Mingle Media TV Sponsors 2nd “Audience Choice” Category at Upcoming 3rd New Media Film Festival

MMTVN expands Audience Choice category sponsorship in the New Media Film Festival 2012, for web series, live stream, and trailers. Online voting by fans will create additional buzz to support new media filmmakers and independent content creators.

Online media and live web TV network company; Mingle Media.TV announced today that they will be expanding the categories that they sponsor for the “Audience Choice” category in the New Media Film Festival. The new categories “trailers” and “live stream web shows” will join the “web series” category and will benefit from online promotion, visibility to distributors, prizes totally over $5,000 as well as the opportunity to have their project selected to screen at the 2012 New Media Film Festival.

The New Media Film Festival brings together Industry Professionals and Content Creators across Film, TV, Games, Publishing, Mobile, Web, and Tech. The two-day event features the Best of New Media and includes Short Films, Mobile, Games, Web, iApps, Animation, Music Videos, Digital Comics, Web Series, Live Stream, Technology Platforms, and New Film Technologies. Screenings include Sundance, Cannes, and World Premieres as well as the best talent working in new media.

“We’re excited to support the New Media Film Festival by sponsoring the “Audience Choice” category for these three areas of growth.” Said Stephanie Piche, Executive Producer, Mingle Media TV. “With more and more independent digital film makers creating projects, we wanted to showcase their work through the online voting to help them gain exposure and find new fans.”

Call for Entries: New Media Film Festival
The New Media Film Festival is now accepting entries for the June 2012 Festival including the Mingle Media TV “Audience Choice” sponsorship.

The “Audience Choice” categories invite web series and LIVE stream video creators who have three or more episodes, less than 60 minutes in length to submit their project in the following unscripted and scripted genres: Action/Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Horror, Music/Performing Arts, Mystery, Romance, Sci-Fi, Special Interest, Sport/Fitness, and War. Filmmakers can also submit a pilot or trailer that is under 3 minutes in length to the competition. The audience gets to vote online for their favorite submissions in two rounds of voting before the winners are selected. The Grand Prize winners will be announced at the New Media Film Festival in Los Angeles, 2012. For more details, please visit: http://www.minglemediatv.com/NMFFAudienceChoice.html.

Mingle Media TV currently broadcasts over 100 live and episodic web TV interactive programs each week. MMTVN has produced over 6,000 hours of live stream interactive talk shows where audience members can interact with hosts and viewers online or via mobile devices. Show sponsors and advertisers benefit from an integrated ad approach, where the hosts talk about products, which later become meta-tagged content on the Internet within social networks as part of their sponsorship.

About New Media Film Festival
The New Media Film Festival brings together Industry Professionals and Content Creators across Film, TV, Games, Publishing, Mobile, Web and Tech. Founded by Independent Filmmaker, Susan Johnston and launching in Los Angeles, June 2010, the three-day event features the Best of New Media and includes Short Film, Mobile, Games, Web, iApps, Animation, Technology Platforms, and New Film Technologies. New Media Film Festival-SF Bay Area is produced in partnership with Producers Guild of America, NATPE, IAWTV, and San Francisco Writers Conference. New Media Film Festival (San Francisco and Los Angeles) are currently accepting submissions athttp://www.NewMediaFilmFestival.com. For more information about the Festival and/or sponsorships, please contact Susan Johnston, the Founder, and Director of the New Media Film Festival, at 310-288-1100 or info@NewMediaFilmFestival.com

About Mingle Media
 TV Network
MMTVN is an online media and interactive web TV network that executive produces, curates, and broadcasts 100 weekly web series shows along with entertainment industry event coverage. Our video coverage, web series and live broadcasts are promoted via Twitter, blog posts, Facebook and other popular social networks; in addition to airing live on the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android platforms and syndicated through Blip.TV and over 15 syndication sites including AOL Video, YouTube, Samsung, Vizio, MeeFeedia, Blinkx, Daily Motion, Boxee, Roku and as an iTunes podcast. Our audience reach online is over 250,000 weekly views of our video coverage, web series and live broadcasts and are currently in the top 20,000 websites in the US. MMTVN’s live web TV shows feature lifestyle subject matter experts and social media content providers from celebrities, authors to bloggers including executive producing two shows with Emmy award winners. MMTVN has expanded its curation of web series with a growing number of independently produced shows from science fiction to drama, action to teen soaps now playing on the network. In addition to curating produced webseries, MMTVN is promoting and securing sponsors for INDIE creators. MMTVN also covers Hollywood celebrity and charity events from the red carpet and behind the scenes. MMTVN has covered the Oscars on the Red Carpet along with Golden Globes, IPTVFest, HollyShorts, LA Shorts Fest, AOF Fest, Daytime Emmys, Saturn Awards, Streamy Awards, People’s Choice, NAACP, SAG , plus numerous Web Series Premieres and A-list Celebrity Fundraisers. Mingle Media TV is also sponsoring the Audience Choice Category in the New Media Film Festival for Web Series Creators. For more information, please visithttp://www.minglemediatvnetwork.com.

Discover INDIE produced series finalists in the #AudienceChoice Category of the New Media Film Festival Sponsored by Mingle Media TV

We are excited that this year’s online competition is winding down and at midnight tonight the voting ends… which means that there is about 5.5 hours left to watch and vote for your favorite series. You only get to vote ONE time per series… and you can even discover some treasures here in this competition that you’ll want to share with your friends and family too. I know we have – it’s been a great pleasure to support the web series community with this competition as part of the New Media Film Festival! Winners will be announced LIVE on 5/20 from the Red Carpet at the Festival!

With that said – here are the finalists that need your votes NOW:

Webseries Entry	Votes	Voting Started
Travel Companions	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
The Unemployment of Danny London	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Crossing Blood Lines	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Lien on Me	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Masculathon	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Oblivion	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Illegal	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Looking at You	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Secret Millionaires	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
CYPHERS	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
The R.I.P. Files	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Shes Just Not That Into You	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Inappropriate Fairy Tales	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
World of Holly Woodlands	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Miss Behave	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Asylum Web Series	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Sweet Tarts Take Away	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Naomi: The Show	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
McCracken LIVE!	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
The Puzzle Makers Son	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Cupid and Eros	? TBD ?	5/1/2011

Here’s where to go to vote: Mingle Media TV Network

There are many things that helped the finalists get their fans to vote for them… the following list are a few things that everyone who creates content for the web should be doing – not just for competitions but for views / audience and community building:

Twitter:

• Follow people back (you don’t have to follow MLM, #TeamFollowBack or other “self-proclaimed Social Media Experts but definitely industry people)
• Thank people for following you, introduce yourself, start a convo
• ReTWEET people who promote you (there’s nothing worse than having someone tweet your promo to vote for you and you don’t thank them or RETWEET the message in honor of them)
• Support your fellow creator – RETWEET their series announcements
• Links matter – tweet YOUR series link in your tweets – use a shortener to get it all in 140 characters

Facebook:

• Post your episodes, community activities (other creators) and info related to the industry on your page – it’s not all about you, sharing is caring
• Link to your content on other sites
• Embed videos so people can watch while on Facebook
• LIKE other creator’s pages – help them get the word out and they will respond in kind

Blog Posts:

• Start a blog and write a post a week telling your fan base what you’re doing
• Embed an episode and tell the back story about the episode or interesting fact
• Ask your fans what they liked or didn’t like about it

YouTube

• Use META TAGS, keywords to keep your content together on the page
• YouTube will bring up other similar content from other people if you don’t
• Keep your titles uniform and add a description with links back to your site, twitter, facebook so people can find you
• Use annotations and create hotspots with links as a call to action

If you are creating for the Interwebs and are NOT building fans or community, ask yourself why not…. are you doing the above? If you are and still not getting anywhere… it’s time to ask a professional how to change things up for you.

Funny thing happened along the way to the NMFF Web Series Audience Choice Awards…

It seems like a long time in the making… but when you’re working with a live film festival that has two events a year (Los Angeles and San Francisco) you want to get as much exposure for the content creators as you can… you learn a lot about the community at large and what you can do to make the next round even better.

Our goal originally was to help web series creators showcase their series in an online Festival that was an IMDb qualifier to help them get credits while participating in the festival. We created a specially branded webpage for each series with keywords, branding, contact info and links back to their website, Facebook and Twitter pages right on it and a player that had all their episodes in order. This model is a win-win for the series creators – they get new people to discover their content during the course of the online voting time period, Mingle Media TV promotes them on a regular basis for votes on Twitter, Facebook and their website, the content creators get their fans to support them, they get IMDb credits, exposure in a film festival dedicated to new media, a chance to be screened at the festival, and they get the views on their YouTube channel.

This year we had 57 entries from five countries – not bad for our first year. But we also saw that many entrants just put their series in and really never promoted it for voting. If it is just to get the Laurels for entering – that’s disappointing. We also saw that many creators who are not very Internet savvy, missing out on the benefits of participating in the retweeting and reposting of our promotion. In fact, we even saw some of their fans complaining that we were promoting the series they LIKED on Facebook…

Yes, I'm on my Soap Box...

One of the many benefits of creating indie content online is that you can do what you want…. no restrictions by ratings organizations. Same with film festivals – you meet their criteria, you get exposure and who knows what else. Mingle Media TV is an online, interactive TV Network – yes, I said TV. As a society we are programmed with the terms “Movies & TV” for entertainment. As a marketing expert, you learn that you brand and message to the lowest common denominator – so making up new ways to describe what you’re doing doesn’t work unless people adopt it globally. Think Xerox versus copier, Kleenex versus tissues, Bandaid versus adhesive strip – great examples of how a brand became the thing – and is used as a global term. The world is changing and the convergence of mainstream TV shows streaming through the Internet is happening now.

Indie web series creators have been here for a long time – especially considering the Internet is so new. Creators have had the home field advantage and only a few of them have grasped the reality of the need for audience, marketing, branding and building community. Creating for art or yourself and not caring if you are adopted by the masses or found is totally fine. However, most creators want to have that audience reach and have sponsors and compete with mainstream TV shows. But they lack in the basics of the medium they have chosen to publish to.

In the past several months, I have been working with Rich from Web Series Network to try to help creators with these issues, education. Much to my dismay, many of the complaints on why more creators and producers are not joining in is no time or money. Then why complain about not having an audience – this is not the Field of Dreams, if you build it they will come…. I have also been slammed for not doing it for free? Really? Everything you need to know about SEO, promoting and marketing your content is available with a GOOGLE SEARCH, so why should I give away my time and knowledge if there’s nothing in it for me? On top of all we do at Mingle Media TV for our community members, asking for more free for those who are not members of our community is pretty insulting. We partner with Slebisodes.com to hold a weekly #WebSeriesChat and share ideas and interview hot web series creators to help open up dialog and community, I am a regular participant at the Web Series Network, I am a regular speaker at industry events, sharing my knowledge and we promote webseries at premieres, festivals and yet… there are a few voices who feel that I should not be charging for what I know. (funny cause there are several others out there who do and you don’t seem to be saying anything to them…. wonder why?)

We are on Internet time people, and while you are sitting back and spouting off more excuses why you cannot promote, market or build audience rather than just digging in and setting goals and making it happen… the rest of the world including traditional TV are moving into your HOOD and they are taking YOUR audience. Wonder why no one finds you… you are not doing anything. Personally speaking, when someone tells me I can’t do it or won’t be successful at it… I set my mind to showing them how wrong they are…. what does hearing that do to you??

Business of Web Series Boot Camp

Mingle Media TV Network will be offering several boot camps starting the first of June through their newest division: The Business of Web Series. These bootcamps will be offered to the series who are hosted on Mingle Media TV as well as the series who enter the next round of competition for the New Media Film Festival. We also offer our services for a fee –  and guess what, we get paid fees by TV shows and other new media producers to create winning programs for them…. That’s how we survive without trying to make pennies on banner ads (ever wonder why we don’t have “ads on our site”???  – cause we monetize smartly).

With that said – we want to make this next year of competition that much better for new media producers – web series creators and we are going to start with our Business of Web Series Boot Camp program. We are all about positive change and helping the community, but we are also about doing it on our terms and with those who want to participate in a program that will help them secure their place on the Internet.

Don’t forget  – today is the last day to vote for the 21 finalists in the 1st Annual Audience Choice Awards in the New Media Film Festival Sponsored by Mingle Media TV Network… vote 1 time per series… support your community. Winners announced at the festival red carpet on the 20th LIVE streaming on Mingle Media TV.