Mary Trudel

At last year’s NAMP Conference in San Jose – near the heart of Silicon Valley – my partner, Rory MacPherson, and I announced a national survey to gather input on how arts organizations and collaboratives are faring in the dynamic digital communications landscape.

Responding to input from arts organizations and regional arts collaboratives that are striving to get the most out of the latest digital communications tools and social media, we wanted to take a national snapshot of how arts groups are doing with adoption and integration of new social media platforms into their overall marketing outreach.

We decided to conduct a research project to collect hard data on how groups are managing messaging alignment, resource allocation, and how well they perceive their digital communications and social media efforts are working.

It seemed to us that even those who are leading the field and getting outstanding results are not completely sure they're communicating consistently, clearly and compellingly, wonder if they are connecting authentically with patrons and fans, and are concerned about how to sustain and improve the effectiveness of what they're doing. And universally, arts organizations reported struggling to measure the return on investment of their digital efforts.

Clearly digital media are changing the experience of the arts and the definition of “audience” and there are interesting practices cropping up all across the country -- arts groups of all sizes are using digital media as an “on-ramp” to engagement – turning audiences into fans and co-creators of the artistic experience.

There’s a lot of good news!  
Now that almost all the data is in, we are seeing that most respondents are reporting positive results and some are having major successes. We’re especially encouraged by the nearly 10% of respondents who feel digital communications and social media have become “mission critical” to their organizations’ success.

Budgets and geography don’t seem to be constraints -- Social media has democratized communications and enabled experimentation at even relatively small arts organizations in non-metropolitan areas.

The challenges:
The biggest missed opportunities are when groups use social media – designed as two way communications – as a billboard – blanketing audiences rather than targeting and failing to respond to online input from interested fans. Social media must be a two way street! If an audience member reaches out to an organization and you don’t respond – specifically – it’s rather like dialing someone on the phone and hanging up when they say hello.

The feedback:
Over half of our more than 1,600 respondents have not changed anything based on audience feedback; however, those who are reacting to input are reporting deepened relationships with a growing circle of committed fans who want to do their part to help the organization they support. A few examples:

• A performing arts presenter encouraged audiences to share stories about memorable moments at their annual festival and why they loved it. This allowed fans to interact with one another throughout the year and provided a rich array of stories and quotes to use in case statements.
• A mid-sized theater in the Northwest turned the tide on a show that wasn’t selling well although audiences loved it. A well-timed curtain speech released a flood of positive Twitter, Facebook, and blog chatter.
• A ballet company in large southern state has been able to break the stereotype that its tickets are expensive and out of reach for certain demographics by communicating the patrons that single tickets start for under $20.

We’ll be presenting the final results of the survey at the NAMP Conference in Louisville and you can see the full report on our website in mid-November.

We’d love your input on interesting uses of social media to turn audiences into fans and fans into evangelists for your organization.

Please tell us your story by posting a reply here or at www.trudelmacpherson.com.