Many are looking to see how Hunger Games, Catching Fire does this weekend at the box office. In 2012, Hunger Games set a record that would be hard to beat with a $155m weekend opening.  Hunger Games was an runaway hit and became the center of conversations among many. The Lionsgate film broke all Fandango records for movie pre-sales, selling out more than 1200 showings.

So the question remains how did this move become such a phenomenon? The answer lies in its social media marketing using accounts like YouTube and Facebook. A start-up called thismoment, created the social infrastructure that helped catapult Hunger Games into  an international sensation. “They started their social program way back in summer 2011.  Lionsgate adopted a ongoing continuous process for  improvement based upon user data from their social channels. This is part of a trend where smart marketers are adopting a new approach, one that leverages dynamic customer input instead of the old style of phased, programatic marketing campaigns.” says Vince Broady, CEO of thismoment.

Lionsgate and thismoment launched a campaign with a series of social promotions on YouTube, Facebook, and other social sites a year before the movie’s release in order to begin building interest and buzz. Part of the campaign was the development and dissemination of engaging videos about the characters in the Hunger Games as well as partnerships with brands like MTV. By exposing their audiences to the stories beforehand, Lionsgate and thismoment got viewers interested and excited for the release. Large portion of the campaigns included user-generated content like video submissions, one of the popular trends in social media marketing.

“In the past just getting a social media campaign up and running took all the resources and creative was limited.  Now it’s not a problem to execute the mechanics of a social campaign so the creative is becoming a much more critical factor” according to CEO of thismoment Vince Broady.