The months before greenlighting a new film or TV show are hectic: securing funding, finding actors, changing scripts, and more. So much to do, so little time.

But here’s one thing you can’t forget: Acquire all the brandable Internet assets for your project. Start early and the cost of preparing an online presence will be minimal.

Here are a few steps your team can take for successful and economical Internet branding:

Step 1: Assign Responsibility for Online Presence

One member of the project team should be responsible for acquiring online assets before the project is greenlit. For this article, we’ll call that person the Online Presence Executive (OPE), although different teams may use other names for the same job.

The main reason for selecting an OPE is so brandable assets don’t fall through the cracks. A single responsible person can focus on the task. A reliable OPE can make sure there is no finger-pointing later if, for example, the team realizes that no one registered the Web domain name for the project.

The OPE’s primary objective is to acquire digital assets — not to create online content. Later in the project, the marketing team will be able to use the online assets to more effectively and inexpensively market the project.

The OPE’s job may be very difficult if many assets turn out to be already in use by another pary. In that case, the OPE will need extra time to acquire all the assets through the legal system, purchase, or rental. This acquisition process will be one of the OPE’s key duties.

Most importantly, don’t count on a studio’s marketing department to handle online acquisitions. Once a project reaches the marketing phase, the cyber-squatters will have already struck.

Step 2: Create an Online Asset Inventory

One of the first tasks for the Online Presence Executive (OPE) will be combing through the script to create a comprehensive list of brandable items. Here’s a start:

1. Project title. This includes the complete titles, shortened titles, abbreviations, alternate titles, and even misspellings for the project
2. Fictional character names. A good example is the character, Jim Halpert (http://jimhalpert.com/) from the US version of the hit TV show: The Office. In 2009 (years after the show’s premiere), squatters registered and exploited the domain.
3. Fictional locations and unique props. Think “Wonderland.com” or “LightSabre.com”
4. Cast, Writers, Director, & Producers. If these team members already have an online presence, it may be possible to use their online assets (like Twitter accounts) for the project. If any of these people are new to the industry, they may not individually have their online brands in order.

When making the inventory, don’t forget the “long tail” for search engines. The long tail refers to searches that fans will make that are less common, but are clearly targeted to a specific project. As an example, if you’re making a Star Trek movie, then most people will search Google for “Star Trek Movie”. Fewer people will search for “Star Trek 11″, “Star Trek XI” and “Star Trek: The Future Begins” — but those long-tail searches are clearly looking for one specific movie. Add these long tail-search terms to the inventory.

The online asset list should be straight-forward to create. But, the OPE will need to keep it up-to-date as script rewrites or project changes occur.

For each asset, the OPE will need to track which online properties are already acquired, available, or cyber-squatted. Related online login/account information should also be tracked for each asset.

Step 3: Get the Right Web Domain

The web domain is the key online asset. The OPE should get the best possible DOT-COM web domain for the project.

Look for a short COM domain because that’s the most memorable. If the project can only get a .NET or other top-level domain (TLD), a majority of web traffic will most likely end up going to the COM domain, which is obviously owned by someone else. Most potential Web visitors will just type YOURPROJECTNAME.COM into their browser to see where it takes them (some browsers will automatically add .COM if they omit it).

A domain name that exactly matches a project’s name will automatically give the Web site credibility (StarWars.com vs. StarWarsTheMovie.com). Plus, it’s a little known fact that search engines like Google will rank searches higher if the domain matches the search keywords entered by a computer user.

Registering a domain is inexpensive, only about $10 a year for a DOT-COM domain at a registrar like GoDaddy (http://Godaddy.com). But domains are a scarce resource, so there is fierce competition for the best ones. There’s no need to go overboard, but spending $500 to get 50 available domains is a great investment.

Since the right domain is so important and inexpensive, it may be hard to believe that a new project can make it all the way to a premiere without spending the $10 to acquire its available domain name. In my work, I’ve seen numerous mistakes in this area, though. One recent example is IronManArmoredAdventures.com, which was available when the Nickelodeon cartoon by the same name premiered this year, but the domain has since been squatted.

Which other domains should the OPE get besides the “best one”? Review the project’s Online Asset Inventory and start to acquire the alternate title domains, character name domains, and other significant items on your inventory list. The big threat is that cyber-squatters will read the industry news to find out about upcoming projects. By just doing some basic research, squatters can try to acquire assets before the OPE can get them. This makes the OPE’s job much harder.

Also, for international distribution, try to register a project’s title in other major markets such as .CO.UK (England), for example.

Once the OPE starts looking for available domain names, it is often the case that most of the good ones are taken. Domain names may be purchased from their current owners or rented. Buying a great domain can easily cost $50,000, or even much more. If the OPE can’t get the domain because it is squatted, consult with an intellectual property attorney as soon as possible.

Step 4: Create Social Networking Accounts

Social networks include all “social media” sites such as Facebook, Twitter, mySpace, Flickr, Mahalo and a plethora of up-and-coming sites. These Web2.0 sites have hundreds of millions of monthly visitors who may be interested in a project. There are also smaller online communities for just about any special-interest-group you can think of — and some of these groups may have a specific interest in your project.

As part of social media planning, the OPE should again sift through the online asset inventory. Using the inventory, the OPE should create as many social media accounts as necessary. Create accounts for the project title as well as main characters and other assets that were identified in the inventory. No real content is necessary on these accounts — that can wait for the studio’s marketing department.

For security, be sure to use strong passwords and keep a list of all the accounts in a safe place. These accounts should belong to the project, so don’t let them “walk away” if a team member or employee leaves. Later in the project, the OPE will need to pass along this account information to the studio marketing department.

Some social media accounts may not be available because they are cyber-squatted. Some sites, like Facebook and Twitter, have procedures for returning assets to their genuine owners.

Step 5: Track Assets Carefully

The value of a project’s online assets will increase over time. A successful project will generate Web traffic for many years.

Unfortunately, a project team may fragment after the project is complete: Email addresses may change, people leave for new jobs, company names change, etc.

So, who will remember to renew the domain names? Who will receive the renewal email? Who will pay the renewal fees? Un-renewed domains will “drop” and become available for registration by anyone. Believe it or not, cyber-squatters carefully pick through daily lists of dropped names to pick out valuable ones.

Similar issues occur with all social media accounts. Who will safeguard the passwords? What if the person with the all the passwords memorized in their head leaves for another job? What if the vendor responsible for keeping the project’s mySpace account up-to-date goes out of business, and their employees leave with the passwords? Who will monitor the online brand to verify that the brand is monetized properly?

These are tough questions. The solution I recommend is to create a long-term plan to track the ownership of the project’s online presence. This plan should involve the OPE, agents, attorneys and the production studio. Again, the online asset inventory and all the account information is the starting point for safeguarding the project’s brand.

What’s next?

Hopefully this article has given you some ideas for first steps on how to manage a project’s online brand as you prepare for greenlighting and beyond.

There are many more online branding tasks to deal with later in the project, but I’ll leave that for a future article.