[MAPR Blog Post] SEO and Content Marketing for Filmmakers – The Basics

As a content creator, it is imperative to have an understanding of SEO and content marketing. This will help you navigate the online space and understand what “works” for the marketplace.  Most importantly, this will arm you with important tools for driving your works (and business) forward.  WE ARE ALL CONTENT MARKETERS NOW.  In this article, I’ll explore the intersection between content creation, search engine optimization and digital marketing.  I will also delve into Hyper Local SEO and Marketing – How US Marketers Win Global By Going Local by Donald L Dunnington, extracting the major points applicable to filmmakers and content creators.

The secret to successful content marketing isn’t actually a secret. It involves the commitment to producing a continuous stream of useful and engaging content. A poignant statement from Dunnington is, “SEO is the new PR and PR is the new SEO.” While SEO media relations are focused on online media and search engine results pages (SERPS), there are comparable objectives with public relations professionals, since the emphasis for both are increasing brand awareness, relationship building and boosting placements.

The digital age takes content production to a hyper level and there is a premium placed on consumer-friendly, authentic content. This holds true for various platforms: websites, blogs, YouTube channels, social media etc.  As filmmakers, we are all looking for innovative marketing strategies to engage our expand our audience.  This involves researching your niche audience and how to reach them.  I mention this to stress the importance of SEO and relationship building.  I will write additional articles on avenues, such as posting behind-the-scenes moments, creating graphics, strategically hashtagging and personalizing the experience for your audience.  Stay tuned, and bookmark my site.

Key Takeaways:

• CONTENT IS KING. Quality in-bound links start with producing original, quality, authentic and compelling content for online, social and mobile platforms.
• WE ARE ALL CONTENT MARKETERS NOW. This is the prime driver of sales leads for B2B and B2C industries.
• SEO is the new PR and PR is the new SEO.
• Develop a personal touch, stay in contact, maintain a two-way relationship.
• Relationships are built in relevancy, quality and the value they bring to the vertical market they serve.

Sidebar: One lesson I learned directly from the author, Donald Dunnington, who happens to be the professor of my grad-level public relations course at Rowan University is that Google penalizes sites that contain duplicate content. This was important because I had a secondary site geared toward women in tv and film where I would republish some of my articles and blog posts first featured on this website.  After this discovery, I later elected to create a category page.  There are important technical considerations involved in our quest for SEO relevance.  Oftentimes, creators share the same content across social media and various platforms, however, with blogs in particular, even if you are the original author, you should be mindful of mirroring duplicate content across sites because there are associated search engine penalties.