Twitter & Facebook: Great for Building a Filmmaking Network

Being fairly new to the filmmaking scene and living in Las Vegas, as opposed to L.A. or New York, I must say that I find social media to be an effective and inexpensive networking tool.  I launched Filmmakers Notebook in July and with the exception of conferences and seminars I attended in Los Angeles and the people I’ve become acquainted with locally, I really didn’t know anyone in the film world.  When you’re starting out,  this severely limits your ability to find colleagues to collaborate or share ideas with.  I’ve found that social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook , have helped to fill this gap. 

Contrary to what some believe,  the number of friends and followers you have (although it is nice to increase your circle), isn’t as important as the quality of people you encounter, who share your passion.   Now, I’d like to dispel a couple of myths.  The first is that once you have a Twitter or Facebook account you can sit back and relax and people will find you.  Sorry, that is not the case.  Like anything else, building a group of contacts takes time and consistency.  Since I’ve been asked a number of times, how I’ve done this,  I thought I’d offer a few tips.

First of all, with Twitter I never used any of those advertised methods or devices just to find followers.  I’ve been doing it the old fashioned way, one at a time.  I’ve wanted Twitter to be a means for connecting with others and learning more about film, not for carving notches in my Twitterpost.  My first few weeks on the site, I ran searches looking for producers, directors, filmmakers and people in related fields, then I started following them.  I also looked at who they followed or had following them and added more people that way.  Keep in mind that everyone you follow will return the favor, so finding value in what people tweet about should determine who you want to follow as well.  Since I wasn’t sure of what to write about and at that time didn’t have as much going on in my own life, I retweeted a lot, which I still do.  It’s a good way to get  your name out there and introduce yourself and also to spread the word about subjects you are interested in. 

Now I try to combine tweeting info about my own activities with the Nevada Film Alliance, “Accused”, “Running 4 President” and this blog with a few personal details.  While I don’t want to tweet about my day to day activities outside of film too much, I think it’s a good to let people know you’re not a spambot and that you do have other interests.  In my case, I’ve written about events going on in Las Vegas, some of my favorite TV shows like “24” and “Burn Notice”, books I’m reading  and my love for hockey.  I’ve been trying to reach out to other filmmakers, get to know them better, and assist them in promoting themselves and their projects, while at the same time making sure I offer enough info so that they get to know me.

As for Facebook, that’s been different.  It took me longer to start “friending” people and for a while, my only connections were the same 30 or so contacts I’d known from various other parts of my life.  Finally, I began sending friend requests to people I’d met on Twitter, had a number of mutual friends in common with or had heard of in the film community.  I’ve also added people from the Las Vegas area in order to keep up with what’s happening in my own town.   This activity has led to others adding me as a friend and now I’ve connected with over 700 individuals.

I’d also like to make a point regarding  joining groups and becoming a fan of pages.  If a topic or the person recommending it interests you, then by all means become involved, but keep in mind that once you start connecting with people, you are going to be flooded with invitations.  Some you’ll be unable to accept due to scheduling or location.  When I receive these,  I try to RSVP that I’m not coming, but share the info with others, who may be able to attend.  Living in Las Vegas, I do this quite a bit with events happening in Los Angeles.  Groups dealing with film I tend to join.  I’ve learned a lot from others all over the world about what’s going on in the industry and enjoy reading about what they’re doing.  

I also tend to become a fan of film pages for two reasons.  First of all, many recommendations are from filmmakers and I enjoy supporting them and second,  because I like to see what they’re doing with their pages including what information they choose to share and how they do their layouts, which is going to help me when I build my film pages. 

There are a lot more reasons to begin networking through social media.  Once you get started, it’s fun, helpful and a great way to mix and mingle online.  You’ll be amazed at how much knowledge  you’ll pick up about different aspects of filmmaking and the wonderful people in the field you can become acquainted with, regardless of where you live.  Please feel free to follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook.  My profile is http://www.facebook.com/patty.fantasia and my name on Twitter is @pattyfantasia.  I’m  looking forward to meeting you, so please don’t be shy.

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