Why Are Critics and Bloggers Important?
Reviews and critics can be extremely important in helping to make your film a success for multiple different reasons:
Firstly every blog, article and review of your film will help spread awareness about the release and drive more traffic to wherever your released your film (such as Amazon Prime, Tubi, iTunes, Google Play etc.) That traffic equals more revenue from your film
Every review and blog helps make your film more credible and add authority to your title in the eyes of the algorithms of the streaming platforms. Let's take Amazon for example. The more people review your film (especially more notable critics) the more people will see your title on Amazon due to its algorithm.
People really care about reviews! We live in a world where people really struggle with their attention spans and therefore they need everything they watch to be really engaging. Most families take quite a long time to decide which film they will watch next so if they come across yours and they can't find a single review of it they'll most likely not want to take the risk and move on to the next one.
Where Can You Find Film Critics and Bloggers?
Of course the first step in getting a blog or review of your film is to find bloggers and critics to contact. With a simple google search of the term "film critic" you will find hundreds of pages of critics who only review big blockbusters films. These people will simply not be interested in reviewing a low budget independent film which has not won any big awards. You therefore have to dive deeper to find smaller bloggers who specialise in the indie film niche. Let's first explore some platforms and tools which will help you find these...
Monitor Competitors
One of the best places to find bloggers who are interested in reviewing indie films is by looking at the competition. In your case the competition are similar low budget films. First put together a list of films that are similar to yours. You can find these on Facebook, Twitter or directly on IMDb.
Next go on their IMDb pages and at the top right you will see user reviews and critic reviews.
Click on critic reviews and it will take you to a page with links to each one of the reviews.
From there you can look at the blogs / reviews and find out who the author is and reach out to them through twitter, facebook or a contact form on their website if it's available.
Facebook Pages
Facebook pages are an excellent place to start when looking for bloggers and film critics. Simply search "film critic" or "film blogger" in the facebook search bar and filter so you only see Pages. You will then see a huge list of pages which include the term you searched for. You can easily filter through these and for example, ignore all pages which have under 500 likes and over 50,000 likes to avoid the massive and tiny bloggers. Make sure to give their page a like before messaging them to show your support of the page.
Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are another great place to find smaller bloggers and critics who will be interested in reviewing lower budget films. First search for and join Facebook groups which are focused on reviewing films. Next join the groups and look for posts where bloggers and critics are promoting their latest film reviews. Firstly look out for reviews of indie films but you shouldn't necessarily exclude ones who reviewed blockbusters. Most bloggers who promote their reviews in facebook groups tends to be smaller so even if the post is about a review of a bigger film, it doesn't necessarily mean they person won't be interested in reviewing your film.
Nearly all bloggers and film critics will be on Twitter, making it an ideal platform to conduct another search. Twitter has some great advanced search tools to help you filter through the millions of accounts. Firstly search for terms such as "film critic" or " film blogger". Next on the right hand side click on advanced search for further filtering options
You can filter further by adding more key words, hashtags, the amount of replied or engagement that the person gets and much more. Once again you probably won't to stay away from the massive account of millions of followers - it's extremely unlikely that those will review a low budget indie film.
Buzzumo is another great place to search for any kinds of influencers including bloggers and critics. You can get a 30 day free trial which will give you plenty of time to use the platform and get a big list of relevant bloggers.
Firstly you can search for authors by terms such as "film critic" or "film review" which will show you profiles of people who wrote and published articles on the subject.
You can also use this platform to conduct twitter profile searches. The advantage of using Buzzumo over searching directly on twitter is that you can filter by page authority, retweet rates etc. You can also see the link to the bloggers' websites right there in the list making it very easy to find.
You can use Tomson to write a simple brief stating what kind of blog you are looking for and what you are offering in return. You will then have some if the 24,000 influencers and micro influencers apply to take part in your project. You then accept or reject them as you see fit. This is a great and simple platform to find influencers if you have a product that you can offer them for free or if you are willing to pay for a blog post.
How to Contact Bloggers
Unless you end up using Tomson you will now have a list of bloggers and critics who review your kind of films - it's now time to reach out to them.
Send A Quick Straightforward Email
Hey {First Name},
I’ve been following your blog for a while now and just wanted to say that I really like your reviews. I saw that you've been reviewing some independent films lately so I thought I'd reach out. We're currently looking for film critics interested in reviewing our latest film [Name of Film].
[1 sentence about your film including genre, main theme etc.]
[1 Sentence mentioning why your film is unique. For example notable festival awards, was it shot in a very interesting style or does it include a famous actor?]
Let me know if this would be of interest and we can discuss it in more detail.
Thanks,
[Name]
Send a Followup
You might not get a reply to your first email so make sure to follow up one week later. If you want you can followup a second time but I would not email anyone more than 3 times if you do not get any replies.
If you are looking for further advice on how to distribute your film including finding a distributor then take a look at this blog discussing How Do I Get My Film Distributed.
If you are interested in learning more about self-distribution including how to market and promote your film then take a look at this blog on How To Self-Distribute a Feature Film.
Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions - we'd love to hear from you!
We also offer a series of courses on funding and distributing your film online which you can browse using the links below:
Feature Film Funding and Distribution Course - 14+ hours of video tutorials will guide you through the entire process of funding and distributing your film. It will go through a variety of methods and strategies including crowdfunding, private investors, product placement, online distribution, cinema releases and much, much more!
Feature Film Producing Course - 4+ hours of video tutorials teaching you how to fund and distribute a feature film with a budget between 50–500k.
Film Crowdfunding Course - 4+ hours of video tutorial teaching you how to prepare for, launch and market a film crowdfunding campaign.
Online Film Distribution Course - 4+ hours of video tutorials teaching you how to self-distribute a feature film online.
Finally, you can also take a look at our upcoming online and in-person London-based events here.
