“Paranormal Activity”, a low budget horror film, used a grassroots internet campaign including a “Tweet Your Scream” promotion and became a surprise box office hit. The film about a young couple dealing with a demonic presence in their suburban home generated $7.1 million in gross box office revenue last weekend, an eye-opening figure considering it screened in just 160 theaters and was reportedly produced on an $11,000 budget. Many people tweeted things such as “Just got back from seein Paranormal Activity & I’m still LITERALLY shaking. Sleepin w/ the lights on tonight” and interest in the movie mounted quickly.

More big-budget films are also using the social media sites. The Warner Bros film “Where the Wild Things Are” grew from just 72,000 fans on Facebook at the beginning of October to over 1.5 million fans before the movie hits the big screen today. “Twilight” went live on Twitter Monday to promote its new sequel and grabbed more than 79,000 followers by Thursday. Its Facebook page already had 3.8 million fans.

The power of Facebook and Twitter, as well as many other social media outlets, is being utilized by more and more companies as they begin to realize the potential for growth and exposure that they offer. Raving about a new movie on Twitter will likely get a lot of that person’s followers to become interested in the movie as well, which is exactly what happened with “Paranormal Activity”. Internet word-of-mouth is a powerful and largely untapped tool. It is only a matter of time before more people, and more movie studios, catch on.

Read More