers and things the viewer of the story can take away and use to their liking. Wallpapers in particular get a lot of likes and are very popular as there have never been so many posted before by film / tv accounts so i will possibly use these findings to my benefit to get as many likes as possible.
Dan's Film and TV Production Blog 
Great so far…. on the right lines here
LikeLike