The 5 Social Media Platforms Every Filmmaker Needs

Whether you're looking at finding the right location for filming in LA, checking up the weather, or trying to building your portfolio, it's no surprise that everything happens online. This is the digital age and putting yourself out there is key to your growth in an online era.

So close your Facebook feed, open up your laptop or phone, and make a commitment to finally spend some time building up your status on other social platforms as well. But there's so many?! How do we choose?

Don't worry. We're here to help. I’ve written this article to serve as an introductory guide to the key benefits of Instagram and four other content sharing platforms so that you can promote your work, make connections, and get back to the safety of your precious newsfeed with your dignity and self-esteem still intact. That said, here at the Giggster picks for the best platforms you can choose from from the hundreds available!

1) Instagram

All jokes aside, Instagram is an incredibly powerful tool for anybody who wants to create a brand based around visual content. Establishing a distinct identity as a filmmaker on Instagram can land you gigs, test the popularity of content, and spark connections with creators across the globe. In addition to being a solid platform to promote your work and source inspiration, it’s also an excellent tool for connecting with other filmmakers.

For a recent outreach campaign here at Giggster, I used Instagram to reach out to a long list of “location-renting” agencies and brands. While sliding into people’s DMs may be unorthodox, I found that the response rate for the campaign was over 30% higher than any of my previous email outreach campaigns. Since typing out messages on a phone keyboard sucks, I used a free desktop messaging tool called IGdm, which allowed me to easily copy and paste dozens of personalized messages in less than an hour.

Of the 38 people I contacted on Instagram here are the results:

1. 23 people responded (60%)

2. 8 people took a meeting (21%)

3. people became leads (7%)

4. 1 person closed a deal (2%)

While the success of this campaign is based partially on the research involved in sourcing leads and crafting a message, it is also helped by the fact that my outreach is paired to a successful Instagram profile which provides validation for my company and for the request.

2) Reddit

Reddit has become the third most popular social media platform in the world, and that status is well deserved. Reddit is the best platform for communities of people with all kinds of interests to come together and share ideas. Subreddits such as r/filmmakers are a great outlet for creatives to collaborate with each other, share news, and promote their work. There is a subreddit for hundreds of niche communities within the film world, from editing software subreddits such as r/premiere to city-specific communities such as r/nycfilmmakers.

If Youtube is Michael Bay, Vimeo would be Wes Anderson. The video hosting website’s slogan is “Your content belongs here” and they’ve made a real effort to differentiate themselves by supporting a community of classy independent filmmakers and animators. If you like content more than comments, Vimeo is a great place to host your work. It’s streaming product is focused on enabling maximum picture quality, and in recent years is made major strides to bolster the social networking aspects of their site. In recognition of this progress and the continued growth of their creative content community, Wired Magazine dubbed Vimeo as the “LinkedIn of the filmmaking community”. While that’s a pretty harsh burn for IMDB, it gives credence to the incredible value Vimeo provides to young filmmakers.

You may not know this, but before the invention of Instagram Stories, there was a lil’ Los Angeles company called Snapchat that re-invented the way people send and receive nudes. While Evan Speigel’s sexting app has lost much of its luster in recent years, it remains one of the best places for filmmakers to showcase what they’re working on in a raw, straight from the camera format. Snapchat has maintained some of the highest interaction rates of all social media platforms – and is worth investing in if you like to show people how seriously you take filmmaking.

Not only is Snapchat a good platform to use to share behind the scenes footage, but it is a good practice for filmmakers to use. Tribeca Film Festival hosted a Snapchat competition last year and many found it to be a challenging and rewarding experience. “The time limit per clip means that you have to move the plot along quickly. The vertical video means that the story will thrive less because of cinematic shooting and more because of strong characters. The fact that you can’t change the order of shots once you’ve published them means that your writing has to be strong and well thought-out before shooting begins.”

Vimeo may be the “LinkedIn for Filmmakers”, but LinkedIn is still the LinkedIn for everyone else. As a free-thinking independent filmmaker, I’m sure you have little interest in joining the bureaucratic hierarchy that is Corporate America. While that’s a respectable stance, the costs of surviving as an Indie filmmaker means that, at least occasionally, you’ll need to sell-out to land a big corporate job. Creating a solid LinkedIn profile is a surefire way to show corporate world that you’re one of them.

Put on a shirt with sleeves, hide your neck-tattoos and grab one of your cinematographer friends to snap a few moody black and white headshots. Once you’ve got your profile picture figured out, upload your reel, and add links to all the projects you’ve worked on. Most importantly, take the time to connect with at least 500 professional contacts – which in the Linkedin Universe is the ultimate signifier of “coolness”. While creating a badass Linkedin profile might make you feel like a cog in the machine – your parents will be impressed, and undoubtedly, so will all your new corporate clients.

Yup social media can go a long way for filmmakers and photographers alike, but only the right platforms at the correct time. Once you've created your profiles, learning about audiences, posting times, and what works is simply a matter of experimentation and dedication. Just be sure to stick at it and be true to yourself and your craft.

That said, social media is great for discoverability. But if you're looking for, say, places to rent for film and photo in LA, then social media really won't help. For this like this, i.e. intent based searches, you're best using Google, or for this particular search, Giggster.com.

Find and rent more film and photo production in Los Angeles on Giggster.