The Thin Line Film Fest turned over its advertising strategy this year to the Denton Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the decision appears to have paid off, the festival director said.
"We've already matched last year's ticket sales," said Joshua Butler, the festival director. "We have eight days left."
The Thin Line Film Fest is the only documentary film festival in Texas. This year's festival opened Friday and will close on Monday. On Saturday, viewers had to be turned away from the second screening venue at Denton Square Donuts.
Members of the bureau and the Dallas-Fort Worth Tourism Council packed Vigne Wine Shop & Delicatessen on Monday night for a pre-screening mixer. Afterward, both council and bureau members were treated to the screening of Aquarena Springs and Ralph the Swimming Pig, a documentary about water conservation woes and their impact on one of Texas' early tourist destinations.
Butler, visitors bureau Vice President Kim Phillips and staffers from Aria advertising agency agreed that much of the credit for the uptick in ticket sales goes to their social media strategy.
"We're light years ahead of what we've ever done as far as that goes," Butler said. "We've had a Facebook page, but there were no posts and not a lot of activity." ALSO ONLINE
• Thin Line Film Fest Schedule
Butler founded the festival five years ago. The inaugural festival lost money, but the festival organizers regrouped and have seen audiences grow along with interest from filmakers.
Because the presenting organization, Texas Filmmakers Inc., received hotel occupancy tax money for the first time in 2011, Butler said he decided to approach the bureau for some advice for the 2012 festival. He ended up turning the marketing over to the bureau.
"Promotions is the key role we play," Phillips said. "We met with Josh last fall, about the time he started screening the films. We put together an ad plan that's basically a three-way partnership between Thin Line, the CVB and the tourism council."
When agencies use hotel tax fund money for promotions, they have to promote their events outside Denton. The film festival has been promoted to A-train riders and on the bureau's website home page. Aria, an advertising agency in Dallas, managed the social media strategy.
Mikon Haaksman, the principal videographer and animator at Aria, said the company targeted film festival information to Facebook and Twitter, getting out the message about the festival films, parties and people to the nonprofit's online network.
"The festival already has a reputation," Haaksman said. "Josh has clearly done a great job developing this event. … From five years to now this festival has seen a huge change. I come from film background myself, and what stands out to me is the quality of the films. When we think about social media, we think about that person who might not come to something like this and then we ask, 'How do I get that person to come.'"
Haaksman and his Aria colleague J.R. Atkins, a client strategist, said this is where social media come in.
"You've heard of the rumor mill. It's been around forever," Atkins said. "We want to use that - to create good rumors."
What signals success with a campaign? A surge in ticket sales, more Facebook fans and Twitter followers and, finally, social media users sharing their own experiences at an event. For Aria, they are performing well when social media users talk about a documentary and post their photos online. For an event like Thin Line, that kind of activity means people have connected with the event and want their friends to do the same.
When people spread their experiences through cyberspace, they second the notion that Denton has something unique for tourists.
"We don't have Six Flags," Phillips said. "Arlington is always about Six Flags and the Cowboys. We have quirky, unique, hipster, different things in Denton. It's smaller, but we have music, we have theater, we have visual art and events like Thin Line, 35 Denton and Arts & Jazz. Altogether, it's a lot to offer. We know that people come into town to catch a film at Thin Line. They might go to a restaurant and hit a gas station on their way out of town. They might not be staying in hotels, but they often come back."
LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com .
 
