This article is for budding filmmakers who are trying to build an online presence and how dashboards can help. Having an online portfolio, and trying to grow your social media profiles is not an easy job. It may open up a world of new opportunities that can boost your filmmaking career, but there are too many things to take care of. Website visitors, content performance, shares, audience insights, and so much more!
It would be amazing if there was a single tool that could help filmmakers take real-time decisions. A tool that would give them deep audience insights and financial data that can be easily accessible. Having actionable data for any kind of organisation or business helps people make smarter decisions. The same holds true if you’re a filmmaker. Data is immensely valuable, and with the right tool, you can make the most of it by making the right decisions.
Just imagine if you could get valuable insights on your audience on what they are watching, what languages they speak, where they are coming from, and more. You could use this information to make informed decisions that help build your filmmaking career. This is exactly where a dashboard comes in handy.
What is a dashboard?
A dashboard is a tool that gives you a visual display of data. It can be used in multiple ways, but its primary purpose is provide a quick glance at information such as KPIs. Dashboards can be easily configured, which gives you the ability to choose the data you want to see. It also makes data easier to interpret with visual representations such as graphs and tables. Ultimately it is a tool that helps you analyse data and make informed decisions. If you’ve ever used a WordPress website, you already know what a dashboard is. It’s the area where an admin can view and analyse data.
Benefits of dashboards for filmmakers
There are many ways a dashboard can be helpful for filmmakers. Especially for those who manage their own website, or social media handles. Every filmmaker who has an online presence can make use a dashboard to their advantage. Here are some benefits of using dashboards for filmmakers.
Manage crowdfunding campaigns for your projects
If you’ve ever had to manage crowdfunding campaigns, you’d know that it isn’t an easy job. A dashboard can make things considerably easier. As someone who has firsthand experience with crowdfunding, I know just how difficult it is. There are just too many things to take care of. The future of your project depends on how well the crowdfunding gets carried out. The one thing that made my life considerably better during my crowdfunding days was a dashboard. It helped my team to track funds, and to make sure that we were hitting our targets. A dashboard helps you optimise your crowdfunding campaigns and it allows you to make better decisions that can be crucial to getting your next project started. `
Website traffic and stats
If you have a website for a portfolio or to promote a film project, a dashboard can be a great tool to analyse website traffic and statistics. You want to ensure that your website is getting the attention it deserves and a dashboard can make this so much easier. You can view where your website visitors are coming from, which will help you focus your efforts. For example, if Instagram drives a lot of traffic to your website, you can focus on creating more content for that platform. If you do not get a lot of traffic from another platform, you can use that time to focus on better strategies.
Audience insights
Knowing more about your audience is highly important when it comes to building a strong community around your film projects. Dashboards can help you with audience insights as well. You can know more about your followers, their location, and the places where they consume your content the most. Having this kind of knowledge really helps you market your films and advertise them to the right audience.
Content insights
Perhaps the most important way a dashboard can help is with content insights. You can track just how well your content is performing using a custom dashboard. Various statistics such as the number of plays, minutes streamed, viewer ratings, and earnings can be tracked using a custom dashboard. You can see what kind of content works with your audience and keeps them engaged. This insight can help you improve your craft and help you build your career in filmmaking.
Plan projects smarter and efficiently
Having a dashboard to keep track of everything important helps you plan projects smarter and work efficiently. With all the information mentioned above, a dashboard can help you create smarter, informed decisions that can be crucial to nailing your next ambitious project.
How to get started with a dashboard
How do you get started with a custom dashboard? Let’s simplify the process into 3 steps:
Plan your dashboard
Just what exactly do you need in your dashboard? You should create a plan with all the important data that you need to keep track of in your dashboard. Are you mainly going to analyse your website traffic? Do you want to keep track of how your videos are performing? Do you need deep audience insights? The first step is to plan and decide what you want in your dashboard.
Select a dashboard template/theme
There are tons of free dashboard templates out there that you can use. Find a template that works for you, and download it. All these templates are highly customisable and you don’t have to spend anything to use them. They come with an MIT license, and they are completely free to use!
Hire a developer to build one for you
All you need to do now is to hire a developer to build the dashboard for you. Most dashboard templates can be set up in a matter of minutes. You don’t have to break the bank while hiring a developer and overall, this is a very cost-effective way to get a custom dashboard up and running within minutes. Let the developer know what you need on your dashboard, and they can integrate it with your website or other platforms. This connects the templates to the source of data, and your dashboard is pretty much ready!
Conclusion
Dashboards help people make real-time decisions based on data that can help grow their filmmaking career. You can get valuable audience insights that drive financial decisions or improve marketing strategies that can eventually grow your online presence. This results in better opportunities, better funding for future projects, and so much more. Dashboards are a great way to gather information, compile data, and make calculated decisions that can impact your filmmaking career in the best way possible. So, if you haven’t already, get started with a dashboard right away!
Swathi KP is a writer and a marketing enthusiast who has 5 years of experience in short films and music production. He currently writes for BootstrapDash, a company that makes free dashboard templates for web applications.
