Annelise Larson of Veria recently gave a presentation at the Vancouver International Film Festival Industry conference about Discovering the Biz Model in the Data.

She starts with:

“For me discoverability is a two way street. It’s about the audience discovering you and your work, and it’s also about you discovering your audience. It means you have to know WHO they are, WHERE they are and WHAT they want. This is key for sustainable creative business models, for making your dreams a reality.”

She then illustrates this with four examples, including Angry BIrds and the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

She concludes with ten lessons:

“1. Start with free. All of these success stories began with giving content away for free, and continue to have “free” as part of their model. Free allows them to grow and engage their audiences and reward their attention and loyalty to get them hooked. It’s part of the “give before you ask” nature of the online economy.
2. Think beyond the project. Instead of building an audience from scratch with each project, think big picture to your body of work. Finding throughlines through the work that can allow you to bring the audience you have discovered, grown and engaged with you from project to project.
3. Think franchise. Corallery of #2. Not a franchise in the Marvel Universe sense, remembering that audiences are more loyal to characters and storyworlds than the people behind them. Create a content/story franchise allows you to carry that auidiene forward and collect and leverage data for a long(er) time.
4. Data=truth. Success comes not just from gathering data but from being open to the truths it has to tell you (even if you don’t like what they are). And yes, I know data can be manipulated. But how about NOT manipulating it and actually trying to understand what it is telling you instead.
5. Listen & respond. Listen to your audience and then take action based on what they (and their data) tells you.
6. The digital space changes quickly. You can never afford to stand still but must keep adapting and following new opportunities.
7. Embrace failure. The digital space is iterative. You can never be “perfect.” Instead experiment, track and use what you learn to improve and get better at what you do. This is especially feasible within the ongoing “big picture”/ franchise model (and another good reason to think this way).
8. The digital economy is a social economy. It’s built on relationships. And at the end of the day, the data is simply an expression of your relationship with your fans. Listening to the data is listening to what they are telling you. And if you respond authentically you will be rewarded.
9. Digital business models starts with discoverability. If the audience can’t find you it doesn’t matter how good your story is.
10. Discoverability starts with audience data. Helping audiences discover your story, starts with discovering who they are, where they are and what they want. The online space gives you the means to do that in the access to data it provides.”

My take: although this has hints of chicken or egg, I really like the perspective. No longer are we filmmakers working on projects, we are media makers working on media experiences. Also, lesson #3 resonates for me — I call this the storyverse.