Online Movie Chat Translates to Ticket Buying in Big Way, Survey Finds

People who talk film online are six times more likely to buy tickets than those who don't

People who talk about movies online with others are six times more likely to purchase movie tickets than those who don’t, according to a study released Tuesday.

That people who talk about movies go to see movies makes sense — it’s the degree to which they do that should matter to marketers, Andy Stevens, executive vice president of research at ShareThis, which did the study, told TheWrap.

“This tells us not only that sharing is a strong indicator of purchase intent but also that sharers are a highly valuable audience to target as they are much more likely to actually purchase a ticket," Stevens said.

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“Looking in more detail, we found that this correlation is even higher for family, sci-fi and action/adventure movies where sharers are 11 times more likely to purchase a ticket."

The survey also found that movie buffs (defined as people who saw three or more movies a month) were 73 percent more likely to share movie content than regular moviegoers. 

People who buy their tickets online are 70 percent more likely to share movie content, the survey found, and people who watch movies within three days of release are more likely to share movie content online.

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To compile the survey, ShareThis monitored nearly 29 million users logging more than 44 million movie-based sharing events from mid-April through July. They then cross-referenced these to a database of roughly 385,000 online and offline ticket purchases.

Among the other findings:

>> Action/adventure and sci-fi are the most shared movie genres and generate 2.6 times as many shares per film as other categories. But data shows that shared content about family-friendly movies is more likely to be clicked on.

>> Moviegoers are more likely to use Twitter, email and Reddit than the general population. Moviegoers rely more on Twitter and email rather than Facebook and Pinterest.

>> States that watch more movies don’t necessarily share about them more often. People from New York and California tend to watch more movies, but the central states share more content around them.

>> “Iron Man 3" has been this year’s most shared movie so far: The social engagement around "Iron Man 3" began as far back as 40 days before release, and remained fairly active until at least 15 days post-release.
 

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