ARTSblog

Laura Kakolewski

If you want your brand want to win this war or survive this global phenomenon, it is time to relocate from Madison Avenue to Silicon Valley.

Many of you have probably heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, video blogging sensation and social media savant. I can’t help but be attracted to Vaynerchuk’s notorious high level of energy as he discusses the shift from creating brand content to creating CONTEXT in his new video:

Let’s sum up Vaynerchuk : last week, Google+ grew 1269%, Facebook expanded its platform, and “Word of Mouth” became the buzz words in the marketing world again. Read the rest of this entry »

David Dombrosky

During last year’s Arts Marketing Blog Salon, I stated that an individual or organization’s motivation for using social media is a primary factor in forecasting whether or not their efforts will be successful. This remains true, but even those who are truly motivated to engage their audiences can derail themselves with their approach to content.

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with a number of performing arts presenters, agents, and artists at the Performing Arts Exchange about their web strategies, use of social media, and engagement with mobile audiences. Throughout the course of these conversations, I noticed two important strategic elements for those experiencing success with social media.

Consider your content choices from the audience’s point-of-view.  
One of the most common issues I find in social media practice is that people often select content based on what they want to share. For example, one of the agents I spoke to at the conference had created a Facebook page with performing arts presenters as its intended audience. I noticed that a predominant number of the posts on the page were announcements for where her artists would be performing in the near future. When I asked her how this information is useful to presenters visiting the agency’s page, she was confused by the question. From her perspective, it was a no-brainer that anyone coming to the page would want to know this information. Read the rest of this entry »

Graphic: Mike Licht via Flickr

Having written about social media and its application in arts marketing for the last few years, I’ve become aware of a disconnect. I’ve written about specific social media tools and tactics, but I realize that I haven’t addressed how it fits in with overall marketing strategy, and within the media mix.

Think about the campaigns that have delivered the most revenue. For many organizations, subscription or membership campaigns are the lifeblood of their revenue each year (a good example of this came from TRG Arts client Arena Stage recently).

Direct-response renewal campaigns usually produce the highest sales volume as well as the highest marketing return-on-investment (ROI). On the other hand, social media has eluded our efforts to assign value to it since its inception. Social media is hard to track ROI on and even harder to monetize. On top of that, it’s nearly impossible to track social media users because doing so falls outside of the proprietary systems designed to protect their privacy.

You will not, repeat, NOT hear my colleagues and me advocating for abandoning your social media efforts. However, we do ask you to consider the question: Looking at your marketing strategy holistically, how does social media complement your most effective marketing campaigns? Read the rest of this entry »

Sara Billmann

It’s an honor to be included in the Arts Marketing Blog Salon. I’m looking forward to learning a lot from the conversations over the coming week.

If the Internet was the buzzword of the mid-1990s, there’s no question that social media has reigned supreme over the past few years, with names of sites now popular becoming verbs that have entered our modern-day lexicon and the entire industry now abbreviated as something that even as recently as a few years ago would have implied something tawdry.

The beauty of social media is that it ultimately just takes word-of-mouth to a whole new level, albeit a more visible one. Let’s face it, there was a certain comfort in the pre-internet days of knowing that people heard about performances by ‘word of mouth’ without knowing what, exactly, was being said.

Now that message is broadcast far beyond the reaches of our own venues, giving us opportunity to enhance or diminish our own reputations with the press of a few keystrokes. We all plot how we can use this power to our advantage as consumers, but would be better off thinking about how we should be using its reach and power to ensure nothing but the most satisfied, engaged customer. Read the rest of this entry »

Deborah Obalil

It’s been interesting to read various marketing experts and pundits over the past year or so declare the death of marketing as we know it in various forums. And, of course, we’ve all heard the platitudes of social media experts regarding the “customer being in control” and “it’s all about them, not you.”

It is true that the traditional interpretation of the Marketing Ps (product, price, place, promotion) may feel outdated in a world where people engage as often virtually as they do physically. And social media has definitely been a game changer in regards to customer relationships and communications strategy.

While I often find little to argue with in the details of these various exhortations, the conclusion that all of this means marketing is dead or vastly different at its core from what it was ten or more years ago confounds me.

I have always understood marketing to be “the process by which you come to understand the relationship between the product and the customer.” I don’t think this definition has become false because of all the changes in the platforms we use to connect with our customers, or even because the needs of our customers may be vastly different from what they were a decade ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Ceci Dadisman

Social media is an important piece of the event marketing puzzle. Unlike most nonprofits that are marketing one product all year long (a charitable cause), a performing arts organization markets multiple different products (performances and events) throughout each season.

It can be challenging to market diverse offerings whilst still under the umbrella of one organization.

Let me share my top-5 tips to marketing events that will generate buzz and improve conversions:

1. Don’t forget about the 80/20 rule. This is a rule that I live by regarding social media marketing, whether it is when I’m marketing an event or not. I find that the best ratio to keep people engaged but not tick them off is to have 80% engagement and 20% broadcasting. Even when you have an event to market, talking 100% about that event is just going to turn people off and they aren’t going to listen to one word that you are saying.

2. Engage creatively. This one goes together with tip #1 about the 80/20 rule. You may ask, why should I waste time tweeting or posting about stuff that has nothing to do with my event when I’m trying to sell tickets? Well, that is pretty simple to answer.

If you are engaging with people, you will be top of mind so that when they do hear something about you or your event, they will remember the interaction and be much more likely to check it out. Read the rest of this entry »

Alison French

As the 2011 National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) Conference: Winning Audiences quickly approaches, we are taking a cue from our keynote speaker, Scott Stratten and his best-selling book, UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.

What better way to kick off a meeting about audience engagement, communications, and revenue generation than with an online discussion with you and 18 top marketing practitioners and consultants in the field?

Join us on ARTSblog for a dialogue on the broad landscape of arts marketing, social media, and audience engagement.

From October 3-7, join us as we wrestle with and ponder on such questions as:

•    What new ideas or campaigns are you deploying to win new or broader audiences?
•    How do you consider your audience’s perspective in your marketing and fundraising choices?
•    How are you identifying your audiences and how are you keeping them coming back for more?
•    How is social media changing how you speak with your audience and what you say?
•    How is the fear of a double dip recession affecting your marketing and fundraising strategies?

We hope you will visit us in the salon and take a moment to leave a comment, share an opinion, or ask a question.

Then come to Louisville, KY, November 12-15 to continue the conversation in person at the NAMP Conference.

The new Facebook profile

As we all have no doubt heard by now, Facebook is launching some major updates to the site.

Some of these changes are already being implemented; the others were previewed at the recent f8 conference and will be released in the coming weeks.

Many arts organizations have come to integrate Facebook and other social media channels as important parts of their overall communications plans.

While it’s too early at this point to accurately comment on the impact, if any, these Facebook updates will have for arts communicators (marketers, advocates, thought leaders, and the like), it’s worth at least some preliminary thoughts.

1. The new ticker feed could be a double-edged sword.

One of the hurdles for arts communicators to overcome when using Facebook is the algorithm which powers the news feed on the homepage. Facebook only displays updates from individuals and organizations that the user has interacted with recently or frequently. Thus, while an arts organization’s Facebook page may have several hundred fans, it’s possible that only a fraction of them are actually seeing the content that is posted. Read the rest of this entry »

Kristy Callaway

The internet gives today’s teenagers the kind of freedom that driving a car gave teens in previous generations. But unlike learning to drive a car, kids today can teach themselves to navigate the internet. Growing up in Key West in the 70′s and 80′s, I didn’t have a car or the internet. However, I quickly understood the power of networking.

The ability to seek and find people, places, and things can have as much if not more impact than mobility from automobiles. And, just as with cars, good and bad comes with the “license.” Think of the good the internet can do for the police assisting 911 callers, a parent keeping up with a teenager, or a principal searching for a truant student. Or consider the bad aspects of a crazed ex-girlfriend stalking an unknowing ex-boyfriend, or a child molester waiting for parents to leave their children unattended.

Parallel parking seems simple, but takes years to perfect, however, the gaming industry exponentially produces high concept high skill activities for your entire body that completely engage, absorb, and hypnotize players. Traveling at 80 mph in a car or online is exhilarating, scary and fast!

Recently, I met a 14-year-old entrepreneur who customizes Xbox controllers for hardcore players. He was taking a film and production graduate course alongside me to learn how to improve his editing skills in his own gaming efforts and to speed his score acceleration. He sought out this skill set; he didn’t wait for school to teach him. Read the rest of this entry »

John R. Kilacky

Online social media has radically transformed news coverage. Tweets, Facebook posts, and amateur videos were essential in the coverage of the Arab spring, Japanese tsunami, bin Laden’s death, and Hurricane Irene. Public radio and local newspapers are now multimedia companies, crowdsourcing listeners and readers in co-authoring content.

Arts organizations, surprisingly, are behind the curve. Audiences today are drawn, not merely to a performance, but to an arts experience in which they participate. The experience does not begin and end at the performance curtain, but long before and after: at home, in the lobby, online, and sharing with friends.

Word of mouth has always been potent for box office, so it is essential that the arts marshal the power of online participatory media. However, this calls for a paradigm shift in thinking about what cultural participation means for audiences, live and viral.

At social media workshops, the conversation still defaults to using these platforms as a one-way transactional marketing medium: pushing out more marketing messages. Totally wrong! Read the rest of this entry »

Sybarite5 has a dream—to change the face of chamber music across the globe. They want to be the first string quintet to perform in all 50 states.

They have a strategy to make it real. Like many artists across the country, they are seeking potential investors around the world by launching their  “play in 50 states” campaign on Kickstarter.

Sybarite5

Sybarite5—Sami Merdinian and Sarah Whitney, violin; Angela Pickett, viola; Laura Metcalf, cello, and Louis Levitt, bass—recently shared what it is like to be emerging artists seeking support through innovative ways, with the 20+ philanthropic leaders at the Americans for the Arts Seminar for Leadership in the Arts at the Aspen Institute last week.

The concept is simple: they create a short video about the project; people watch it; if they like it, a couple of clicks and they can pledge their support. If pledges reach $9,000 or more within 30 days, the project is funded—if not, $0. Read the rest of this entry »

John Cloys

In only one month, Google+ has become the fastest growing social network site in history. With twenty-five million users, Google+ is comprised of a diverse demographic user base, ranging from celebrities, political figures, and the average social media junkie.

As an active user, I see a great deal of potential for the personal branding, network mapping and collaboration that Google+ offers to its users. Google+ has presented itself as a one-stop hub, combining functions used in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Recognizing Google+ as a unique way of connecting and sharing information, and appropriately utilizing its numerous functions will help you advance your overall marketing and social media strategy.

How is Google+ different, you ask? It is a one-stop shop.  Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter. Tweet. Retweet. Hashtags. Upon first hearing these terms, you may find a lot of people giggling or rolling their eyes – understandably so. Twitter can be a pretty ridiculous place sometimes, with people like Justin Bieber’s  “Beliebers” tweeting relentlessly and dominating the Twitterverse. Let’s be honest; social media in general can be a pretty shallow pool at times.  For example, as I write this blog post, one of the trending topics being promoted on Twitter is “fabio defeats old spice guy”; really, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

But Twitter can be an incredibly powerful tool as well. During the Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami in March, many people across the globe followed along not right after the earthquake, but as it was happening. One man even told the incredible story that as his friend saw the tweets come across about the earthquake, the friend called family in Japan and spoke to them by phone while the quake was still happening. On a related note, as part of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the U.S. government is funding the use of Twitter for earthquake research and real time data collection. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has initiated the Twitter Earthquake Detector (TED) program, and says this about it:

Social Internet technologies are providing the general public with anecdotal earthquake hazard information before scientific information has been published from authoritative sources.  People local to an event are able to publish information via these technologies within seconds of their occurrence. In contrast, depending on the location of the earthquake, scientific alerts can take between 2 to 20 minutes. By adopting and embracing these new technologies, the USGS potentially can augment its earthquake response products and the delivery of hazard information.

It’s these types of real-time results that make Twitter such a powerful tool. Read the rest of this entry »

So, I’ve gone through the entire stream of tweets using the hashtag #AFTA11 (all 2389 of them!) cut out all fat, and filtered them down to my picks for the top 50 most-useful tweets to me from this year’s Americans for the Arts Annual Convention. I say most useful because I wanted to separate out things that can be acted on, resources/measurements that can be explored, impactful facts and figures, and new “lightbulb ideas.”

Here are the second half of my picks for the 50 top tweets from AFTA 2011:

26. @GordonJayFrost The #afta11 sessions on #philanthropy will be available on-demand: http://t.co/id3vwYc

27. @SheWhoTravels Go Marcus! RT“@artfulmanager Sidewalk Poetry project in St. Paul. Turning concrete into canvas. Wow. #afta11 http://t.co/b6mcrgK”

28. @trishamead oooh. Direct link to mobil-ready video trailer? I’m thinking how to maximize QR code on coffee s hop poster, i.e. #2amt #afta11

29. @crystalewallis oooh! RT @wkradio: #AFTA11 DO NOT be fooled into using QR Codes >>> Excellent design will always transmit more information. #techfads Read the rest of this entry »

Ron Evans

I wasn’t able to attend the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention this year, but I did get to participate in the next best thing: following the conversation on Twitter.

There were lots of great discussion and opinions. But unless you were following 24/7, you may have missed some gems.

So, I’ve gone through the entire stream of tweets using the hashtag #AFTA11 (all 2389 of them!) cut out all fat, and filtered them down to my picks for the top 50 most-useful tweets to me from AFTA 2011.

I say most useful because I wanted to separate out things that can be acted on, resources/measurements that can be explored, impactful facts and figures, and new “lightbulb ideas.”

A big thank you to these great posters for posting meaty tweets – If you like something you see, follow the author on Twitter.

So here goes, from oldest (public art pre-conference) to newest (end of conference) order… Read the rest of this entry »