If you search “Social Network” in Google , instead of giving the results about the definition of particular term the first result which comes up is about a movie “The Social network” which even got 8 nominations at 83rd Academy awards and was praised worldwide.

Conclusion: There is a strong relation between “Social Network” and “Movies”.

Over a period of time this relationship between Movies and Social networking has evolved and that is the main reason why there has been an enormous change in the way films are being marketed nowadays. Filmmakers and producers have realized that if they want to pull in audience to theaters there are only two ways, first either create a controversy around the film, second design a social media campaign. Controversies don’t last long but Social media campaign if done in a right manner can boost the ticket sales immensely. After then it’s the content which decides the fate of a movie.

Traditional ways like airing promos on television, giving ads in newspaper and magazine still exists but due to cyber revolution in late 90’s and early 20s Digital and Social Media marketing have taken a front seat. Today almost two third of the world population visits a social networking site once in a week and that’s a major reason why all the big studios and production house around the world are spending substantial amount of their marketing budget for a successful online campaigns.

For example movies like Harry Porter, Inception and Avatar had spend huge amount of money to make sure that they reach to their target audience easily and stay connect with them 24*7. Today “word of mouse” is equally important as “word of mouth” for a film success which can be easily seen with hundreds and thousands of fans across the world joining the social online platforms of their favorite movies on facebook/twitter within minutes of their creation.Harry Potter’s facebook community only has close to 27 millions fans and counting. It always remains the “talk of twitter” pre and post release time.

Though not everyone who joins these online communities turn out to be the theater audience but these figures helps in spreading the word which effects the sale of tickets significantly in the opening weeks.

It’s not only the Hollywood studios who are going the online way to create buzz filmmakers from India too have realized the power of Social media and online platforms as the best medium to talk about their films. Studios like Yashraj films,

ALT entertainment (Balaji Telefilms) are already running high on social networking platforms whereas filmmakers like Anurag Kashyap and Karan Johar boasts of huge fan following online.

These mediums can also act as a financier for your upcoming flick. Filmmakers like Onir took a step forward and used these platforms smartly to collect funds for his recent film “I AM”.

One thing which plays a pivotal role in a successful Social media campaign is “Audience engagement”. Tapping active users and engaging them smartly helps in creating the awareness which increases the fan base exponentially.

Ashish Patil Producer at Y-films (YashRaj) says “83% of the movie going audience is between 15-35yrs and spends more time online than any other medium. Hence Social Media and digital marketing was the first and obvious choice. We also premiered lot of our content first online and then broke it on TV.”

Reason: Digital marketing catches more eyeballs and cost less as compared to other mediums

During the release of their film “Love ka the End” they started India’s first ever Youtube video chat with the cast and crew which pulled close to 9000 participants.

Gaurav Mishra, Co-founder at Media Redefined, one of the top social media agency in India says “Marketing needs to be at the place where people pay attention and when 1 out of 3 people in India hang out on social networking websites it becomes necessary for film industry to have a strong presence on these platforms for promoting their films.”

With the change in time ,marketing strategy for a film need to be revised so that good content reaches to every nook and corner of the world. To survive in an industry which gives out more than thousand films a year, a good and excellent movie matched with a right social media strategy can do wonders at box office and achieve its aim of entertaining a wider audience.

Bollywood has come of age and has matured in last few decades.If there are two things which people relate to India abroad it is Bollywood and Taj Mahal.After 4 years in 2013 Hindi cinema will be celebrating its Golden Jubilee.Hindi Cinema better known as Bollywood across the globe started its journey with the production of Raja Harish Chandra which is the first silent feature film made in India in 1913   directed and produced by Dadasaheb Phalke. By 30’s film factory was producing close to 200 films per annum.1931 saw a revolutionized change as Alam Ara ,first Indian sound film was produced and was a major hit commercially.

After 6 years of black and white production director of Alam Ara Ardeshir Irani,once again gave a important gift to film industry by producing first colored Hindi feature film,Kisan Kanya but the color concept became popular after 1955.

In 1957 Mother India directed by Mehboob khan which was nominated by Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at Oscars and K Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam wrote a new history in the field of cinema.By 50’s Hindi movies were recognized at Cannes film festival .Legend Filmmakers Satyajit Ray and Guru Dutt were known as best Asian film makers and movie like Pyaasa(1957)by Dutt  and The Apu Trilogy by Ray featured in Time magazine’s “All-TIME” 100 best movies .Actors like Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor had a huge fan following at that time.

The most internationally-acclaimed Hindi film of the 1980s was Mira Nair‘s Salaam Bombay! (1988), which won the Camera d’Or at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Parallel cinema also emerged with Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal as main contributors.In 21st century Directors like Nandita Das,Anurag Kashyap and Madhur Bhandarkar are continuing the legacy of realistic cinema with movies like Fire, Gulaal and Page3.

It would be unfair if we talk about Hindi Cinema and don’t mention icons like Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan which took Bollywood to new heights.Actresses like Aishwarya Rai Bachchan made a huge impact overseas by her work and films like Slumdog Millionaire gave a new meaning and life to Hindi Film Industry which is expected to cross a turnover of 4 billion$. Bollywood produces around 300  out of a total of 1200 films produced under the umbrella of Indian cinema.

Once again we’re at same place with Frozen as the first Black and white film after a millennium by Shivajee Chandrabhushan filmed at Ladakh, India.Frozen is an epitome of Indian cinema’s maturity.It was featured at the various Interntational  film festivals, including the 2007 London Film Festival.It has won awards at Durban Film festival for best cinematography and was nominated for other prestigious global awards and now it has been released in India recently.

Now it is very usual for a  movie producer  to launch their movies abroad and host a special screening in different parts of the world after all collection from overseas Boxoffice is  making them more and more rich.As audience accepting Indian films abroad with open arms its time Indian cinema should start making a more of meaningful cinema apart from making commercial and Masala flicks.

Movies and cinema has always been an element of fun, time pass for many of us, for over more than a century, when I asked my mother why they watched movie ? answer was – fun, even I would give the same answer for such a silly question, movies has always been associated with glamor, gossip. I doubt what I have just written , think I am crazy ! may be, over the decades there are movies made which are not just have elements of fun or time pass rather than a message for all of us , message for our society.

The movies that comes in my mind is Deepa Mehta’s Water, Earth , Fire, although these movies have been in controversies but certainly they have some message for us. In her movies she always highlighted the atrocities done to Indian women before Independence.

Movies like Phir Milenge starring Shilpa Shetty, Abhishek Bachchan, Salman Khan was on less knowledge regarding AIDS, such movies no doubt give a lot to our society, which cannot be spread to that extent via television. Story tells us about how Shilpa Shetty fights back and retained her pride which was lost because she was HIV +, even I came to know that HIV+ and AIDS are different after watching  this movie.

Movies like Jaago( A child in Mumbai raped in local ) ,Satta (Story about a lady turning into politics ), Lajja ( Story about women) , Nayak ( A reporter turning CM for one day ) are the movies which give a tight slap on our society and our corrupt system, no doubt these movies brings out the real hypocrite hidden inside us, may be we realize after the show get over.

Movies like Taare Zameem Par give the real insight of the society , today kids are given so much burden of studies that they have become book worms, the creativity in them has died or in other words child sacrifice them for their parents .

No doubt these movies leave a great impact on us , we say society copies from movies, even the filmmaker lives in the same  society from where they copy? Answer is from society only. It’s simple how we live what we do is just what we see .

It’s not wrong if we say  Cinema reflects the true image of our society.