I was cruising the web this week looking for information about soon-to-be-released television series and was shocked to find virtually nothing. I’m talking about more than one series — series that are in the can and awaiting air dates. Yet, the only information about them are their IMDB pages and a press release here and there to announce a green light, a casting choice or the first day of principal photography.
Nothing else. No writers blog. No production blog. No photos from set or images of any kind.
It strikes me as odd and also foolish. The web is a cheap way to start building a fan base and community around your project.
Yeah, I know. You don’t have an air date or a web site yet. But that shouldn’t stop you from having a hundred followers on Twitter or 5000 hits to a blog. That’s early awareness of your project. The number of people who know the project’s name, the names of the actors, production company and yes, the names of the writers will just keep growing. Maybe they’ll even mention it to a friend, retweet you or forward a blog post.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if by the time you got your airdate a thousand people or ten thousand already knew about the project? And all it cost you was a few hours a week on the web. Let’s face it, you’re on the web already. Just make the time productive.
Why wait for the PR people to come on long after the show is wrapped and the creative team have moved on? Why wait till the press releases are written? Why wait for the Saturday paper to be delivered only to discover that you haven’t gotten the cover of the TV guide you were promised? Why wait for the luke warm reviews?
It seems much smarter to have someone on the team or several people contributing to a blog though prep, production and post, to have a Facebook fan page up from day 1 building interest, to start a Flickr account to house pictures from set and YouTube channel from some video.
I guarantee that the audience will love you for it. Because right now, when they waste an hour looking for your show on the web when you haven’t bothered to put up so much as the current name? They’re just getting pissed off.