Download The Use of Social Media as a Tool for Audience Engagement

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Amanda N. Rodriguez
AMGT 795 – Rosenstein
May 2, 2014
The Use of Social Media as a Tool For Audience Engagement: a Case Study of Woolly
Mammoth Theatre Company’s Social Media Strategy
Throughout my time in the Arts Management program at George Mason
University, I have heard time and time again of the steadily declining arts attendance
throughout the United States. Amid these declines, arts organizations have struggled to
find new ways to attract and retain their audiences. One way in which arts organizations
have attempted to battle this decline in attendance is through audience engagement.
This method aims to make the arts a two-directional conversation that empowers
audiences to better connect to an arts experience, on the premise that this will
strengthen the audience’s relationship to the organization that presented the
experience. Although audience engagement transcends and interconnects various
departments, such as Marketing, Programming, and Education, this paper will focus on
the use of Social Media Marketing as a tool for audience engagement with specific
examples from my time interning at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
Arts Audiences and the Demand for Audience Engagement
The latest Survey of Public Participation in the Arts from the National
Endowment for the Arts shows just how much arts attendance has declined over the
years. This study shows that the number of adults who attended at least one of the
various types of performing arts or visited an art museum or gallery decreased from
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39.4% in 2002 to 33.3% in 2012, a difference of 6.1%.1 In comparison, from 1992 to
2002 arts attendance only decreased from 41% to 39.4%, a difference of just 0.6%.2
The Great Recession of 2008 may have been an influencing factor in the larger
decrease seen from 2002 to 2012, nevertheless, this trend most likely will continue
because the population of arts attendees has reshaped how they choose to allocate
their discretionary spending after years of budgeting their finances in the recession
economy. According to this study, arts attendance rates actually held steady for most
categories of performing arts, including classical music, jazz, ballet, dance other than
ballet, and opera. However, musical and non-musical theatre attendance showed
significant changes with a -9% rate of change from 2008 to 2012 for musicals and -12%
rate of change within that same time period for non-musicals.3 Theatre is therefore one
of the main components of the sector dragging down the overall arts attendance rates.
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company produces non-musical plays and has not been
immune to this negative trend in theatre arts attendance.
Now that it is clear that arts attendance is in fact declining, I must address why
audience engagement should be used to combat this negative trend. But first, it’s
important to look back in history to the roots of the cultural divide in America. In his book
Highbrow /Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America, Lawrence W.
Levine contends that although early American culture was highly homogenized, in the
later half of the 19th Century this started to shift as the upper classes began designating
National Endowment for the Arts’ Survey of Public Participation in the Arts 2013, page
12
2
National Endowment for the Arts’ Survey of Public Participation in the Arts 2013, page
12
3
National Endowment for the Arts’ Survey of Public Participation in the Arts 2013, page
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certain cultural practices or elements, such as theatre, as appropriate only to
themselves. What had once been an integrated culture slowly became dissociated into
newly formed categories and practices that culminated in the division of content into
serious (higher) and popular (lower) culture. One of the most popular examples of this is
the works of William Shakespeare. Prior to the cultural shift in the 19th Century, all
members of society were well acquainted with all of Shakespeare’s works. People from
any social class could recite verses and notice when an actor onstage altered the lines.
In the years since the shift from everyman culture to high and low culture, Shakespeare
is still widely respected and known but his work is seen as beyond the understanding of
the lower classes and, therefore, a possession of the elite. Additionally, only the more
educated elite will be familiar with all of his works and not just the few that are
traditionally taught in public schools. Because of this historical precedent, today there is
often a sense that many performing arts offerings are highbrow, or elitist, forms of
entertainment.4 This viewpoint is extremely detrimental to the arts when you consider
the way that today’s audiences think and act when making decisions on how to spend
their time.
According to Engaging Audiences, a Report on The Wallace Foundation Arts
Grantee Conference, people who practice art in their private lives are more likely to
attend arts events and performances.5 This means that arts audiences can be built
when arts organizations engage with their audience in a way that stirs their creative
capacity and supports their own artistic endeavors. However, this becomes difficult
4
Highbrow /Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America by Lawrence W.
Levine
5
Engaging Audiences, a Report on The Wallace Foundation Arts Grantee Conference
2009, page 5
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when potential patrons are deterred by the idea that theatre, or other forms of art, is not
for the everyman but for the affluent. At The Wallace Foundation Arts Grantee
Conference, Lynne Conner, a cultural historian and playwright/director currently serving
as Chair of the Theater and Dance Department at Colby College and who has written
extensively about the arts, said,
“what today’s potential arts audiences most want out of an arts event is the
opportunity to co-author meaning. They don’t want the arts; they want the arts
experience. They want the opportunity to participate in an intelligent and
responsible way in telling the meaning of an arts event [...] they want a real forum
– or several forums – for the interplay of ideas, experience, data and feeling that
makes up the arts experience. They want to retrieve sovereignty over their artsgoing by reclaiming the cultural right to formulate and exchange opinions that are
valued in the community.”6
The Creative Trust Audience Engagement Report confirms this statement, showing that
of all the reasons audiences attend artistic events and performances, including “to
discover new plays and playwrights/choreographers and companies/composers and
pieces/operas that you’ve never heard or seen before,” “to hear and see great works by
the masters,” and “to relax and have fun,” 45% of arts audiences choose “to engage
intellectually with the arts,” second only to “to be inspired or uplifted” with 51%. 7
Conner’s statement on the necessity of audience engagement is even more applicable
6
Engaging Audiences, a Report on The Wallace Foundation Arts Grantee Conference
2009, page 6
7
Creative Trust Audience Engagement Report 2010, page 15
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to theatre audiences specifically, as “to engage intellectually with the arts” garnered the
most responses with 53%.8
Audience engagement, or the philosophy that the participant is the paramount
concern in the creation and delivery of arts experiences, aims to give audiences what
they want by shifting the presentation of art works from one-sided communication to
two-way communication.9 In other words, shifting from having leaders of arts
organizations and the elite present works deemed worthy to having the public join and
direct the conversation about the art work presented, its value, and how the community
can become involved in contributing to the artistic experience. One of the most common
ways of accomplishing this transition back to a communal arts experience is
encouraging audience engagement through the use of social media.
Social Media’s Value in Audience Engagement
Social media is such a popular tool for two main reasons. The first is monetary;
although many people incorrectly assume social media marketing is free, there is no
denying that it is oftentimes much more cost effective than traditional marketing
methods, such as print mailings and print advertisements. For example, when I was
planning the 30 & Under Subscription Campaign at Woolly Mammoth, the cost for a
single mailing to less than 1,000 patrons cost over $4,000. In comparison, the cost for 3
months worth of advertisements online through Goggle and Facebook cost just under
$2,000. The second reason, and the reason of more importance for audience
engagement purposes, is the potential reach of social media, that is the sheer amount
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9
Creative Trust Audience Engagement Report 2010, page 15
Making Sense of Audience Engagement, Alan S. Brown and Rebecca Ratzkin
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of people that social media has access to. According to the latest Pew Research Center
Social Media Update, 73% of online adults use at least one social networking platform
with 42% of them using multiple platforms.10 When determining how to spend marketing
resources, including time and money, arts marketers should go where the market is at,
and the Pew numbers prove that social media is where it’s at. By using social media,
arts organizations can share their messaging with thousands of people of all ages,
socio-economic groups, ethnicities, and so on.
Even though social media is often run through the Marketing department of arts
organizations, the most successful organizations don’t see social media as merely a
tool to get butts in seats, but rather as a way to foster audience engagement. This is, in
part, due to the fact that social media was not created as a marketing tool, but rather as
a social networking platform, which marketers later adapted for their own uses.
Therefore, if an organization tries too hard to sell their product on social media sites,
instead of using it to create community by entertaining audiences, talking to individuals,
and providing information, it risks damaging its relationships with current and potential
patrons. By limiting or omitting sales pitches from their organization’s social media
content, they are able to use social media as a means to communicate with their
audiences, encouraging them to participate in discussions, share content, and give their
opinion on artistic endeavors, in short, as a tool for audience engagement.
In order to most effectively reach potential audiences and keep them engaged,
arts marketers create social media plans in addition to their normal marketing plan. The
social media plan is vital in determining what platforms to use, who has responsibility to
10
Pew Social Media Update 2013, page 1
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make posts on each platform, the rules of engagement (i.e. what kind of content goes
on which platform, who responds to questions and comments from followers, etc.), and
monitoring systems. When creating this social media plan, it is important that arts
marketers keep in mind the size of their Marketing department, so as not to be active on
more social media platforms than it can realistically handle. It is better to be very active
in a few networks than have a poor presence in many because not immediately
responding to a participant can be seen as the organization not caring for or ignoring
their patrons, which can harm not only the relationship between the patron attempting to
communicate and the organization but also any future relationships that may be built as
social media users can look through past posts and see any inactivity. Because of this,
my analysis will focus on three of the most prevalent social media platforms that arts
organizations with large or small Marketing departments can effectively mangae:
Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Facebook is by far the most used and therefore influential platform, with 71% of
online adults actively using Facebook.11 This is more than triple the next most used
platform, LinkedIn. Facebook allows organizations, like Woolly Mammoth, to share a
wide variety of content with it’s audiences, including pictures, videos, polls, blogs, and
more. Content posted on Facebook is usually more informative in nature than on other
social media platforms as it does not have a word count limit for the length of posts and
content such as pictures and videos can easily be found. Additionally, Facebook is the
fastest growing social media platform for users 65+, growing 35% to 45% from 2012 to
11
Pew Social Media Update 2013, page 4
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2013.12 Despite these benefits, there are a few disadvantages that arts organizations
should keep in mind. There are people who are worried about privacy issues on
Facebook and this has prevented some people from joining or caused people to cease
their activities on the platform. Another deterrent to Facebook is that there has been a
slight decline of 2% from 2012 to 2013 in young audiences ages 18-29 on Facebook.
Although it is not cause for major concern at the moment, arts marketers should keep
an eye on the platform that is drawing more of these younger audiences, Tumblr, in
years to come.
Pinterest currently has 21% of online adults using it.13 Although this number may
seem low, especially in comparison to Facebook, Pinterest is the fastest growing social
media platform with the number of users skyrocketing from 2012 to 213 by 145%, which
is as faster rate of growth than Facebook had when it was Pinterest’s age.14 A strength
of this platform for use in arts organizations specifically, is that it is an extremely visual
platform, just as the arts are largely a visual medium of expression. In terms of sales, a
Shopify study showed that pins and re-pins on Pinterest drive higher sales than any
other social media platform; even though Facebook garners more sells, people tend to
spend more, about $80, through Pinterest, which even beats out the averages of
Google and Amazon.15 As a tool for audience engagement, Pinterest is great because
audiences can be invited to pin to an organization’s boards. This can help patrons feel a
sense of kinship to the organization as well as a sense of ownership to specific works
that the organization is completing. However, once a board is made public (called a
12
Pew Social Media Update 2013, page 4
Pew Social Media Update 2013, page 7
14
http://www.shopify.com/infographics/pinterest
15
http://www.shopify.com/infographics/pinterest
13
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Community Board), organizations have no control over what audiences pin. One way to
get around this is to ask participants to send in links to pin via email or other social
media sites, but this extra step my discourage some from participating. Another
downside to Pinterest is that the vast majority of users, at 33%, are women who are well
educated and skewed slightly towards the affluent side.16 Conversely, this can be seen
as a positive to theatre organizations as it is this group that drives the majority of theatre
tickets sales.
The final necessary social media platform, Twitter, sees 18% of online users
actively using its social media network.17 Like Facebook, Twitter allows users to a
myriad of content, such as pictures and video. The key difference is that posts are
limited to 140 characters. Due to the brevity of tweets, it has become a much more fastpaced medium in which it is acceptable to post as much as five times per day, in
comparison to Facebook which should only see new posts 1-2 times per day. However,
the downside to the fast-paced nature of the platform is that an organization’s tweet can
easily get lost in news feeds and, therefore, many people will miss out on a post unless
they are logged in at the time of the post. Additionally, although Facebook now has
hashtags, it was Twitter who perfected the use of hashtags and making them more
widely used on this platform. Through hashtags it is easy to track audience engagement
initiatives of a social media campaign. Another benefit of Twitter is that it is easy to
recognize audiences and continue conversations by tagging participants using
@username. Also, many Twitter users are young (31% below age 30) and African-
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17
Pew Social Media Update 2013, page 7
Pew Social Media Update 2013, page 5
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American (29%), both demographics that many arts organizations, including Woolly
Mammoth, are attempting to increase participation with.18
An Introduction to Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and its Marketing Department
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is a 501c(3) organization with an annual
operating budget of around $4 million. The organization’s mission is to
“ignite explosive engagement between theatre artists and the community by
developing, producing, and promoting new plays that explore the edges of
theatrical style and human experience, and by implementing new ways to us the
artistry of theatre to serve the people of Greater Washington, DC.”19
Currently in its 34th Season, Woolly Mammoth is lead by Artistic Director, Howard
Shalwitz, who is also the organization’s founder, and Managing Director, Jeffrey
Herrmann. It is in its eighth year at its current location in the thriving Penn Quarter
neighborhood in downtown DC and, as evidence through knowledge from the Board of
Directors Management class, Woolly Mammoth is currently in transition from the
maturity stage of its life cycle back into the growth stage, also known as turnaround.
The catalyst for this transition was the move to their new facility in 2005 and, more
recently, a disappointingly under-performing Season 33 that caused panic and distrust
between the board and staff. As a result, there has been a great deal of staff turnover
creating a somewhat low, although optimistic morale amongst the staff. This is
especially true in the Marketing Department, with more than half the department having
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19
Pew Social Media Update 2013, page 5
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Form 990 2010 and 2011: part III, line 1
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been in their current position for less than one year and no Marketing staff member
having been at Woolly for more than two years.
Because all of the Marketing personnel are relatively new, the department has
been burdened with playing catch-up, as the previous staff did not leave enough
documentation to guide them forward. Until the current Director of Marketing and Public
Relations, Deeksha Gaur, began at Woolly in 2012, there was no policy to consistently
create a marketing plan for either entire seasons or each show within a season. This
contributed to the knowledge gap between board and staff, furthering the mistrust
between the two. The 34th Season marked the first full season in recent memory that
there was a marketing plan. Thus far, it has proven to alleviate some of the tension, as it
has helped articulate the Marketing goals and outlined a means of reporting in order to
justify expenses for projected revenue. Although Woolly proudly touts that it has
younger audiences than the national theatre average with 28% of audiences under the
age of 45 compared to the national average of 21% for non-musical plays20, one of the
main goals of this marketing plan has been to increase audience engagement in an
effort to increase and diversify audiences, especially in attracting even more audiences
below the age of 45 and non-Caucasian audiences. One of their main tools in achieving
this goal is social media.
The social media marketing plan for Season 34 at Woolly Mammoth shows that
the organization aspires to thematically connect the plays of Season 34 and align all
social media content in support of Woolly’s institutional mission of “igniting an explosive
engagement between theatre artists and the community.” The Marketing department
National Endowment for the Arts’ Survey of Public Participation in the Arts 2013, page
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20
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interpreted community as meaning the Woolly community, consisting of patrons (past
and present), as well as Woolly staff, artists, and other affiliates. This clearly identifies
audience engagement as a top priority for the season’s social media initiatives. In order
to foster the desired audience engagement, the Marketing department identified six
objectives for social media content. The first was that social media initiate interest in
each play by way of each play’s themes and the artists’ ideas and views of them.
Second, social media initiatives aimed to attract audience members by sharing with
them the dialogue around the themes of Season 34 and each of its plays. Then, social
media content intended to provide patrons with a compelling invitation to see each of
the plays, so that they may become a part of the conversation and community of people
who are seeing and discussing it. By continuing the lobby experience, social media
content could then ask audience members to reflect on each play, share their thoughts,
and apply the themes and ideas to their own personal lives. Next, social media aimed to
facilitate the continuation of the discussion throughout the duration of the season within
the Woolly community. Finally, social media could challenge audience members to
engage with the artists themselves through various social media platforms, so that they
may begin to pose and ponder the bigger questions presented within the season.
In order to best carry out their social media objectives, the Marketing department
separated all of their active social media platforms into three categories: Tier I, Tier II,
and Tier III. The Tier I platforms, Facebook and Twitter, have a distribution purpose and
serve as a means of announcing and sharing information on the organization and the
Season 34 productions. The Tier II platforms, Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, YouTube,
Vine, and Storify, serve an archival purpose as avenues for hosting and cataloging
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content. Lastly, the Tier III platforms, Bit.ly, Yelp, and Foursquare, serve a
measurement and tracking purpose, providing Woolly with data on how many people
are checking in and talking about the company, as well as how many people are
following the links published on other platforms. In other words, Tier II platforms will
host the content that will be shared on Tier I and Tier III platforms will keep track of who
is at Woolly and engaging in content. Visitors to each site, no matter the platform, are
instructed to visit and converse with Woolly via the Tier I platforms in order to streamline
response and engagement. In analyzing Woolly Mammoth’s social media usage as a
tool for audience engagement, I will be focusing on the marketing strategy for the show
Detroit.
Social Media Usage for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s Detroit
Detroit, by playwright Lisa D’Amour, ran from September 9 to October 6, 2013. It
is a dark comedy about the explosive relationship between two couples that exposes
the realities of the economic downturn and it’s detrimental effect on the American
Dream. In helping to develop the social media strategy for this show, I was able to
participate in conversations about the goals of the show’s social media strategy and
ways in which they could be accomplished. In the end, the Marketing department
decided that they wanted to connect with patrons, new and old, in a way that
encouraged them to learn about Woolly and Detroit while participating in conversations
on such topics as the declining middle class, the ongoing effects of the economic crisis,
and the actions and behaviors of Millennials. The social media campaign for Detroit
focused on three platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
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Twitter was chosen to serve as the primary social media platform for several
reasons, the first being that it is an easy and direct way for Woolly to share information
and interact with the theatre’s community, including prospective and current audience
members, artists, the press, and other arts organizations. Also, Woolly Mammoth has a
large following with 7,181 followers on Twitter. The Marketing team therefore knew that
it would have a larger reach than most of the organization’s other active social media
platforms. Another deciding factor was the fact that tweets that directed the public to
Woolly’s content on other platforms were easily planned, drafted, and shared both in
advance and in the moment. Because of this a member of the Marketing department is
able to immediately respond to any interactions on the platform. A final benefit for this
campaign was that Twitter interaction can easily be cataloged with hashtags and
measured using metrics available through Twitter; this meant that once the show
closed, the Marketing department could go back and gather metrics to see what worked
and what did not work so that they could present their findings to the board of directors
and use the information to adjust future social media plans.
For Detroit, the main Twitter campaign was #TheJoneses, which invited followers
to build a conversation around their own personal experiences with “The Joneses,” or
the pop culture concept of a neighborhood family that always seems to be doing
everything perfectly. It was hoped that by getting followers to share a funny or clever
story relating to the idea of “The Joneses,” they would be more likely to join the deeper
conversation called for by the themes of the play. Because of this campaign, content
archived on Tier II platforms about popular culture examples of “The Joneses,” including
memes, pictures, and articles were posted on Twitter. The Twitter campaign was carried
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out in two phases during the run of the show. In Phase I, Woolly introduced the hashtag
by tweeting examples of 140 character anecdotes related to experiencing families like
“The Joneses.” These first tweets were sourced from Woolly staff and included such
tweets as: “Big house, picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog? #TheJoneses #WoollyDetroit,”
“Perfect apartment, great wardrobe, sports car, and a high powered job? #TheJoneses
#WoollyDetroit,” and “Ivy League degree and salary to match? #TheJoneses
#WoollyDetroit.” This was followed by Phase II of the twitter campaign, which was
geared towards turning #TheJoneses into a popular trending topic by calling for follower
participation. Samples of these types of tweets are: “What comes to mind when you
think of #TheJoneses? #WoollyDetroit,” “What does today's "Joneses Family" look like?
#TheJoneses #WoollyDetroit,” and “Who are #TheJoneses in your neighborhood? What
do they look like? How are we "competing?" #WoollyDetroit.”
Facebook served as the secondary social media platform throughout the Detroit
social media campaign. Though Woolly has a large Facebook audience, as evidenced
by its 7,407 likes, the Marketing team believed that Facebook users were less likely to
immediately engage and respond to posts than Twitter users. Also, they knew that the
nature of Facebook only allowed for a few posts a day before becoming cluttered and
time had to be allotted for each post to gain likes, comments, and shares. Therefore,
while Twitter was used to share information more frequently, Facebook posts were
reserved for heavier content, such as videos, pictures, and links to reviews and more
thought-provoking articles. Highlights of content posted on Facebook include preproduction pictures from Detroit rehearsals and #TBT (throw back Thursday) pictures,
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the Detroit video trailer, links to reviews from various news sources, and links to the
#WoollyDetroit Scrapbook.
The main Facebook campaign, #WoollyDetroit Scrapbook, revolved around news
stories and expert commentary on the themes and issues presented in the play. Topics
included the City of Detroit declaring bankruptcy, the changing face of Washington, DC
(gentrification and relocation of groups of people), the declining/ disappearing middle
class, the economic crisis, and the struggles of Millennials working towards realizing
their career and gaining financial stability. All content was archived in the Tier II
platform, Storify, for audience perusal. The Marketing department believed that by
sharing such content on Facebook, they would be able to begin deeper conversations
with the community. Questions they asked through Facebook included “what is your
personal experience with the American suburban dream,” “were you raised in an urban,
suburban, or rural setting,” “what are you thoughts on the issues that are challenging
the America middle class,” “what are your thoughts on the current economic climate,”
and “do you feel that you and your family are affected by these issues?”
The last social media platform of focus for the Detroit campaign was Pinterest.
Pinterest was chosen because it was a medium that relied heavily on visual aids. The
Marketing team had a very specific campaign in mind, the #WoollyDetroit Recipe
Exchange, which required a platform that had pre-existing content that was easily
searchable and, alternatively, that could easily upload new content, making Pinterest
ideal. Additionally, research into Woolly’s audiences showed that the majority of
patrons are educated, middle to upper class, middle-aged females. Since the majority of
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Pinterest users share these characteristics, it was important to the Marketing team that
the social media plan employ this platform during the run of Detroit.
As mentioned earlier, the Pinterest campaign was titled #WoollyDetroit Recipe
Exchange. This campaign invited Woolly’s online audience to share their favorite family
recipes. Similar to Detroit’s Twitter campaign, the Pinterest campaign was divided into
phases. In Phase I, the Marketing department gathered recipes from staff, artists, and
designers to help populate the Pinterest board. During Phase II, Woolly’s social media
followers were invited to send tweets, leave Facebook comments, or email Michael
Love, the Communications Coordinator, with links to recipes that they know and love.
The recipes were then added to the #WoollyDetroit Recipe Exchange board on
Pinterest. In Phase III, Woolly continued to encourage its online audience to submit
links to their favorite recipes, while also encouraging the in-person submission of
personal recipes by way of recipe boxes located in Woolly Mammoth’s lobby. The plan
was to offer incentives, such as featuring a recipe each week, posting Instagram
pictures or video of the Woolly Staff trying a recipe, or signed poster or ticket
giveaways, once Phase III had gained popularity.
Analysis of Detroit’s Social Media Strategy in Relation to Audience Engagement
At first glance, audience engagement through social media on Twitter and
Facebook appear to be very high for the run of Detroit, garnering 866 new likes on
Facebook and 6,269 new followers on Twitter. However, it is important to point out that
Allied Digital, an end-to-end IT Infrastructure service that Woolly Mammoth hired to
oversee online marketing efforts, began their contractual work for the theatre for the first
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time at the start of the Detroit run. Therefore, much of these new likes and followers
were a result of people clicking on Allied Digital ads on the sites and not necessarily
patrons who were searching for a way to engage with Woolly Mammoth. Additionally,
Facebook likes and Twitter followers are not good indicators of audience engagement
since they do not give any insight into the activities of a patron after he or she hits the
like or follow button. A similar dilemma exists with Pinterest, as the number of times a
recipe was re-pinned does not necessarily indicate that those re-pinning the recipe are
people in the Woolly community engaging with Woolly’s content. In fact, upon further
inspection, the majority of the people who re-pinned a recipe were not Woolly audiences
but rather people from all over the country simply searching for recipes and finding the
#WoollyDetroit Recipe Exchange board through Pinterest’s search functions. Despite,
these setbacks, insight can be gained into the success and failures of the Detroit social
media campaign.
Community interaction on Twitter showed mediocre levels of audience
engagement. A total of 25 unique patrons tweeted @woolllymammothtc using the
hashtag #WoollyDetroit with an additional two patrons retweeting a Woolly Mammoth
generated tweet with that same hashtag. Throughout the entire #TheJoneses
campaign, only 16 Twitter followers used the hashtag with four more retweeting an
original Woolly Mammoth tweet with the same hashtag. Despite these disappointing
numbers, 218 people visited the Woolly Mammoth website after clicking on the link
through the Twitter page. This shows that there are patrons who are reading Woolly
Mammoth’s tweets and who are interested enough to learn more about the company
and the work produced there.
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Facebook proved to be a better tool for audience engagement during Detroit with
as much as 905 distinct clicks (from patrons looking at the posted production photos)
and as much as 33 unique interactions (from community members responding to the
Detroit video trailer). Although the #WoollyDetroit Scrapbook did not perform as well as
those posts, it still attracted 52 clicks through to the linked content and 7 interactions
with patrons. An additional 30 patrons posted on Woolly Mammoth’s Facebook page
and 16 posted comments to some of the questions asked by Woolly. This shows that,
unlike Twitter where audiences are reading the content but not interacting, Facebook
users are more likely to engage in discussion with Woolly. Also, out of all of the social
media platforms, Facebook had the most number of people click through to Woolly’s
website with 448 patrons doing so.
Of the three social media platforms that Woolly focused on during the run of
Detroit, Pinterest showed the most unsatisfactory levels of audience engagement.
During the entire run, Woolly Mammoth only gained 61 new followers to its Pinterest
page. Although one recipe had over 1,000 re-pins, only two of those came from patrons
viewing it directly from Woolly’s board. The #WoollyDetroit Recipe Exchange Pinterest
board was able to generate as much as 141 impressions, the daily average number of
times Woolly’s pins appeared on Pinterest (in the main feed, in search results, or on
boards). However the reach, the daily average number of people who actually saw
Woolly’s pins, never surpassed 10.
Conclusions on Social Media Usage as a Tool for Audience Engagement at Woolly
Mammoth Theatre Company
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Although the content itself for each platform was strong, in that it encouraged
audiences to interact with the theatre by asking them questions and offering insight into
the inner workings of the theatre, the Marketing department overestimated the
readiness of their audience to participate in such deep discussions. Yes, audiences
today want to be actively engaged in the arts that they choose to view. However, as an
audience member, it’s easy to acknowledge that you want your arts experience to be a
certain way and much harder to break years of tradition in which audiences were
expected to be silent observers, rather than active participants. Woolly Mammoth is on
the right track to training their audience that they want them to speak up and share their
thoughts and ideas about the work the organization presents. It just can’t push them too
hard too fast, as they did during the Detroit campaign.
In the future, Woolly Mammoth should continue to severely limit or completely
discard sales pitches for subscriptions and shows from their social media campaigns.
They can expand their Connectivity, what they call audience engagement, events from
being only in-person events to online events, such as video blogs and live streaming
question and answer sessions or rehearsals, so that people can participate via social
media. The Marketing team should offer incentives, an idea that was stated in the social
media plan but never followed through with, to help educate their audiences that
participation is the new expectation. In this way, I believe that Woolly Mammoth Theatre
Company will one day be successful in helping their audiences join the artistic
exchange taking place at this innovative organization and begin serious dialogue on
current issues in society and what we can do now to change it for the better.