I was reading an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer about the lack of ticket sales this summer when I came across an interesting theory for the drop in sales. The article cited several of the common reasons thrown around by Hollywood analysts, most of which I had heard before. However, there was one on the list that I hadn't thought about before: social media.
How would social media account for a drop in ticket sales, you ask? Think about how many people tweet and post Facebook statuses after they see a movie. Word of mouth has always been a major player in the successes and failures of movies on the big screen, but social media takes word of mouth to a new level. Not only does word of mouth travel faster by social media, but there is a lot more of it. People are hearing reviews of movies from people who they might not usually talk to or discuss movies with. Of course movie critics always have their negative words about movies, but movie critics are not the people we know and relate to. If I'm seeing Facebook statuses from people that have similar interests to myself complaining about how terrible a movie was, I'm more likely to hold on to my 10 dollars and wait until it comes out on DVD.
There is no stopping negative opinions about movies from traveling across the social media world, but do you think there is any way the movie industry can counteract the damage?