Americans for the Arts

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.

Will Lester

How well do you know your audiences…really?

Before the curtain goes up you can undoubtedly pick out that valued donor or long-time subscriber in your audience. Or, at every exhibition opening, you probably know the faces and names of the most important and dedicated members attending. But who are all the rest of the people coming through your doors? Are the majority of people who have been to your organization before, or are they new? And are they new to the arts or just new to you?

The team at TRG Arts was curious about this too. What we found is that, in a given season, about 50% of the people coming to your arts events are people you have seen before. The other 50% are new to the organization, although maybe not to the arts.

Subscribers, members, and other regular attendees actually only comprise about 37% of the typical database. Another 14% are “reactivated” patrons—patrons who have some sort of buying history, but haven’t bought in the last two years.

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.

1.  Be Authentic The point of social media is not to bang people over the head with announcements about your performances. It is a way to communicate and engage people on a personal level. People can tell when someone is not being authentic. You know when you are at a networking event and there is a skeevy salesperson there that everyone steers clear of because they don’t want to be pitched to? Don’t be that person on social media. If you’ve ever read my blog or seen me speak live, you know about my 80/20 rule for social media. Ideally, 80% of your posts should be engagement and 20% should be broadcasting. In short, 80% of what you are saying on social media should not be about the show you are about to do or the event that you want to sell tickets to. Here are some things to think about to help you be more authentic:

Ian David Moss

At Fractured Atlas, we’re in the process of rolling out a few new technology products that have been in the pipeline for the past year or so. One of these is Artful.ly, which is the hosted version of the ATHENA open-source ticketing and CRM platform that was released earlier this year.

Another is a calendar and rental engine add-on to our performing arts space databases in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area that will allow visitors to the site to reserve and pay for space directly online.

For both of these resources, we felt it was important to get feedback from actual users before proceeding with a full launch. So we engaged in a round of what’s called usability testing.

Usability testing differs from focus groups in that it involves the observation of participants as they actually use the product. So, rather than have people sit around a room and talk about (for example) how they might react to a new feature or what challenges they face in their daily work, you have people sitting in front of a computer and trying to navigate a website’s capabilities while staff members look over their shoulders and take notes.

Dr. Bill Bronston

As part of National Arts and Humanities Month, we are featuring stories about some of the events people are holding around the country. Sacramento-based nonprofit Tower of Youth, an organization dedicated to organize and promote digital literacy, education system modernization, a world class media workforce, economic and community development through its training, partnership networking and media showcase programs, will hold its 15th Annual North American All Youth Film & Education Day October 7. Dr. William Bronston, CEO of Tower of Youth, had this to say about the event and the importance of youth media art:

Youth media art is the ultimate challenge to the status quo in the education system. District and education industry leaders seem unable to guide us into a truly 21st Century 24/7 individualized and customized learning system. The digital toolbox is limitless. It is revolutionizing all our lives! It is imagination and competence, visionary leadership, school redesign courage that are desperately needed by our children who seek connection, wisdom and inspiration, by instinct, in their lives.

Our youths best movies, from across North America, show, over and over, for the 15 years we have produced these showcase events, their hunger for value, vitality, problem solving, wonder, antidotes to fear and dangers to body and soul they seriously struggle with. Their movies tell the whole story and do so with absolute creative wonder and originality. Visual media jobs and career growth rates dominate the economy but are officially uncounted.

Chad Bauman

In Part 1, Chad discussed how Arena Stage conducted research to determine if subscriptions still worked for their organization. Below, and in Part 3, he discusses some of the tactical changes Arena Stage has made as a result of that work:

Simplified Pricing.
Our previous subscription pricing strategies were incredibly complicated. I remember spending hours poring over pricing strategy, and at the end thinking that one would have to be a CPA to understand how our pricing model worked. We decided that in order to create an effective value proposition, subscription pricing would have to be clear and easy to understand.

We worked for weeks to develop a simple pricing structure that could be messaged easily, such as "buy 6 plays, get 2 plays free." The new pricing structure allowed us to easily communicate a value proposition and to eliminate complicated order sheets, replacing them with order forms that could be filled out easily.

Clear, concise and transparent pricing was pivotal to effectively communicating the value of a subscription.

David Dombrosky

For years now, we have been talking about the latest tools and the best practices for incorporating these tools into our marketing and communications strategies. Of course, this is a necessary conversation in which we need to continually engage, but there is a corollary discussion that also needs to take place regularly.

As technology advances and communication-based behaviors adapt to these advances, arts marketers find themselves adding new tactics to their marketing strategies in order to stay current in meeting audience expectations. So the corollary discussion that we need to have is, “If we need to add new tactics to keep pace with changing technology and patron behavior, then which older tactics can we afford to lose?”

During the past five years of leading online technology workshops for arts managers, one of the most frequent concerns expressed by participants has been the ever-increasing workload. We’ve added social media to our plates, as well as mobile applications, broadcast emails, SMS campaigns, and more. But what have we taken away?

Brian Reich

Everyone talks about the transformational power of digital and social media, the contribution that technology and the Internet are having on our society – but for all the changes and advancements, most of the important things about our society seem to be largely operating as they have for a long time.

The promise of new technology is scale, reach, and efficiency. Just because we can move faster doesn't mean that work should take priority over developing relationships and providing value to our audiences.

We have prioritized telling a quick story that suggests progress over investing in long-term impact that changes the world and drives people towards deeper commitments to organizations. We have become too accustomed to measuring success based on the size or popularity of an organization and not the value that a community of supporters places on the work that groups are doing.

As long as groups continue to focus on the wrong opportunities, our efforts to address serious issues will continue to stumble.

Christy Farnbauch

The Jazz Arts Group (JAG) in Columbus, OH, along with its national research partners recently completed a two-year study focused on the attitudes of current and potential jazz ticket buyers throughout the U.S. and in Central Ohio.

The research process involved a variety of research methods, including a music listening study, electronic and print surveys, and a literature review. The Jazz Audiences Initiative (JAI), launched in November 2009, was designed to study fundamental questions about how and why people engage with jazz. The main goal was to learn new ways for engaging audiences, and infusing the art form with new energy.

Once all the data was distilled, the following key findings emerged:

1.    Tastes in music are socially transmitted.
2.    Across western-based art forms, jazz still draws a relatively diverse audience.
3.    Consumption of jazz is artist-driven.
4.    Music preferences are shaped by local programming.
5.    Younger buyers have categorically more eclectic tastes in music.
6.    There are many musical pathways into jazz.
7.    Jazz buyers strongly prefer informal settings.