Free Guy Social Media Strategy

Free Guy is an upcoming action comedy film directed by Shawn Levy (who also directed Stranger Things and Night at the Museum). The premise of the movie is that a bank teller named “Guy” (played by Ryan Reynolds) discovers that he is actually inside a video game as a non-playable character. The movie’s original release date was in July 2020, then pushed back to December, and then May 2021 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, in March 2021 Ryan Reynolds released a video stating that the actual release date was August 13, 2021. The movie won’t air for weeks, rather it will air for one day and one day only. With the trailer being released all the way back in 2019, how does a movie stay relevant? The answer is a great social media marketing strategy.

Goals

The ultimate goal of many movies is to sell tickets. Free Guy is no different. Here are the three goals of this social media strategy:

1. Have the most-watched trailer on YouTube in 2021.
2. Be the #1 grossing box-office film so far in 2021.
3. Increase brand awareness by 50% from the start of the campaign to a week after the movie is premiered.

Below, I have highlighted a social media strategy campaign that will hit all the marks and successfully meet the campaign’s goals.

What platforms will be used?

The platforms used for this campaign are Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. I wanted to utilize all of these social media platforms so that this campaign can receive maximum reach from a variety of target audiences.

Hashtags that we will use for this campaign include: #freeguy #freeguymovie

Sprout Social will be used to measure the analytics and overall success of each stage of the social media strategy.

Facebook: The target market for Facebook is parents that have children ages 10–17. Facebook is the largest social network with users 65 and older being the fastest-growing group. 63% of the US population over the age of 12 uses Facebook and its users spend 34 minutes per day typically (Blitch). Parents and their children (if they have Facebook) can be targeted to go see this movie.

Instagram: Instagram is the 4th most user of any mobile app and is the sixth-most visited website (Blitch). The average user spends 53 minutes on Instagram daily, plenty of time for the target audience to see an ad. The target market for Instagram is similar to Facebook in that it will target parents. However, Instagram will also target audiences from ages 18–34. According to (Statista Research Department), over 60% of Instagram users globally are between the ages of 18–34.

Twitter: Twitter allows users to see and create “by the minute” content. The target audience for Twitter is gamers of all ages. 42% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18–29 but I did not want to exclude older people who are interested in gaming (Blitch). Twitter will market directly to the audience that can attend the movie without their parents.

YouTube: YouTube is the second largest network and the second most visited website. 96% of 18–24-year-old American internet users use YouTube (Blitch). Gamers have a huge presence on YouTube. According to Statista, in 2017 there were 181 million videos, game-related viewers, on the platform. Also, two of the top five channels with the most subscribers worldwide are gaming-related (Clement. 2021) So for YouTube, I want to target specifically gamers of any age.

Voice(s) of social media campaign: funny, witty, playful

Since this movie seems to have comedy at the forefront, these voices will be important to use throughout the campaign.

Free Guy Influencers

1. YouTube gamer Tiffany Garcia aka iHasCupquake. With over 6.98 million subscribers on YouTube, she is the perfect candidate to promote Free Guy on her Youtube channel. Her channel is not strictly gaming, she also posts baking, art, and lifestyle videos. Tiffany Garcia could do a reaction video to the trailer and post it on her channel. She could also be provided with a link to send her subscribers so they can directly buy tickets to the movie. I think having her as an influencer could help gain interest from a large female audience.
2. Ryan Reynolds aka the star of the movie who plays “Guy.” He has been involved in the marketing of his movies in the past such as the Deadpool movies. For example, ​Reynolds would share videos straight from his iPhone (a Halloween video of Deadpool trick or treating with kids) that went viral. Ryan Reynolds is a pretty popular and funny guy as well as being a fantastic actor. He can potentially convince his fans to go see this movie just because he is in it.

This social marketing plan should start 12 months out from the movie premiere date. For paid social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube ads will run two weeks at a time. Making sure to select A/B testing to see which ads perform best. Then the data from analyzing two weeks of paid social media content will be assessed. Changes will be made accordingly.

For organic social media: the posting timeline will be varied depending on the platform. Every social media platform is unique so at the beginning of this campaign, this schedule will be followed below and then adjusted once analytics are assessed. The time and frequency of posts were determined by SproutSocial’s guidelines (Arens 2021). The below times are in Central Standard Time.

Instagram: Post 3 times a week. Preferably Monday-Friday at either 11 a.m and 5 p.m. Also, post Instagram stories when available.

Facebook: Post 1 time a day. Preferably Monday-Friday between 9a.m-1p.m.

YouTube: Post once a week. Preferably the same time and day every week in the evening.

Twitter: Post 1–5 tweets a day. Preferably Monday-Friday between 9.a.- 3.pm.

Some examples of pre-event content are below:

Created Content #1:

Can be posted on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram! Behind the scenes videos and bloopers of the movie. I think that behind-the-scenes videos give great insight into the movie and all of the production that goes on into the film. This is an easy way to break up all of the trailer posts by showing a different perspective. The target audience of this post is people who are already interested in the movie but are indecisive about seeing it.

Created Content #2:

Giveaways are big on Instagram. From bloggers to big companies, giveaways are a great way to increase engagement, followers, and interest in the company. A great way to utilize this tactic for the Free Guy Social Media Strategy is to collaborate with a company such as Xbox or Playstation and do a giveaway including the tickets and the gaming console.

Some examples of content to be posted during the event are below:

Created Content #1:

Can be posted on Facebook and Instagram! Videos of Ryan Reynolds and the cast visiting movie theaters around the U.S. during the day of the premier. I think this is a great idea so that Ryan can interact with his fans and people attending the movie. This is NOT an original idea but it always makes me smile when actors or actresses go and visit the fans and the people that allow him to keep acting.

Created Content #2:

Instagram Takeovers. Each of the cast members can take over the Instagram stories during the week of the premier. They can take questions from fans and create content surrounding the movie! They could also offer ticket give-aways to increase engagement. They could use the blogger tactic and say if you share a certain post, or tag your friends, you will be entered to win tickets!

Conclusion

In conclusion, the pre-event phase is the most important part of the marketing strategy. The reason is that pre-event marketing generates hype and interest for people to purchase tickets and see the movie. This movie will only be in theaters for one day, so it was very critical to advertise this and have people purchase tickets before this date and not after it. I think that Instagram will be the most successful for reaching the target audience. With the mixture of reels, Instagram stories, grid posts, and Instagram ads, there were many opportunities to reach a broad audience. With over 75% of users under the age of 35, Instagram will reach the key demographic for the Free Guy movie.

References

Barnhart, B. (2021, January 19). How to CREATE Achievable Social Media Goals. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-goals/.

Clement, J. (2021, April 19). Topic: Gaming video content market. Statista. https://www.statista.com/topics/3147/gaming-video-content-market/#:~:text=Today%2C%20with%20a%2044%20percent,largest%20share%20of%20market%20revenue.

Doyle, B. (2021, June 14). TikTok statistics — everything you need to KNOW [feb 2021 UPDATE]. Wallaroo Media. https://wallaroomedia.com/blog/social-media/TikTok-statistics/#:~:text=TikTok%20Statistics%20%E2%80%93%20Updated%20June%202021&text=Monthly%20Active%20Users%20%E2%80%93%20TikTok%20has,of%20now%20(February%202021.

How much do tiktok ads cost? Consumer Acquisition. (2021, May 21). https://www.consumeracquisition.com/faq/tiktok-ads-cost#:~:text=Tips%20for%20Creating%20Successful%20Campaigns&text=TikTok%20ads%20start%20at%20%2410,the%20ad%20format%20and%20duration).

(“Markiplier’s YouTube Stats”) Social Blade. Retrieved January 13, 2021.

Blitch, K. (n.d.). Week 2: Social Networks. Zoom.

Social media analytics and reporting tools. Sprout Social. (2021, June 28). https://sproutsocial.com/features/social-media-analytics/.

Statista Research Department. (2021, August 2). Instagram: Age distribution of global Audiences 2021. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/325587/instagram-global-age-group/#:~:text=Instagram%3A%20distribution%20of%20global%20audiences%202021%2C%20by%20age%20group&text=As%20of%20April%202021%2C%20close,platform%20 particularly%20 attractive%20for%20 marketers