Social media is being used to track and predict the success of movies before they open at the box office. Using commentary on Twitter, Facebook and blogs, it’s possible to analyse the opinions, sentiment and frequency of conversation surrounding up and coming films and provide a more accurate prediction than previous methods.
A recent surprising success was The Lion King - re-released in 3D, which exceeded expectations in its opening weeks, despite competing against other big names such as Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt. The popular 17 year old animated movie, and its 3D aspect created buzz, and was (correctly) identified as the biggest film of its release week before it even opened in theatres.
Of course, this can be applied to any sort of product launch or release, although it relies on identifying your audience, separating sarcasm from genuine sentiment and the influence and power a few particular social commentators may have. In the film world, niche movies may create an enormous amount of buzz from a very small, but vocal audience. Without assessing elements other than pure quantity of comments, it might be assumed that such a niche film would turn out to be a surprise blockbuster, but this shows the importance of weighing up the statistics, since the general (but passionate) audience is likely to be small and potentially insignificant in the scheme of things.
So analyse with caution, and a good dose of common sense! If you really know your audience, know your product and are tracking and following current trends, then you can make solid general predictions on the potential performance of a new product or launch. And it shouldn’t just be a spectator sport, either – get involved, start creating your own buzz, get people talking and interested and intrigued. Natural word of mouth is fantastic, but sometimes it needs a little nudge…
And always take the time to go over your statistics and analytics after the event, to see whether your predictions were accurate, where surprises arose and what you can change in the future to ensure even greater success.
