Cahootify? Cahootify.

“Showcase your skills, crew your projects”

Cahootify is an international online project portfolio and team-forming platform for film, media and entertainment professionals. Cahootify allows you to progress your career for free. It can be used internal or external by the use of Hubs. Hubs are groups of that community, for example. Leeds Trinity University would be an internal Hub, by only recruiting members from Leeds Trinity University. If Leeds Trinity University were to expand it would then become external as they would be recruiting members from all over the world, rather than in the community themselves. The initial spark for Cahootify was for the idea that “no-one has yet successfully launched a major platform that’s all about forming teams for projects”. Cahootify is currently the only successful website that is all about teams and projects.

“Cahootify is for people who are committed, engaged and up for making stuff happen. People who know what it takes to build a career in the industry, are prepared to get on with it, and are seeking others to work with who match their commitment and professionalism.”

This video sums up Cahootify in a fun visual way, with great explanation.

As a young aspiring creative individual hoping to get into film, media and entertainment sector of work. I think this website is perfect. I can gain experience in projects to build up a portfolio as I am currently a ‘newbie’ to all of this. In Cahootify terms means that I will be happy to do projects for experience and not money. Not only is it useful for first-timers, but for people who are already in the industry and want to build up their crew/production team, this website comes in handy for those aswell.

When you add the projects that you’ve worked on and once you have completed the project that you have worked on, you are able to add that skill to your profile. For example, Photography. This will be listed in green, the tags that aren’t in the colour green show that you have not demonstrated it in a project. This skill will then appear on your profile, for everyone to see what you worked on, and will allow you on projects based on your experience. This image shows how you can personalise your portfolio so you can choose how your profile is seen. It is really easy to navigate around and not many buttons to press.

Cahootify is completely different to other social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and when I say different I mean it’s nothing a-like. It’s not a place to add your friends from School, or to organise a party. It is a platform to further a filmmakers career. It’s speciality is to recruit and make projects. That’s not to say that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram shouldn’t still be used. They definitely should. One way to use Cahootify can use Twitter is so measure their online success as a platform. By using these social media platforms, Cahootify is able to measure how many times a tweet has reached their audiences, or who ‘liked’ a Facebook post. A good way to measure your online influence is the website KLOUT. On Klout you are able to connect Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks to this site, you are also able to schedule your posts so you don’t have to be online 24/7. As well as that you receive a  ‘klout score’ of your impact on social media. The average Klout score is 40 and users with a score of 63 are amongst the top 5% of all users. It also shows you your impact online by a  graph over a 90-day score history. It is a great tool for measuring success.

Here is an example:

But if Linkedin exists for building a profile for your career why do you need Cahootify? 

Linkedin and Cahootify are completely different websites with different goals to achieve. Linkedin was invented as a career system whereas Cahootify was invented for showcasing your projects. Cahootify focuses on one thing, and that is for filmmakers whereas Linkedin is to manage your professional identity and to build a network. Cahootify uses Linkedin for a professional online presence as it links back to their website so people can access it from the Linkedin platform.

Cahootify and Twitter

The way Cahootify uses Twitter as a way to create a professional online identity can be through the use of personalised messages via direct message or tweeting their twitter handle to create a conversation. This shows that the people who use Cahootify are approachable and friendly as there is no chat designed to have a friendly conversation, the messaging system on Cahootify is used to organise the projects. These conversations on Twitter would be useful when planning the project and to know when to take part or ask any questions to the project creators. Twitter is a great way to boost your online presence in an easy way.

Cahootify and Facebook

Cahootify uses Facebook to promote projects that people may be interested in. It is also a page where it can interact with more people. However, a Facebook user has to ‘like’ the page before-hand to get their statuses. So those who know of Cahootify beforehand will of come to the Facebook page to stay updated on projects so they don’t have to be on the Cahootify website all of the time. (Cahootify currently is not an app that can be installed onto a mobile device). I asked Pete from Cahootify about expanding their website and he wrote back saying. “We’d love to bring Cahootify out on Android and Apple apps, but at the moment we’re a small part-time team of collaborators and don’t have the resources to do so on top of developing the web app. If/when we get some major funding in, or if we find an app developer that wants to join us on the same basis as the rest of the team, we’ll get to it.” I also think creating an app would be a future feature i’d like to see hopefully some time in the future. So by using Facebook to let people know of up coming projects, and interesting information about film related stuff.

Cahootify and Instagram

Instagram is a photo sharing website. This platform is used to upload pictures of the people who work at Cahootify. This allows users to see a friendly face. Instagram is a great way to expand as a company aswell, by providing the correct hash-tags on the photo. This then allows people to view that image, and the Cahootify profile because they clicked on a hashtag relatable to that user.

Cahootify and YouTube

YouTube is a video sharing website, allowing users to create and upload content of their own. Cahootify doesn’t use this social media platform, however it is a great way to build up a professional profile and a different unique way to connect to an audience. YouTube is fast growing with the amount of daily users per day and it would be a great way to advertise and promote Cahootify to a different level.

Above all, when using these four websites it is ideal to make the best use out of the Folksonomies and Taxonomys system to achieve the best possible results. This could be as simple as, tagging your content with relevant stuff, as it draws in people who are interested in the same stuff.

Below is an infographic I made of how I see Cahootify connecting and expanding their online presence by the use of these 4 social media’s.

This infographic is a quick summary of what I spoke about earlier. A film-maker is able to use all of these social media platforms to create a professional identity online.

Cahootify is a great platform for any age users who have a passion of film, media and entertainment. This is a great opportunity for any up-coming film makers wanting to have more experience. Not only this, other platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram are all useful websites to creating a professional online presence. It is important to have a good online presence because of consistency. If your audience notice that you don’t care about them, they won’t care about you either. If you don’t build up a good portfolio online, you are less likely to be taken seriously.

 

Until next time,