New films, shows seek to build promotional volume with social media snippets
NEW DELHI : Film producers and streaming platforms are adopting a new strategy to lure viewers to watch their titles at a time attention span has shrunk amid a surfeit of entertainment options. They are increasingly releasing short clips or snippets, usually lasting between five and 10 minutes, on social media channels like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, giving away major dialogues, scenes and songs of the titles to get the viewers hooked.
From introducing pivotal characters to revealing major story arcs, these are circulated across channels on both the studio or platform’s own accounts as well as via collaborations with content creators and entertainment portals. While some industry experts say this is one way to build volume and generate buzz around a film or a show through means other than just the trailer and traditional marketing techniques, others say the strategy can backfire with significant chunks of the film or the show available on social media for free, diluting the need to sign up and pay to watch it either in theatres or on an OTT platform.
Illegal leakages from the film or show via pirated means can add to the crisis. “Attention span of audiences on the internet is low and it takes a lot more to get someone hooked to your content, than it did before.
Especially for platforms or producers that do not boast of huge budgets, more clips increase the chances of the content going viral organically, since merit is no longer the only criterion for content to catch on to viewers’ algorithms," said Girish Dwibhashyam, vice-president, strategy and business head at DocuBay, a documentary-streaming platform. Dwibhashyam conceded that releasing multiple clips does take away a part of the story’s reveal, but was quick
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