Hollywood studios tap micro-influencers to push movie buzz
SGG Media says its network of roughly 3,000 accounts gives studios a faster route to young audiences through sports and lifestyle pages.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Movie marketing is getting a lot smaller on purpose.
SGG Media, a young agency founded by 28-year-old Troy Paul, has built a Hollywood business around roughly 3,000 social media accounts that push entertainment content to specific online communities, Variety reported. The company estimates that network can reach about 270 million people.
The pitch is a tidy one for studios chasing younger viewers: instead of relying only on glossy trailers, celebrity-led commercials and paid social ads, SGG spreads clips through accounts that already have loyal followings. More than half of those accounts focus on sports, according to Variety, including pages built around leagues, local markets and narrow fan communities.
SGG’s view, as described in the report, is that sports culture now overlaps heavily with pop culture. For film studios, that means a sports meme page or fandom account can become part of a movie campaign’s street team.
Studios are already buying in
Variety reported that several major studios have worked with SGG over the past three years, including Amazon MGM, A24, Universal, Paramount, Lionsgate and Sony Pictures.
The agency has been involved with campaigns tied to titles including “The Odyssey,” “Scary Movie” and “Anaconda,” according to the report.
SGG also has some Hollywood names around the table. Former Imagine Entertainment co-chair Michael Rosenberg joined the company’s board last October, Variety reported. Audience research executive Kevin Goetz and “Little Miss Sunshine” producer David Friendly are also advisers.
Paul began developing the company while he was a senior at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, according to Variety. He told the outlet that studio marketing is shifting away from expensive, high-production social content toward systems that can spread a message through networks of established accounts.
In Paul’s telling, the old model often meant producing a celebrity ad, posting it online and hoping it caught fire, or paying platforms such as Meta and X to push it. He said SGG’s approach lets a campaign move through accounts that fans already treat as credible.
Clipping comes for film campaigns
The strategy is part of a wider marketing practice known as “clipping,” which Variety noted has already become common in the music business. The method centers on taking the most attention-grabbing pieces of content and distributing them where they are most likely to travel.
Paul told Variety that large paid-media budgets are losing some of their appeal. He said many of SGG’s micro-influencers are not on-camera personalities and do not make themselves the star of their accounts, which can let the content feel more native to the page.
Goetz, founder and CEO of the entertainment research firm Screen Engine, told Variety that the model can also be cost-conscious for studios. He connected the strategy to Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences, who he said place a high value on trusted sources and are wary of being sold to by brands and corporations.
Variety reported that Paul is now looking for content veterans from traditional media as SGG tries to deepen its role in social-first entertainment marketing.
This story draws on original reporting from Variety.