Harpoon co-founders Chris Bilezikian, Molly Conners, and Owen Williams
Photo by Todd Williamson
This story was produced in collaboration with Harpoon.
From generic Instagram ads to mandatory paid sponsorships, social media marketing is everywhere we look these days. But chasing influencers with huge followings and ineffective audience targeting often means marketers aren't getting the response they want. Producers and distributors in particular struggle to effectively market their projects in the real world, even though they spend a lot of money. their campaign.
For Harpoon, which specializes in social media marketing for film and television, much of that disconnect comes down to the fact that content doesn't feel authentic to consumers. This can only be achieved by putting in the time and research necessary to create the content. An effective campaign that resonates with your target audience.
Founded by Owen Williams, Chris Bilejikian, and Molly Connors (film and television veterans with extensive experience in production, e-commerce, and marketing), Harpoon was formed by chance. It’s a unique marketing strategy,” Connors said. “And I thought, 'Wow, this is really revolutionary,' because a lot of the films that I've produced over the years, I haven't seen his ROI from distribution company marketing.”
The group tried out the tactic in several pilot projects, including one of Connors' personal films, and found immediate success. “What we saw was influencers talking about a typical blockbuster in a video, and then right after that they were talking about my independent film,” Connors recalls. “And we felt like our movie was punching way above its weight from a social media standpoint.” From there, Harpoon became a reality.
In contrast to standard influencer marketing tactics, which typically rely heavily on a small number of major macro-influencers with huge numbers of followers, Harpoon relies heavily on a large number of micro-influencers with highly loyal and niche followings. Choose a different strategy to focus on. “We often see distributors and filmmakers pay a lot of money to influencers with large followings, but they don’t think they’re fully aligned with what their followers are interested in or they don’t think they’re authentic. “We're going to get lost,” Williams said.
“At the end of the day, unless you have a big budget, a lot of movies have a hard time getting their name out there,” Bilezikian added.
As general fatigue with social media advertising continues to grow, Harpoon's approach represents a revolutionary breakthrough for the industry, creating a natural conversation vehicle that is very rare in the influencer marketing space. Much of the company's success is rooted in its ethos of focusing on the quality of engagement, rather than just looking at metrics like views and comments.
“Focusing on the right influencers will improve the algorithm's view count. This means that even if they have a small number of followers, the people who normally watch the channel will be able to watch and like this video. !” and triggers the algorithm to be seen by more people. ” Bilezikian explained. “Not only will engagement increase; positive engagement. That's because comments from accounts with a lot of followers may have nothing to do with the video, or they may be accusing you of taking money for advertising. ”
In addition to our influencer-focused strategy, Harpoon ensures we are up to date with the latest technologies and trends in the social media space, with an in-house innovation team that constantly tests new ideas, media platforms, and strategies to delight our customers. We are trying to stay ahead of the curve. Best results. “Across our departments, we strive to generate conversation in organic and earned media, with a focus on new and interesting pilots across a variety of platforms and novel ways to engage, sometimes beyond influencers. '' Williams said.
And clearly, the time and research the team has put in is paying off, as shown by the success of their campaigns, both for the companies and the clients they work with. 3x higher ROI on video views and Over 10x ROI on positive comments per marketing expense. “The numbers for our service are very good compared to paying big macro influencers because we are much more focused on content mission and relationships. We really value the gift, and we're seeing every film client we've ever worked with want to work with us again,” Bilezikian said.
In addition to film and television campaigns, Harpoon has also worked on a number of successful projects in the political field, which is unsurprising given Connors' lobbying background, and plans to expand in the future. He has also been successful in other areas. The diversity of this work helps her incorporate best practices from across the industry, which she brings back to help further innovation in film and television. “We want to be the first to recruit studios and distribution partners,” Connors said. “And we want to continue to expand our relationships across many sectors as well. We're already talking to people in fashion and finance, in addition to preliminary conversations in the healthcare sector.” . We're excited to grow even bigger than we are now.”
Mr Bilezikian said: “It's hard to think of an industry where this wouldn't work. If you had the marketing dollars, you could probably find a way to have more conversations with them.”
