Mini Movie Reviews, Philly Spotlight & Philly Calendar Continues in 2018

Tinsel & Tine Discusses

Social Media Blogging

MINI MOVIE REVIEW, PHILLY SPOTLIGHT
PHILLY CALENDAR

By Le Anne Lindsay, Editor

I’m getting a jump on my end of the year, where do I stand, wrap up post.  It doesn’t include a best and worst list of movies from 2017 Click HERE for that, also revealed on That’s Show Biz with Chuck Darrow where I contribute a movie segment every Tuesday at 3:45pm on WWDB Talk-860 radio.

If you are a regular reader of Tinsel & Tine, I thank you for sticking with me all this time. Can you believe it’s been 8 years! 10 years if you count my time blogging for the Philadelphia Film Society and when my blog was called Suck My Pretty Toes 😀  I’ve definitely put in my 10,000 hours, but what exactly is supposed to happen when you hit that magic number?

Well, whether you’re a new or long-time reader, I hope you’re not too disappointed in the change that took place in 2017, where I cut way, way back on movie posts and instead wrote a #MiniMovieReview on Facebook for most of the movies I am so very fortunate enough to see each week.

When I first got serious about Tinsel & Tine back in 2010, I was determined to become the next Siskel or Ebert and wrote full on movie reviews. But, really, I’ve never been great at criticizing. I love the movie industry and for the most part just want to highlight what’s playing or coming and hopefully spark a discussion.

I also think there are a lot of people who would love to have the time to go see movies more often, but simply can’t, due to family, work etc… However, they still want to keep up with what’s in the theater, so they stop by Tinsel & Tine where for the last couple of years I present a little showcase on each movie I see. Not only giving my own overall opinion, but that of other critics, excerpts of interviews with actors and directors and any other tidbits I find of interest and hope my readers do too. Sort of a one stop film download of info to keep in mind as you make a decision to add it to your streaming list or really make a point to see it while it’s in the theater.

This was a good format, but it takes more time then you would imagine, and face it, people aren’t reading blogs the way they used to, blog traffic has fallen off for many types of bloggers.  The first movie I saw in 2017 that I had little to say about, didn’t really like, just felt obligated as press (free screening) to post something, was Anna Kendrick in TABLE 19 (click for #minimoviereview).  From here my mini reviews grew, adding more context, more description and a signature image, but still far less writing than a blog post.

All the Facebook #MiniMovieReview posts are embedded HERE. The unfortunate part is you can’t read the entire review from there. When you get to the part that says See More it takes you to the full post on FB, but you don’t have to have a Facebook account to read it, if the below screen pops up just hit the Not Now button and it will allow you to see the review.

The idea for the social media movie reviews, came from having done the same for Restaurant Reviews and Foodie Events earlier. Writing a Recap Philly Spotlight post for everything I attended got to be ludicrous. And really, far too much free promotion.  Besides, posting on social media is more immediate, if the images find a way into your feed, you’ll click on them right then and there and read my recap in the photo caption, rather than me trying to lure you back to my site to read.
Click HERE to find all the #PhillySpotlight social media recaps.

Once upon a time I thought blogging was going to be my ticket out of the 9-5 grind, but now it’s just a great way to stay social, talk movies and enjoy Philly – which is truly a blessing 💕 – Tinsel & Tine

#Repost @phlbloggers (@get_repost) ・・・ We’ve been getting into the holiday spirit this month with various activities, but our favorite is the annual PHLbloggers potluck! Thanks @juliadentphoto for hosting us this year ❤️#phlbloggers #phillyblogger

A post shared by LeAnne Lindsay (@tinsel_tine) on Dec 21, 2017 at 2:07pm PST

T&T’s Philly Calendar page has been a great source of traffic, but I’ll admit, in 2017 I was very close to giving it up all together.  Especially after PhillyBite.com decided to bite on what I’d been doing for nearly 3 years, by actually creating a domain called PhillyCalendar.com and using my #PhillyCalendar hashtag.  Now, I know what you’re thinking…

1. No one owns a hashtag and there are a lot of Philly Event sites.  All true, but no one was using #PhillyCalendar as a hashtag, I had it to myself for nearly 3 years.

2.  If they can make a success out of it and get paid to promote events on their Philly Calendar site, and invested money in a better platform, then who am I to complain?  Again, true. But PhillyBite has been following me on Twitter for a long time and knows what I’ve been doing with my Philly Calendar.  They even started out using my exact same tweet format.  I know business doesn’t often work like this, but it would have been awesome if they had reached out to me and said, I see what you’ve been doing promoting Philly happenings on social media and the calendar on your site, we’d like to take it to the next level, would you like to work with us?  When I wrote to them, not to ream them out, but rather on a fishing expedition, they never replied, but they did stop using the #PhillyCalendar hashtag.

At any rate, I used to be crazy about trying to populate my calendar with so much stuff happening in the Tri-State area, but again, it’s time consuming. I’d need to be 3 people to keep that up, so this year, I cut way back, but you’ll still always find great highlights for the week, and I try to specialize in smaller happenings, and of course, a lot of film related events.

Well, I have 2 or 3 interviews in the works that I’ll be posting soon, not big names, but good stuff that fits my brand. I’d like to give more attention to small budget, Independent Films. A few new filmmakers have sent me their films, which I agreed to watch and write about, but somehow never got around to it. I’d like to remedy that.

In terms of mainstream movies, blockbusters and wide release indie films – many I’ll hopefully continue to discussed on That’s Show Biz, otherwise, when I can see a personal approach or when there’s a lot to discuss about it, I’ll write a full post, like the one I did on The Disaster Artist (click to Read), the rest will fall into #MiniMovieReviews.

And I’ll continue to support all the Film Festivals that happen in Philadelphia (click HERE to see coverage of various 2017 festivals).

Same goes with the Foodie posts, if I get invited to something special, like The C-Cap Fundraiser (click to Read) where the tickets were $150 a head – that invite came with the understanding that I would cover it and write a post, then of course, I always post what I’ve promised.

And there’s still the T&T Newsletter with Giveaways, Free Screening Passes & Subscriber Select Promotions. A huge part of my blogging hours of 2016 and most of 2017 was spent on Newsletter offerings; I’m not sure if I’m glad or sad that the offers slowed down considerably.

Otherwise, we’ll see what comes my way for 2018. Hopefully more things like the Sundance Institute New Frontier Labs (click to Read) that was leading edge and a lot of fun! That’s how I’d like to approach all of 2018!

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