Long time no blog. Even I wasn’t expecting this long of a hiatus, but maintaining two sites does take a lot of time. I’ve made some minor tweaks to Wopular, but most of my work lately has been focused on MoviesWithButter.com. Here’s what Binh and I have done to promote the site since launching it a couple months ago.
Press Connections
We dug up our press contacts from four years ago, mostly critics, and emailed them. More than half of those emails don't work anymore (not surprised). This effort garnered us a link exchange with JoBlo. I was kinda disappointed at first because I was expecting at least one press mention...
And then Anne Thompson from IndieWire wrote about us. IndieWire has grown a lot, in terms of traffic, since Anne joined them. This was huge for us. It let people in the industry know that we exist and probably led to other mentions, like Penn-Olson.com, a tech site with an Asian slant.
Social media
We announced the launch on Facebook and Twitter. We only have about 100 friends and 200 followers combined. Got a bunch of likes on Facebook, but just a couple retweets from @jefito and @popdose.
Sean Saulsbury, who was a Managing Partner of Box Office Mojo, tweeted a congratulatory message to me for launching MoviesWithButter. That message was then retweeted by Rotten Tomatoes, which shut us down for a couple minutes. That’s what happens when you get mentioned by an account with nearly half a million followers. By far, this gave us the most referrals.
Screenrant mentioned us on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, which has a combine audience of about 140,000 followers - another significant traffic boost.
Blogging
Binh and I blogged about the launch on our respective blogs. He on AliveNotDead.com and Tumblr, and I on Wopular.
We didn't do an email blast to friends because most of them were already covered in the social networks. Sure, they might not have seen it because feeds go by so quickly, and some friends just don't check their Facebook feeds. But it might be a bit too invasive and redundant for email.
Response
Overall, the repsonse was pretty good. The mentions on Facebook and Twitter drove the most traffic, probably twice or triple what mentions on websites brought. It just shows how far social media has come as a medium and as a marketing tool. Also, it might not be appropriate for some websites to do an article about MWB, but it’s perfect for a tweet. The two compliment each other.
