Cinereach, a nonprofit that champions socially relevant films, wanted to boost the number of entries for its Reach Film Fellowship, a prestigious six-month program that pairs young filmmakers with grants, resources, and industry mentors.
The ideal applicant would be a recent film school grad with an interest in social causes. To get the word out to this narrow niche, PKPR developed a finely tuned social media campaign that used Twitter, Facebook, blog, and online outreach to connect with film students, social activists, and influencers in the independent film world. The results: applications for this year’s Fellowship program increased by over 100%.
PKPR’s campaign resulted in tweets from some of the most widely followed independent film voices on Twitter, including Filmmaker Magazine editor Scott Macauley, indie film guru Ted Hope, The Independent Magazine, DocuGirl, and Docs Interactive.
On Facebook, the call for applications was posted by such targeted groups as Emerson College, Future Filmmakers, Student Filmmakers, and Independent Short Filmmaking. Film schools around the country also shared the news via e-blasts and bulletin boards, including NYU, Brown, and UNC.
Meanwhile, PKPR’s blog outreach led to posts on such prominent sites as Documentary.org, the site of the International Documentary Association; Working Films; Social Edge, the Skoll Foundation’s social entrepreneur networking site, and the School of Visual Arts.
