The potential of social marketing just lost a lot of naysayers over the weekend, and it’s all thanks to a little horror flick that was filmed on a budget that looks more like a Hollywood rounding error. Paramount’s Paranormal Activity was shot for less than $15,000 and has already broken the $7 million mark at the box office. And with a nationwide release planned for this weekend, that’s just the beginning.
Inside Facebook and Mashable have a couple of excellent articles up today that tell the story of how Paramount made the most of a $2 million promotional budget and a little thriller that could to set a per-screen box office record. But what really excites us is how perfectly Paranormal Activity successfully used the fabric of the social web to identify a dedicated fan base and give them a platform to evangelize about it.
Twitter made it easy for fans to immediately create a legitimate word-of-mouth buzz about the movie (which, of course, requires that you start with a product that generates that level of sincere excitement).
But it was the movie’s Facebook page that was the lynchpin of the social marketing strategy. By allowing fans to vote for Paranormal Activity to come to their city, Paramount was able to instantly quantify the demand for the film to an incredibly precise degree, and it also gave each of those voters a personal stake in the movie’s success.
And once those already enthusiastic fans came out of the theater with their expectations exceeded, the Facebook page gave them a forum for posting their immediate reactions (the Wall) or to have more in-depth conversations about the movie with fellow fans (via the Discussions tab).
Paranormal Activity didn’t just promote itself on the cheap; it promoted itself on the smart. By using existing social media options to publicize the film, it achieved substantially better per-dollar promotion by giving fans a sense of ownership and a place to share their enthusiasm.
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