Aaron Bisman

1. The average American adult spends 11 hours per day with electronic media.
2. 58% of adults in the United States own a smartphone and 40% own a tablet. Cellphone adoption transcends race, location, and income level.
3. 73% of adults use at least one social media channel.

These facts help to establish a truism of life today. We live in an augmented reality; for more and more of us, we value and desire digital experiences alongside “real world” ones. And one need not negate the other. Our lives do not only take place in the physical world; why should our experiences with art and culture?

By investing in digital tools and experiences, arts organizations can bring arts and culture to current and potential audience members by meeting them where they are: online. More specifically, on social media such as Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook.

Relevance, in large part, is determined by discoverability and ease of access. Regardless of its transformative power, if it’s only locked away in a single location, even the greatest piece of art (or resource of any kind, really) is likely to be ignored simply because access to it is so limited.

You can create digital experiences without bringing the artwork itself online. Share the history of the work, the story of its physical home, of the artist who created it, of the buyer or institution that acquired or commissioned it, or reactions to it. Create one or more digital access points, and you build exponential opportunities for the artwork – and your institution – to impact new and expanded audiences.

Our augmented reality means we have endless opportunities to acquire, educate, and impact new and returning audiences.

A ballet in San Francisco can gain fans in Tallahasse, Turkey, and Turkmenistan through a day of webcast events (branded as “World Ballet Day”). A museum in New York can share an entirely new perspective on its collection – and its building – by giving Instagram photographers unfettered and exclusive access and allowing them to share their photos not on institutional properties, but through their personal accounts. As a result, the museum not only gains tremendous numbers of new fans on the platform, but develops a new public program based on the experiment (Google “#emptymet tours”).

At Jazz at Lincoln Center, we deeply value the experience of hearing music live. And while tens of thousands of audience members join us at Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City every year, over two hundred thousand join us via webcast from almost every country in the world. And we value these experiences equally. Which is not to say they are the same. Still, we recognize that for the majority of jazz fans in the world, there is a strong likelihood that they may never have the chance to step foot into our venues. But we still want to create ways for them to hear the amazing artists who grace our stages and be exposed to the transformative power of live music.

Stepping into the new balance between digital and “real world” experiences may require a massive cultural shift at an institution.  Digital is an ever-evolving Wild West and in that dusty landscape you are a pioneer with only the outline of a map to guide you. To succeed in the digital landscape, you need to embrace change and uncertainty.  Luckily, you can mitigate the risks of the unknown with education, peer support, strategy, self-assessment, and iteration.

Learn

There are incredible resources for digital strategy and content development online. While many exist explicitly for the non profit and arts fields, I pay the greatest attention to start up and tech blogs that curate the latest news in the general field.

Sign up for a few daily; email lists; spend 10 minutes a day reading Fastcocreate.com and you’ll be rewarded with insightful, practical gems such as Econsultancy’s incredible Period Table of Content Marketing.

Find a friend

Don’t go it alone! Strategy, like creativity, is a collaborative act. Brainstorm, talk through ideas, ask others their opinions on these new endeavors, and offer help to others.  A focus group of one is just a feedback loop.

Strategize

In this blog I’ve mostly made a case for why I believe arts organizations need to value digital experiences. With a “why” in hand, you need a “what” followed closely by a “how.” The what is a clearly articulated, measurable goal. At Jazz at Lincoln Center, our Executive Director Greg Scholl envisioned a “March to a Million” – and articulated one of our digital goals as connecting with one million jazz fans in the world (we are three quarters of the way there!).  With your clearly articulated goal in mind, you can build a strategy – how you will reach your goal. One size will not fit all. Your strategy will be as unique as your organization.  It is your cartographer’s map, making sense of the digital path you will travel.

Assess

Keep in mind that in such a fluid environment, strategy must evolve. Make a plan, implement and test it. How is your new strategy performing? What are you learning along the way? What does the data tell you? (Great data tools to start with are Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, and Google Analytics).

Iterate

You drew your map to reach Los Angeles and ended up closer to Los Alamos. It’s ok!  You’ve hopefully gained new knowledge throughout your journey which will inform how you redraw the map. Again and again if necessary.  Innovation requires repetition, with slight changes. Assess and iterate often, documenting as you try new things.

Digital experiences democratize access to ideas, information, and communities of shared values. They collapse time and space, creating new opportunities for artistic, emotional, and educational engagement. What more could champions of arts and culture hope for?

Want to hear more from Aaron Bisman? Join him and fellow speaker Lisa Dempster in the National Arts Marketing Project Conference (#NAMPC) session Digital Programming: The New Frontier in Arts Engagement.

The Arts Marketing Blog Salon is generously sponsored by Patron Technology.