Download Marketing the Arts on the Internet

Chapter 10
Marketing the
Arts on the
Internet
This Chapter . . .
•Explains
•
how interactive media can extend the reach
of arts groups.
Chapter Contributors:
•• Chad Bauman is Director of Communications for Arena Satge in Washington D.C. He uses blogs, webcams,
and personalized URLs to appeal to Arena Stage’s ticket buyers and donors.
•• Eugene Carr is President of Patron Technology, an e-mail marketing firm catering to arts organizations.
Getting More From Media
“The Internet has revolutionized the
computer and communications world
like nothing before. The invention
of the telegraph, telephone, radio
and computer set the stage for
this unprecedented integration of
capabilities. The Internet is at once a
worldwide broadcasting capability, a
mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without
regard for geographic location.”
Part IV. Marketing the Arts on the Internet
Few cultural changes have swept into everyday usage as quickly and pervasively as the
Internet. Every day we see billboards, business cards and even bus placards touting
organizations and businesses with prominently placed web site addresses. Everyone is
surfing the World Wide Web, has an e-mail address, or has built a website.
So how can the Internet help an arts organization reach and retain an audience? A web
site has tremendous advantages for an arts organization.
• It can build awareness of the organization.
• It can help with new audience development.
• It can help position the organization in the community.
—A Brief History of the Internet, by
Robert Hobbes Zakon,
The MITRE Corporation
• It is available to promote and market 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• It can answer many common questions from current and potential patrons, freeing up staff for other activities.
• It provides another means for customers to contact you.
• It can be changed quickly to adapt to changes in programs, schedules or
activities.
• It can save money on postage, mailings, and brochures. •
However, it is critical to remember that a web site, by itself, can’t accomplish all of
these goals. A good web site complements other marketing activities. It cannot take
the place of other forms of contact with current or potential customers.
Most importantly, if left unattended or unmaintained, a web site can produce a negative impression rather than promote an organization.
Today virtually all arts organizations understand that having a web site as a flexible and persistent marketing tool makes good business sense. It seems redundant to
extol the praises of a marketing medium that can reach patrons 24 hours a day, seven
days a week and can be updated instantly. For arts marketers who are plagued with
ever-changing event information, and constantly constrained marketing budgets, the
improvement over print and brochure marketing efforts is self-evident.
10.2
Thus, this document will offer some basic information about how to view the use
of your site, how to think through whether it’s working or not, and what things are
ultimately important to focus on, with regard to your site.
Top 10 Tips for Effective Arts Web Site Management
There are more than 152 million
web sites worldwide and a recent
online search of the term “arts
organization” revealed about 61
million web pages.
1. Define Your Goals
There are no more important questions to ask yourself than “what is the purpose of my
web site,” and “what do I want people to do when they get there?” You should be able
to whittle down your answer to a single response. If you have patrons on your web site
for 30 seconds and can get them to click only one link, what link would that be and
what actions would you want them to take?
2. Respond to Inquiries Quickly
Customer service on the web is a big deal, and most people do it badly. You should respond to every inquiry that comes from your site within 24 hours. Even if the answer
is “we’ll get back to you” your patrons need to know that someone is at the other end
of your site. If they write in, and you respond quickly, you’ll be amazed how good the
feedback is from them. Alternatively, unanswered e-mail is the surest way to turn off a
potential patron, ticket buyer or donor.
3. Use Your Web Site to Build an E-Mail List
Use your site as a way to generate leads for e-mail marketing, by placing a prominent
link to join your newsletter list on the main screen. Even if your aim is to sell tickets,
remember that a consumer that comes to browse and leaves you with their e-mail address, has just created a nearly unlimited opportunity for you to market to them.
4. Keep Navigation Simple and Intuitive
Many web sites use words in the navigation that put off novice viewers. If you have a
concert calendar, use words like “calendar.” If you’re selling tickets “buy tickets” is an
obvious phrase, but you’d be amazed how many sites lack that simple direction.
Make sure that the navigation words have meaning and don’t have meaning only for
the organization. If your organization has a children‘s concert series called YPC, if you
put YPC in the navigation, few will understand what that means.
10.3
Getting More From Media
“ We tend to view the Web in a
vacuum. We compare Web design
to other Web design, but when we
consider the promises of interaction
and experience online, we should
relate these expectations to our
lives outside the Web.”
— Valerie Casey, Visual and
Interactive Designer at Vivid
Studios, quoted in Web Site Journal,
February 24, 1999.
5. Use Graphics and Streaming Media Intelligently
We are at a moment when digital graphics and capabilties are expanding rapidly. It is
always tempting to put as many bells and whistles as possible on your site. But fancy
graphics and streaming media need to be used sparingly. The site should integrate
motion and dynamic content, but not to the exclusion of easy navigation. Users would
rather have clear content than a two minute Flash introduction.
6. Measure and Analyze Site Traffic
Unless you understand the traffic coming to your web site and what path people are
taking within your site, you don’t know what your site is doing for you. It’s important
have some type of web tracking software that gives more than “hits” information.
Ideally you want to know how many unique visitors come to your site each day and
week, how frequently they visit, how long they stay on your site, and which pages
they view most frequently. With this basic information you can begin to draw a picture
about how your web site is working and make changes to improve it. Once you have
mastered basic analytics for your site, consider taking the next step and using the powerful tool Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/) to identify 1-3 goals for
your site that can be tied to financial outcomes. For instance, assign a dollar value to each
email sign-up and to each click that takes a patron to your ticketing system (or if you have
the capability, link the analytics directly to your online ticketing system). By correlating
financial results to the activity on your site, you will have a direct way to measure returnon-investment, down to individual pages and marketing tactics/messages.
7. Keep Your Site Updated
Consumers believe that your web site is the most updated information they can get
about your organization. Consequently, if you have changes in your programming,
make sure that your web site is updated immediately. The press will also check your
web site to find out what’s going on.
Outdated information will actually turn off your audience. There is no better way to
demonstrate to your patrons that your site isn’t worth visiting, than if they look at the
main screen and see information about an event that took place two weeks ago.
8. Put Basic Information Up Front
Seek to understand what information is most important to your audience, and make
it accessible. It’s amazing how many organizations don’t place address and directions
to their venue on the main screen. Some venues have terrible parking issues—why
10.4
not use your web site to offer tips and suggestions for dealing with these? Even if this
doesn’t seem terribly important it will ultimately improve your patrons’ experience
with your organization.
9. Test Your Site With Your Patrons
What you think about your site and what your patrons think about it are often two
OTHER WEB SITES TO GET
LISTED ON OR LINK TO
•• City or State Tourism
•• Local Arts Councils
•• Google
•• Yelp
•• Daily Newspaper Sites
separate matters. You should regularly test your site in front of your patrons. This does
not necessarily mean hiring an expensive marketing research agency. By merely putting people in front of a computer screen and asking them to do certain tasks like “buy
a ticket” or “find out about next week’s concert” you can learn what they do, and how
they navigate. Afterwards you can ask them what they thought of the experience, and
whether there’s anything they would do to improve the site. You’ll be amazed what
people to tell you about how your site is working.
10. Market Your Site—Don’t Just Say it Exists
Don’t expect anyone to go to your site just because it exists. Aside from merely putting
your URL on your print materials, you need a reason for people to visit. Unless your
patrons know there ’s an easier way to do something by going to your site, they won’t
visit. Clearly, selling tickets online re p resents a strong reason to visit your site, as
you’re providing new and better value. If there are other reasons, say so in your marketing materials!
Why E-Mail Works for the Arts
Commercial e-mail comes in two flavors. Junk or “spam” is e-mail you get but didn’t
request. Conversely, “opt-in” e-mail is mail you’ve requested by filling out a form of
some type.
To the issue of the overflowing e-mail box, it turns out that consumers have a highly
sensitive nose for unwanted e-mail, and a well-worn path to the delete key. According
to E-marketer, over 77% of viewers delete spam before they read it.
On the other hand, opt-in e-mail occupies a totally different place in consumers’ minds.
E-marketer reports that 56% say that they are “curious” to read their opt-in e-mail. In
focus groups for CultureFinder.com, not only did our panel know that they received an
e-mail newsletter from us each week, virtually all knew it came on Friday afternoons!
The reason that opt-in e-mail works so well for the arts is that for many, the arts feed a
passion. When I sign up for a New York Philharmonic e-mail, my emotional bond with
that organization taps into my lifelong love of classical music.
10.5
Getting More From Media
When that e-mail comes, I pay attention based on my passion for the art form. I don’t
feel like someone is “selling me.” For others, going to the arts is something they would
like to do more of—and regular e-mail contact can help provide this bridge to action.
Frankly, there are few other kinds of products or services that can attract this kind of
emotional loyalty.
Like any direct marketing technique, e-mail works best when you have the ability to
closely and carefully connect offers to your recipients’ needs and interests. And, since
you can’t possibly get it right the first time, e-mail marketing allows you the kind of
freedom and flexibility that direct mail doesn’t, and at a fraction of the cost.
Top 10 Tips for Effective E-Mail Marketing
Here are my top ten tips for e-mail marketing success. Unlike David Letterman’s list,
the first one on my list is the most important!
1. Make the collection of e-mail names the #1 objective of your web site.
At this point, you may be saying to yourself, “Gee I hadn’t ever considered what my
web site’s goals are.” Think of it this way: If you only had the opportunity to have a
visitor on your site for 30 seconds, and all they would do was click once, what link
would you like them to click on?
My recommendation is that you try to get them to click on the “sign up” link for your
e-mail newsletter. The logic here is that if you get a patron to sign up, you can market
to them forever. If they come and leave and don’t leave a trace, you’ve lost a potential
customer.
2. Always collect demographic and preference information along with the email address.
Perhaps the biggest mistake marketers are making in the early stages of e-mail marketing is that they spend their effort collecting e-mail addresses alone. Unfortunately, if
you only have an e-mail address, you’ve done yourself and your organization a big disservice, because you really don’t know anything about the consumer. As in any direct
marketing effort, the more you can target in your message, and the more you know
about your customer, the more effective your marketing efforts could be.
Therefore when collecting e-mail addresses, always ask for other information including name and address, as well as preference and demographic information. The more
thoughtful you are about the kinds of questions you ask, the better your marketing
10.6
efforts will be.
There seems to be a golden rule at work when people sign up for e-mail addresses. That
is that consumers are very willing to give up personal information about themselves,
in return for the promise of information about special offers, discounts, and information that is not available to others. There is a very important “exchange” going on
when people sign up for your e-mail newsletter. Typically you can get five to seven data
points of information from people when they sign up for your newsletter. Don’t miss
this opportunity!
3. Segment lists and make all your offers targeted.
Good direct marketing technique says that the more closely you connect your message
to the consumer’s needs the more likely you are to get a response. Consequently, if
you’ve collected information about your patrons as was described above, it’s now easy
to segment your lists and make targeted offers.
Let’s take an example. If I run a symphony orchestra and market a series of children’s
concerts, I’ll want to only e-mail patrons who have told me that they have children
living at home with them. The point here is that the idea of an “e-mail blast” is just
terrible marketing. The notion that you could jumble a potpourri of information in an
e-mail and expect anyone to respond just isn’t true.
You want to capture the attention of your viewers with a simple concept, and get them
to respond to just that offer. Consequently, the more segmented your list, the more
targeted your offer, and the more closely the offer matches their needs, the better your
response rate will be.
4. Include a “call to action” with e-mail marketing.
A “call to action” means you’ll ask your e-mail readers to click on a link to do something. In most cases that call to action may be “click here to purchase tickets online.”
Placing a few well-described links within your e-mail prompting users for action is the
payoff for a highly targeted offer.
If you can motivate someone to read an e-mail, pick up their mouse, and click on a
link, you’ve got them hooked in much the same way as when you’ve gotten someone
to open a direct mail package.
5. Offer HTML and text formats.
E-mail marketing has come a long way since the days when people could only receive
text messages in their in-box. Today there are over 100 types of e-mail clients all with
varying degrees of ability to present e-mails with text and pictures.
10.7
Getting More From Media
The most common form of e-mail today is HTML e-mail. That means e-mail that
includes text formatting and pictures, much like you would see on a typical web site.
That said, some users may not have the most advanced systems, and they cannot read
text and pictures and present e-mails in all formats.Consequently, to look professional
e-mail marketing needs professional tools that can distinguish between multiple types
of e-mail clients. More importantly, you need a product that can keep up with people’s
changing technology so that when someone upgrades their e-mail to accept HTML you
don’t need to make any changes on your end.
You may be realizing that doing this is impossible if you are merely sending e-mail out
from your e-mail box. That is true. If you’re going to do professional e-mail marketing
you need to have the right software to to do it. Otherwise your efforts will be sadly
amateurish.
6. Favor quality versus quantity.
Just because you have someone’s e-mail address doesn’t mean they want to hear from
you every day or even every week. Rather it’s more important to send people a targeted
message that responds directly to their needs, offers them something that they otherwise could not get. As in any other kind of communication, quality messaging is more
important than quantity.
7. Prepare destination web page.
As in most types of consumer behavior, your patrons have a limited ability to concentrate on your e-mail and on your web site. Therefore if you ask someone to “click
here to buy tickets” you should send them always to a web page that has the ability
for them to buy tickets staring them in the face. If you’re merely sending people to the
main screen of your site, you’re asking a lot of them. Research shows that you lose a
large portion of your audience every time you make them click.
8. Integrate e-mail list development into offline marketing efforts.
Just because your web site exists in cyberspace doesn’t mean that’s the only place you
can collect e-mail addresses. Indeed, as producers of events that bring our patrons to
our doorsteps on a regular basis, we have a unique opportunity to interact with our
patrons. Whether it’s through a survey in the hall, a post card at the box office or in
the parking lot, use creative techniques to collect this information. r-ence data and
demographic information should match exactly the kinds of data you’re collecting from
those who sign up on your web site. That way you’ll develop a consistent and rich
10.8
database of information about your patronsAnd, the preference data and demographic
information should match exactly the kinds of data you’re collecting from those who
sign up on your web site. That way you’ll develop a consistent and rich database of
information about your patrons.
9. Measure, measure, measure!
You should religiously track the results of your e-mail marketing efforts. If you don’t
know exactly what the response rate to e-mail is, you’re missing out on essence of this
direct-marketing medium. Unlike direct mail where it takes a matter of weeks to get
back a response, and your response rate is dependent on the post office, here you can
get a response rate in a matter of hours.
Our experience is that with e-mail marketing you’ll get 80% of your response rates
within the first 48 hours. With the appropriate tools, you can find exactly which links
people clicked on, and what action they took as a result. You can use the tools provided by your email client to measure these results, and also build on that data with other
tools. For instance, if you are running Google Analytics on your web site, you can
generate individual links for your emails that tie directly into your analytics reports by
using Google’s easy “URL Builder” - http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578&hl=en
10. Test your way to success.
The speed and flexibility of e-mail marketing is a direct marketer’s dream. Because
e-mail marketing offers you the ability to change and modify mailings on the fly, you
can and should experiment over time with your audience to begin to understand what
kind of offers and messages get the best response.
For instance, you can test the timing of your e-mail to find out the optimal time to
send out a last minute ticket offer. Some marketers have found that sending e-mail
out 24 hours before concert doesn’t work nearly as well as a message sent three days
before a concert.
Copyright, Patron Technology, 2002.
10.9
Getting More From Media
Part V. Web 2.0: Getting More from New Media
Since the original publication of the National Arts Marketing Project’s workbook, there
have been numerous advancements in technology which are being used widely by arts
marketers across the nation. The principles covered previously in this chapter are still
best practices in the field. The following addendum is meant to highlight marketing
practices developed following original publication.
In this moment of substantial change, most companies are looking inward to determine what adjustments need to be made to their business models to flourish in today’s
new economic climate. Significant shifts need to be made to address the new reality,
and that new reality includes taking a hard look at how consumers get information
about the arts.
Since the mid-1980s, newspaper circulation has been declining in the United States,
but the current economic crisis has thrown gasoline on the fire, causing huge losses
for newspapers nationally. Just recently we have seen four major newspapers cease
print publication: the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Tucson
Citizen, and the Christian Science Monitor. Additionally, four newspaper companies
including the owners of the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Philadelphia
Inquirer, have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Even before the rapid failure
of many printed newspapers, arts coverage in many daily newspapers was shrinking, going from 912 column inches on average in 1998 to 702 column inches in 2003
according to Reporting the Arts II, a study conducted by the National Arts Journalism
Program at Columbia University.
A huge shift in communications is about to occur away from organizations pitching
stories to mainstream media for coverage and toward setting up institutional distribution channels to cover stories themselves. We have seen this in the past decade as the
ways we communicate with our customers have become cheaper, quicker, and more
segmented. We now have e-mail lists, web sites, direct mail, telemarketing, social
networking, online video distribution, podcasts, photo streams, and blogs. Some large
organizations can currently reach more than one million people using these distribution channels. Considering The New York Times has a circulation of 1.6 million, these
distribution channels which used to be considered on the fringes of communications
have become almost as powerful for some companies as their local newspaper.
Barack Obama learned in his presidential campaign that if he invested wisely in culti-
10.10
vating his own method of communicating with his supporters, he would be able to use
that method to speak directly to the American people when in office. Now President
Obama has an e-mail list of 13 million Americans that he uses to garner support for
political initiatives. This list is five time larger that the daily circulation of USA Today,
the newspaper with the largest circulation in the United States.
Just as we have invested in media relations over the past decades, we now need to
heavily invest in developing our own distribution channels and our own content.
This is a two pronged approach—we need to develop the infrastructure to distribute
content and the ability to create content that our customers will want to consume. It is
a significant change in strategy that is now upon us.
Current Major Distribution Channels include the following:
Social Networking
Social networking services focus on creating online communities of people who share
common interests and/or activities. Most of these services are web-based and unite
members through a centralized website. These services provide a variety of ways for
members to interact, such as e-mail, instant messaging, and bulletin boards.
Although not intended for the promotion of organizations or products, many astute arts
marketers have found guerilla methods to capitalize on the communications networks
created by the most popular social networking sites, including MySpace and Facebook.
MySpace
Launched in 2004 by eUniversve, MySpace has quickly become the most popular
social networking site in the United States, creating its 100 millionth account on
April 6, 2006. MySpace allows organizations to create their own MySpace pages in
the same fashion that an individual creates an account. Once an account is created,
organizations are allowed to build their own profiles, which are very similar to one
page websites. Most arts organizations use these profiles to highlight upcoming performances or exhibitions, give pertinent information on the history and mission of the
organization, and post photos, videos and blogs.Once an organization has designed its
profile on MySpace, the next step is to cultivate friends and establish a large network
of interested parties. The easiest way to grow your number of friends is to visit the
10.11
President Obama has an
email list of 13 million Americans,
5 times as many people as the
circulation of USA Today.
profiles of similar organizations in your market, and click on “view all friends” in their
friends directory. A list of all of their friends will open on your computer. Once this
is accomplished, you can click on each individual friend and invite them to become a
friend of yours. MySpace also has a “find friends” function that allows one to search
MySpace for people who have similar interests. By clicking on the “find friends”
button, a dialog box called “Search Profiles for People With Similar Career Interests”
appears. This function allows one to search for profiles with certain career interests,
including several arts disciplines like theater, music, and dance. Once you chose your
specific discipline, it allows you to narrow your choices by limiting the pool to profiles
within a certain mile radius of your organization, thereby ensuring that you are only
contact people who live close to your organization. Once this list populates, you can
visit individual profiles and invite them to become your friend. You can also highlight
your MySpace account in communications tools that your organization already uses,
such as your website, e-mail newsletters and programs. The more visible your MySpace
profile is, the more friends you will get.
Once you have cultivated some friends, now you can start using MySpace as a communications tool. MySpace allows you to send bulletins to all of your friends, create a
MySpace blog, e-mail individual friends, post of MySpace groups, create event lists and
invite your friends, upload photos and videos, post free ads in their classifieds section,
and start conversations in MySpace forums.
Example: http://www.myspace.com/arenastage
http://www.myspace.com/massmoca
http://www.myspace.com/ keigwinandcompany
Facebook
Facebook is another popular social networking platform, and it is rapidly gaining on
MySpace in the United States, having already surpassed MySpace internationally.
Originally, it was launched as a tool to keep Harvard alumni in contact with each
other, and then was eventually opened to the general public. Currently it hosts more
than 150 million active accounts worldwide.
Up until recently, Facebook made it very difficult to have an organizational presence,
putting in place numerous obstacles to prevent organizations from creating “personal”
accounts. Still to this day, if Facebook catches an organization with a personal account,
10.12
they will delete your account without notice and you will lose all of your contacts.
Facebook realized they were missing an opportunity, and opened up their network to
businesses and organizations in 2008. To set up an organization page on Facebook,
one must have a personal account first. Once a personal account is created, you can
create an “Page” using the “Page Manager” application (more information here: http://
www.facebook.com/business/dashboard/?ref=sb#/pages/create.php). Similarly to
MySpace, a Facebook page is your organization’s piece of Facebook real estate. You can
use your page to highlight upcoming performances, list contact information, upload
video and photos, and post reviews from your patrons.
Once a page is created, the next task is to cultivate “Fans”—the name that Facebook
uses for friends. Facebook makes it a little more difficult than MySpace to recruit fans,
so it becomes even more important to let your current patrons know that you are on
Facebook by listing your Facebook page on your website, on e-mail newsletters and
printed materials.
Facebook can be used to create events, send updates to your fans, post links to articles
on the web, promote web videos, and to start discussions on your discussion board.
Developing social networking pages involves an investment of time and energy, not
only on their creation, but in the solicitation of friends and the constant maintenance
these sites demand. However, social networking sites allow organizations to interact
with their patrons on a more personal level, often allow organizations the ability to
craft “soft-sell” marketing campaigns. The common perception of social networking
sites is that they are the exclusive realm of teens and college students. It is true that
these sites attract younger users (which is good for those organizations trying to cultivate younger audiences), however a recent study conducted by Pew Research shows
that every year, more and more adults are hopping aboard social networking sites.
According to the study, in February 2005, only eight percent of adult Internet users
claimed to use social networking sites, but that number has increased to 35% as of
December 2008. If used properly, social networking sites can become a very powerful
asset in your communications tool box.Blogging and Twitter
From Wikipedia (April 2009):
“A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained
by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other
material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chrono-
10.13
Getting More From Media
logical order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to
a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links
to other blogs, web sites, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to
leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs
are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), videos
(vlog),audio (podcasting), which are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging
is another type of blogging, one which consists of blogs with very short posts.”
Is blogging for me?
Blogging is one of the best ways to communicate to audiences, stakeholders, and
funders in an informal and inviting context. Most direct marketing is carefully crafted
to elicit an anticipated response, and hence messaging in such contexts can seem contrived. A blog is an informal exchange between an organization and those interested in
an organization. When writing for a blog, try to offer your readers something that they
would never be able to get from any other source. Very rarely can this be accomplished
when a communications professional is the sole voice or primary contributor. Readers
of a blog don’t want to get hit with marketing messages. If you try a hard sell technique with every blog, your readers are going to start tuning out your blog. No matter
how effective you are at crafting marketing language, readers of your blog won’t want
to hear from marketing people. They want to hear from artists.
If you are thinking about creating a blog for your organization, there is one thing I
cannot stress enough: make sure those who will be contributing content have bought
into the idea. The most effective blogs that I have seen are maintained and written by
the artistic staff, not the communications staff.
Communications staff members can edit for style, mistakes and anything that might
get the organization into hot water, but at the end of the day, the source of the material
should lie in the hands of those that create the work.
Blogging is very effective if done right. Many organizations launch blogs and don’t do
it right, and when the blog fails they blame it on the ineffectiveness of the technology.
Get buy in, create an editorial calendar, assign writers, provide interesting content
and communicate to your stakeholders that you have launched a blog. If you do these
things, your blog will flourish.
10.14
USEFUL SITES
How do I set up a blog?
Setting up a blog is relatively easy and very inexpensive. I suggest going to www.blogger.
MySpace
com and signing up for a new blog (which is free). It will take all of fifteen minutes to
Facebook
design a basic blog and you do not have to have any HTML knowledge. Once it is created,
Twitter
place a prominent link to it on your web site. Encourage artistic staff members to post.
YouTube
Once that is done, tell everyone about it. Don’t be shy. If you keep it interesting as well
Flickr
as valuable, people will love it.
Foursquare
De.li.cious
StumbleUpon
Track the Blogosphere
The company that I currently work for, Arena Stage, has made quite a transition in the last
couple of months, moving from its DC home of over 50 years to a new temporary performance space in northern Virginia. In doing so, we employed a complex communications
plan that involved using some brand new technologies as well as some tried-and-true techniques. When asked about the “success” of our move, it is relatively easy to track in terms
of revenue (less than 1% of Arena’s subscriber base requested a refund).
I also monitor what our customers are saying by reading their e-mails and reviewing
reports from our box office. However, I must say that one of the best indications on
the success of our move was found in the blogosphere. The blogosphere now contains
112.8 million blogs according to a recent Technorati report. Arena Stage sees on average 200,000 people per year. Knowing the popularity of blogs these days, and the
sheer number of people that visit us, I knew that ourtransition would be discussed in
the blogosphere.
So I set up a Google Alert to notify me when certain key words were discussed in a
blog. Initially, I wanted to be able to monitor what was being said about our transition,
but after I read several blog postings, I decided to play a more active role in the discussions by answering questions posted on a blog or by providing more information. A
great example can be seen on Michael Miyazaki’s Cabaret Blog . Michael is a cabaret
enthusiast and as well as a subscriber at Arena Stage. When he came to our new temporary venue in Crystal City to see Tina Fabrique in January 2008, he was very disappointed with our lack of signage and wrote a blog about his experience. Unfortunately,
Mr. Miyazaki had attended a preview performance at a time when a great deal of our
signage had not yet been installed (try coordinating a signage plan with state, county,
and local officials—it is a long process). So I emailed him to apologize for his inconvenience and to let him know that all the signs would be in place by opening night.
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If you want to know what your audience is thinking, it might be wise to monitor the blogosphere. The blogosphere is no longer a collection of incredibly powerful blogs written by a
select few professional journalists. It contains many more personal journals from regular
joes like you and I who are not shy about discussing their experiences.
Twitter
According to its web site, Twitter is “a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple
question: What are you doing? With Twitter, you can stay hyper-connected to your friends
and always know what they’re doing. Or, you can stop following them any time. You can
even set quiet times on Twitter so you’re not interrupted. People use Twitter because even
basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when
they’re timely.”
Twitter is the most popular form of microblogging. Each post can be a maximum of 140
characters, and in many cases are used to express what one is doing. Recently, organizations have started to create their own Twitter accounts,but several have been unsuccessful
because they are used only to post headlines and marketing pitches. The most successful
organizations use Twitter to follow either an artistic leader or an artist currently working
at their organization. Remember when setting up a Twitter account that Twitter at its core
is a blog. Keep it interesting, and let the artists use it directly to communicate with your
audiences.
Online Video
It used to be that video was both expensive to create and expensive to distribute, but
with technology advances over the last several years, one can create, produce and
distribute professional quality video at a fraction of the cost that it used to take.
Capturing Video
If you would like to capture the highest quality video, then you might want to invest
in a high definition camera, or better yet, hire a professional video crew. For most
projects, the highest level of video quality isn’t needed, especially if you are just going
to stream it on the web because you will lose some quality when it is uploaded. Video
can be captured in very cheap and easy ways, from the video function on a digital
camera to light-weight, tiny hand-held video cameras such as those produced by Flip
(http://www.theflip.com/). Flip is even making a tiny HD camera that is relatively
inexpensive (about $200).
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If you are operating under any union contracts, when capturing video, make sure you
are aware of what you can and cannot video tape. Many performing arts unions have
become more relaxed in the area of video, but it still would be wise to review your
contracts before you start filming, or else you might be slapped with a fine later.
Editing
Once you have captured video, the next step would be to upload it to a computer for
editing. Although I regularly use a PC, I must admit that Macintosh computers are
much more advanced when it comes to editing media. Although a Google search will
reveal several inexpensive video editing software platforms for PCs, the current industry standard for most users is iMovie HD (make sure you get the HD version for better
quality). Most basic computer users will be able to learniMovie in under an hour as it
is very user friendly, and once your project is edited, it allows you to upload your video
directly to several popular online video sharing sites such as YouTube.
Uploading Video
Once your video has been edited, you can distribute your video through several online
video and social networking sites including YouTube, Blip.Tv, MySpace, and Facebook.
Most of these sites will also give you the HTML code to embed the video directly into
your website or blog.
The most widely used video sharing site is YouTube (www.youtube.com). Purchased
by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion in 2006, YouTube allows users to easily upload, view,
and share video clips. Recently YouTube launched an initiative that allows nonprofit
organizations to create their own branded YouTube channels featuring links that take
viewers directly to a donation page or a purchase page.
At the date of publication, the Anaheim Ballet has the most visibility of any performing
arts organization on YouTube with almost 11 million video views and 15,342 subscribers to their YouTube site (http://www.youtube.com/user/AnaheimBallet).
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