Blockbusters and television shows can generate millions in revenue – equivalent to free advertising – for onscreen locations via social media.

A report compiled by Human Digital – a social media intelligence firm – for Euroscreen and Film London illustrates the effect social media commentary has on the locations featured in films and TV shows.

Human Digital created a method for understanding Location Placement Value (LPV) by analysing a social media dataset (in this case a sample of 30,480,732) of tourist-generated location-based online commentary – including likes, mentions and retweets among others. Using the method it was able to quantify the minimum equivalent in advertising value for certain locations.

Taking four European locations, each with three TV shows or movies filmed there, it is clear that social media has a deep impact on how the public interacts with the locations and why they are visiting them. Hit shows such as the BBC’s Sherlock and HBO’s Game of Thrones are reportedly making a fortune for tourism across the UK and Europe.

Results of LPV – considering the total minimum chances a productions’ location has of being mentioned both online and offline – show the equivalent advertising value for certain locations is as follows:

LONDON (UK)

Harry Potter (film franchise, 2001-11) £10.4m (€13.1m, US$16.3m)Notting Hill (film, 1999) £19.5m (€24.4m, US$30.5m)

Sherlock (TV series, 2010-present) £10.8m (€13.5m, US$16.9m)

YSTAD (SWEDEN)Wallander £17.9m (€22.4m, US$28m)

APULIA (ITALY)

Braccialetti Rossi (TV series, 2014) £6.9m (€8.6m, US$10.7m)

MALTAGame of Thrones (TV series, 2011) £1m (€1.2m, US$1.5m)

Gladiator (film, 2000) £860,000 (€1m, US$1.3m)

This is just a snapshot of some of the findings of Human Digital’s report, which was released last week (13 November).

The results of the online ‘chatter’ across several social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest and many others demonstrates how much filming in a certain location can affect an area economically.

Film London’s CEO Adrian Wootton commented: "Quite simply, this is free advertising. It emphasises the power of screen productions as a tourism driver."

To read the report in full, click here.