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Self promotion using social media

Matko Vodopija

Matko Vodopija

In this day and age of social media marketing, how do you approach self promotion and what platforms do you use? Is it Facebook, is it Instagram? Do you post insta-stories with stills of your work or do you rely on directors and DOPs to take pictures of you and the display while sitting behind you and share it on their account? Do you have a showreel and where? Do you actively promote it/share links to it? Do you upload it directly to the social media platform you intend to distribute it trough or do you upload it to Vimeo and then share links? Do you send the links to producers or directors or DOPs?

I'm interested in your (detailed if possible) individual approach, because it's just a huge mess and i don't know where to start.

Cheers
 
Hey! I can share my experience as I have given this lots of thought and attention over the years and developed an approach that works well for our business.

Personal thoughts on social media: bad for mental health in large doses. I do not have a Facebook and I do not use any social media for personal use.

Professional thoughts: Unfortunately instagram has become the new portfolio, especially in the indie and short form part of the industry. Producers, agencies, upstart directors, and even DPs have come to use insta as a yardstick for the quality of your work. So we use it in that way.

Big Idea: Instagram is a portfolio extension of the website. (Here's ours - www.rkmstudios.com | Insta: @rkmstudios_color - for reference)

Breakdown of what we post on insta:
  • Main posts are done as "carousel" posts with 3-5 stills each. We post 3 posts per project so that each line on insta is the same project.
  • We only post projects as main posts that are of a particular quality and are the sort of project we want more of (If you want narrative, don't post lots of commercial projects, for example)
  • Story posts allow us to be a little more creative and less precious since they don't live forever. So we often do color palettes, video wipes, and still collages to illustrate the process, promote our work, and promote the project. This functions well to get better engagement from other filmmakers as well.
  • Reposts of other filmmakers relevant stories. Obviously, if we are tagged, we repost to help the algorithm and participate in our network of clients and peers.
Outreach:
  • We do not reach out to the insta accounts that repost content, I'm not a big fan of aggressive self-promotion. If the work is good, it will be seen. Patience and craft = reward.
  • We do have relationships with some companies that have done articles or reposts of our work, these happen organically and that's the way to do it IMHO. Its always better when someone is excited enough to repost, blog, or do write-ups without you asking for it than when its obligated or comes off as a shameless promotion.
Platforms:
  • Instagram - highly necessary IMO, might be more of an LA thing, so YMMV.
  • Behance - Great portfolio site with some social networking and SEO. Also has a much better website creation suite than Squarespace.
  • Facebook - Dont use it, you have to pay to unlock your followers. We have hundreds of followers that never see posts. At this point, we don't even bother.
  • Twitter - Doesn't seem to be a place to get work.
  • Reddit - Exploring this, might be a good place to showcase work. Reddit has a general vibe that is anti-marketing and advertising in the art communities, so I'd imagine the approach here would to be casual showcase of work, not direct and obvious self-promotion.
Personal Philosophy:
  • I don't like used-car salesman vibes. We're supposed to be artists, and the art should speak for itself. Some DPs and colorists on insta, without saying names, really feel like YouTubers that have crossed over into the professional space. Thumbnails of your face making weird expressions with big, bold text tell me "used car salesman," not "I colored The Shape of Water." IMO, it is desperate and the only kind of clients that are tricked into that approach are ones that are relatively inexperienced. It should be clear that you are a real professional, not a YouTuber videographer self-promoter.
  • It's about the work. One of my favorite lines in Game of Thrones is "Any King that must call himself 'King' is no king." Many people on social media are so aggressive with self-promotion that it comes off as raging narcissism. Other people should be the ones to say nice things about your work. If the quality of your work is good, the clients will come. Show your best work, only A+ images and projects. Everyone has projects that we're not of proud of, you don't need to post everything just for the sake of content. Make sure you get out of the way so that the work is in focus, not you.
  • I think it is incumbent upon colorists to be careful about showing LOG as a "before" stage. Everything looks better than LOG and it is disingenuous to the DPs work to say that is the "before" and how much you improved it. When we do comparison stills we show the stages as:
    • Rec.709 OR In-Camera LUT
    • LOG
    • Base Look (Starting Powergrade/LUT/CS Transform/Custom Curves)
    • Final Grade
  • Make sure to curate the aesthetic you want to be getting. If you want music videos, promote and post music videos.
Showreel:
  • We are about to post a new reel. We have a 30s cut for social media and ADHD producers, and a 3m that will be for people with a normal attention span on our website.
  • Reel is more important at the beginning to garner new clients, at this point we are doing a new one just to have an updated reel with more relevant work.
  • I don't believe in there being a hard and fast rule about reel length anymore. I think as long as you can keep it entertaining and if you can do an additional short-and-sweet reel for social, then there's something for everyone. Many people on this website tend to get overly focused on the runtime, the runtime does not make the content better or more entertaining/informative.
  • I direct, and when I look at DP reels, I like to see plenty of work and I want to see at least a few shots from the same project next to each other to get a sense of cinematic voice and intention. I think the same applies to color reel. You need a little flashiness, but you also want to show that you can create a through-line by having a few shots from the same project cut together.
  • Wipes in the reel are great if you are trying to attract students and new filmmakers who don't really understand how color works, but for experienced clients, wipes are unnecessary. Good color is good color, and most of the working directors, creative directors, DPs, and even producers have an eye for appreciating competent and achieved color. No need to teach them that you start with LOG and build it up. Anyone working every day on projects with colorists knows that already. So make sure you target your reel to the clients you want to get.
 
This is, hands-down, the best post I've ever seen on this topic. Thanks for explaining your thought processes, and the perspective that's so necessary when dealing with social media.
 
Wow @Ryan McNeal. Absolutely FANTASTIC post, prob one of the best one the subject matter. Huge thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Like Peder, I love the fact that you shared your thought process, as thats helps quite a bit. Lot to ponder....
 
Great post. I will also add that if you have a FB "page" for your color work they have Facebook Business Suite that lets you not only link your instagram account to it but also lets you schedule post. So you can sit down and set up date/time to have a post go out to FB and/or IG.
 
Sorry for necroing, but maybe someone else might add something to this, too.
It's about a mix-and-match approach. I leverage Instagram and LinkedIn mainly. Instagram, with its visual appeal, works great for insta-stories and portfolio shots, be it self-clicked or from a DOP. It provides a quick peek into my work and behind-the-scenes action.
LinkedIn is a professional hub, ideal for sharing achievements and networking with directors, producers, and DOPs. Including a showreel in my profile summary has worked wonders for reach & engagement.
 
I kept it simple because trying to be everywhere burned me out fast. I focus on one main platform (Instagram), post finished frames or short clips, and only share behind-the-scenes stuff when it actually adds context. I don’t wait on others to post me, but if they do, cool — I reshare and move on. I keep one clean showreel on Vimeo and update it maybe once a year, then share links privately when it makes sense, not spammy blasts.
For outreach, I send links only when there’s a real reason. I’ve also learned a bit from reading discussions around website marketing company 1on1. It helped me think more clearly about visibility without overposting.
 
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