Tweet, Swarm and Tag: Join the Sonoma International Film Festival "In" Crowd

This year's Sonoma International Film Festival is taking it to the Internet in full force, thanks to two local experts with a little ingenuity.

Donna Hays and Celeste Winders, the brains behind the Sonoma-based social media consulting company Word Mice, will be tweeting, tagging and Facebook-posting their way around this year's festival.

"It's 24/7, but we love it," Winders says. "We build up all year long."

The team started managing the film festival's social media in December of 2009, right before the 2010 festival. They started at what they called ground zero — the film festival didn't yet have a Facebook account. But, by the time the event was underway, Hays and Winders racked up 1700 fans for the film fest, with an active Twitter following.

"We don't just get 20,000 people who don't care what we're saying, we want relevant fans, which means a lot of re-tweeting, lots of interacting," said Hays.

Word Mice launched in fall of 2009 when Hays and Winders, who were unemployed, decided to start a business project together. The two Sonoma neighbors scrapped the  lofty ad campaign and took to the Internet instead.

Almost immediately, their grassroots Facebook and Twitter publicity galvanized social media users.

"I just thought, wow this is marketing here," Winders said. They dropped the original business idea, and started reading up on social media.

Now Word Mice handles about 12 clients — artists, writers, manufacturers, politicians, industry aficionados and several of Sonoma's major festivals. And the two have fallen hard for social media.

"I'm always waking up with a new hashtag - hashtags are beautiful," Winders said. "I wish all the filmmakers had their Twitter tags on their shirts, because that's how I know them," said Hays, who's been interacting with festival participants for months via Facebook and Twitter, to drum up excitement for the big day.

This year's big advance came from a social media seminar they attended where they witnessed a "tweetscreen," a monitor showcasing a real-time upload of a Twitter stream.

"It was the most surreal thing, watching the screen, watching people tweeting photos of other people tweeting," Hays said.

For this year's festival, Comcast and Sonoma SunTV have set up a "tweetscreen" in the festival's back-lot, which will show every tweet tagged #siff11 on a large movie monitor.

"You can get in there and have your 140 characters of festival fame," Winders said.

Anything that helps festival participants to get in on the action is key, according to Hays. 

"I feel like there's a lot of people talking about social media, but not a lot of people doing it," Hays said.

Don't be one of those people. Join the social media in-crowd:

• Check out the festival's Facebook page to interact with filmakers, watch trailers and discuss what you loved, loathed or want to see.
• Plan your packed schedule by watching trailers and promos on the festival's YouTube channel. 
• Follow the festival's Twitter account. Tweet your observations using the #siff11 hashtag and they'll show in real-time on a screen in the festival's backlot.
• Get with the #hashtag game. See a celebrity? Tag your tweet #spotted. Catch a New Belgium Cruiser riding about town? Snap a photo, tag it #Zak (and #siff11) and load it to Twitter. The best photo wins a raffle ticket (worth $20) to win a fancy cruiser of your own.
•  Are you a Foursquare user? Watch for signs at each with special film festival, to "check-in" to special film fest venues and local businesses. Big ones: "Mia's Kitchen" at , "Sebastiani Theater by Dolby" and "New Belgium" at the .
• Watch the @Sonomafilmfestival Twitter account for #swarms and #superswarms — when 50 plus Foursquare users check into the same venue at once. Join in an win some super fancy badges, making all the Internet kids jealous.
• Filmakers and winemakers: load your best stuff onto GetGlue, a mobile app letting you share entertainment consumption. Word Mice will be using it throughout the festival.
• Don't know what a hashtag is? Keep an eye out for the Word Mike mobile street team. They'll be live-tweeting, snapping shots and answering all your social media questions.

Follow along with the film festival through