In the post-pandemic era of streaming and VOD, industry experts say one of the best marketing tools to get people talking and watching is to use social media in “an organic way.”

Norm Wilner, the programmer in digital releasing for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), moderated a “Marketing Your Film” panel at last week’s Playback Film Summit. The panel also featured Eric Bizzarri, co-founder and CEO of The Future of Film Showcase; Clement Virgo, director and producer at Conquering Lion Pictures; Hilary Hart, co-president of Game Theory Films; and Claire Peace-McConnell, head of public relations and Canadian content development at VVS Films.

Bizzarri recommended social media for short films and features that do not have a bigger budget to pay off a PR firm to do their marketing strategies. He explained a time when the director of a short film he produced posted a TikTok about the project, that was “shot in his kitchen on a Saturday afternoon,” and garnered over 100,000 views.

That short was Desi Standard Time Travel, which is directed by L.A. and Vancouver-based Muslim filmmaker Kashif Pasta and follows a young father who goes back in time to meet his parents in the ’90s when they were his age. It stars Ali Kazmi, Adolyn Dar, and Anika Zulfikar.

“[The TikTok] garnered the attention of programmers at various festivals around the world, including Sundance and Tribeca. Although gathering the attention of those programmers, there’s never any sort of guarantee that anything’s going to happen, but it’s just so interesting because Kashif and I are not influencers, and this sort of happened organically,” Bizzarri said.

“Then he released another TikTok talking about releases for the film, and that garnered over 150,000 views. So now, we have a sign-up sheet of people all around the world being like, ‘I’m in New York, I want to see the film’ or ‘I’m in Seattle,’ ‘I’m in Vancouver’, and all of these people are coming in with requests to see the film.”

Peace-McConnell suggested a similar approach with social media influencers, especially when used in a way that feels organic and not just “another piece of work that they have.”

“It’s a very tricky relationship to kind of negotiate that with an influencer, because you want it to feel organic, so you don’t want to put too much constraints on their content. But at the same time, you as a marketer, you know what you need from them. And if you’re paying them for it, then you also want to get value for your budget, which is tricky. I think, at the end of the day, it is a piece of the puzzle, the influencer piece needs to be there, but it doesn’t have to be paid influencers,” she said.

Peace-McConnell added that the premiere of Virgo’s latest film Brother was the perfect example of getting all the layers of the onion when it came to marketing since “influencers saw it, and they loved it. Critics saw it, and they loved it. There was editorial; there were regular film-goers who saw it and loved it. There were fans of Clements’ work that saw it and loved it… And it’s all of those different layers that I think you need to pile on to encourage people to spend the money,” she said.

Hart added that oftentimes people think working with influencers can be used as a “catch-all term that has this kind of negative connotation, but all it really means is somebody that has people’s attention that you want.” She said that when Game Theory Films marketed and packaged Ryan Noth’s 2021 drama Drifting Snow during the pandemic, they hired local social media influencers from Prince Edward County, Ont., where it was filmed.

“There was a local florist who has like 25,000 [Instagram] followers. These are people in the community who were aware of the film and knew the filmmaker, that we worked with to make sure they care about the film … so it’s a hyper-specific community, hyper-specific goal. That’s a way that I think it can work really well,” Hart said.

For Virgo’s 2022 drama Brother, which he wrote and directed based on Canadian author David Chariandy’s award-winning 2017 novel of the same name, he said he doesn’t “pretend to be an expert” and leaves the marketing to Elevation Pictures but is happy to talk to any type of media outlet about the film.

“What I say to them is, ‘whoever wants to talk to me, I’ll talk to them, no matter how small the blog, no matter how big, no matter if it’s local, national, or international,’ just so that I could get my voice out there,” said Virgo, who also produced the film under his and producer Damon D’Oliveira’s banner Conquering Lion Pictures. It’s also produced by Toronto’s Hawkeye Pictures, with Elevation Pictures handling its Canadian distribution.

“I think it paid dividends,” said Virgo, noting he did the same thing when promoting his 2015 CBC miniseries The Book of Negroes. “It’s amazing how you think, ‘Why am I talking to six people in on a Skype room or a Zoom call or something,’ but then you realize, those six people are your ambassadors that are going to tell the people that they saw this film.”

Hart added filmmakers should devote time to the press, even if it’s just a day or two. She also pointed out the importance of distributors coming on board as early as possible, so they can start the conversations around marketing with the filmmakers.

“We can really be a part of that process all the way along and have those very early conversations of, ‘Who did you see as the audience when you wrote the script?’ Because if it’s especially somebody that’s coming from a specific community, they probably have ideas of how to reach that community,” said Hart. “And we can make sure that we’re having very early conversations and keeping them involved in ‘here’s the poster’, ‘here’s the trailer’, ‘here’s what we think is going to work’, and getting that feedback and doing it as quite a collaborative process… it’s important that they’re part of the process as much or as little as they are willing to be.”

However, there are still filmmakers who treat the marketing process as unimportant, especially when they’ve finished creating the film, Peace-McConnell said.

She added that “it’s up to us as marketers to look for different hooks if you don’t have a hook that you need. So, whether it’s pulling from a different part of the filmmaking team, whether it’s pulling from cast or a cool cinematographer, just going straight on the plot sell — there’s always more than one way to sell a film… You just have to kind of pivot, change direction and go with it.”