“Twilight” Makes the Most out of Social Media

Situation: The Twilight Saga is one of the most successful franchises the industry has seen in a while. But the truth is that Twilight isn’t as wildly popular as it is because of it’s amazing CGI, compelling storyline or multi-layered characters (although I’m sure there are quite a few teenage girls who adamantly disagree). The truth is Twilight, like many other films, has fostered an online community that keeps fans counting down the seconds until June 30th–Eclipse‘s theatrical debut. What the executives over at Summit Entertainment realized early on was that the vampire craze would come and go just like every adolescent fad. They also realized that if they wanted to make any money off the trilogy, they’d have to produce and distribute the films as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, there’s still that necessary break in between each cinematic chapter, during which fans can only sit…wait…and incessantly sign online.

Solution: The multi-platform Twilight campaign provides just about everything a die-hard Edward–or Jacob–fan would ever need in order to stay sane throughout the painful waiting period in between films. For example, there’s the the Twilight Tracker application for the iPhone, which includes an actual Countdown to Eclipse feature, new characters bios from the upcoming flick, avatars, videos and more. There’s also a link for fans to plan their own Eclipse viewing parties on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, and real-time updates of what fans are saying on the movie’s immensely active Twitter account. Many brands have since jumped on Twilight bandwagon, integrating film related promos and giveaways into their own social media. Vitamin Water, for instance, has an Eclipse tab on their official Facebook page, which takes fans to the pixel by pixel contest for a chance to win free tickets to the premiere. If all that still isn’t enough to tide fans over, there’s the Facebook Soundtrack tab, where users can listen to their favorite songs from the film for free. There’s also a constant slew of Q&As for fans to tweet their comments and queries for the cast, and let’s not forget the immersive World of Twilight microsite, where the downloadable content and behind-the-scenes features are limitless. The point is, there’s no such thing as a waiting period when you have a social media campaign as extensive as Twilight‘s.

Results: Some might ask, so which came first? The online social scene, or the film? Well judging by the numbers–the first Twilight grossed $351 million worldwide while New Moon pulled in a hefty $688 million–the constantly expanding online communities made New Moon into the box office phenomenon that it was. While the first film didn’t exactly struggle through its theatrical run, the franchise needed that extra boost leading up to the sequel from newfound fans spreading the Twilight gospel around. There’s no denying that the large number of Facebook fans (6,126,147), Twitter followers (319,902), MySpace friends (790,519) or YouTube subscribers (220,675–and 12,527,921 channel views) made a difference in ticket sales. Thus, with more Twilight material inundating the internet every day, it’s quite possible Eclipse is going to blow that $688M out of the water.