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Discover how social media can enhance the success of your festival or event. Learn about the various social media platforms and their characteristics, as well as how to engage with your audience and promote your festival effectively.
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Social Media for Festivals and Events Carla Pendergraft Associates Web Design www.carlapendergraft.com
About YOU! (Poll) How many are with a municipality or other government entity? How many are festival staff? How many are in economic development, chamber, CVB, etc? How many are affiliates/vendors?
What Social Media are You Using Personally? (Poll) Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace YouTube Flickr Other
What Social Media is your Festival Using? Facebook Fan Page Twitter LinkedIn Group or Profile Wiki MySpace YouTube Flickr None Other?
Social Media Characteristics • It’s about conversations and communities • Relationships, not selling • It requires a new way of thinking. • Push vs. Pull; Telling vs. Asking • Allows your audience to connect with you and with each other.
U.S. Social Media Communities Facebook – 350 million users, top 10 website LinkedIn – about 50 million users Twitter – over 75 million users YouTube – 70 million videos Flickr – hosts over 2 billion images Blogs – over 200 million And new social communities are added every day.
Social Media’s Reach • Social networking now accounts for 11% of all time spent online in the US. • A third of adults post at least once a week to social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. • A quarter of adults publish a blog and upload video/audio they created. • ~60% maintain a profile on a social networking site. Source: Forrester Research, 1/10
Social Media – Median Age • Last year, the median age on Facebook was 26 - now it's 33. • MySpace's median age is 26 • LinkedIn is 39 • Twitter is 31.
Video on Social Media • According to Nielsen's VideoCensus release, Facebook is now the world's third most popular place to view video online. • In second place, Hulu offered up over 632M video streams. • First place: YouTube, with over 6.6 billion streams.
Video and Social Media • If you have video, upload it to all your presences: your website, Facebook page, and YouTube. • Meet your users where they are.
Social Media and Festivals • YouTube is partnering with the Sundance Film Festival and filmmakers to charge users ~$5 to view a range of movies from the 2009 and 2010 festivals.
Social Media is Two-Way! • Encourage your members/friends/followers to share their experience of your festival! • Upload photos • Upload videos • Encourage them to talk about experiences on your blog! • Considering adopting Terms of Service saying you reserve the right to use any photos or videos in your marketing materials. (Check with your attorney) • Example: City of Round Rock – Flickr Group
Reasons to Use Social Media • Promote your festival or event – and the events that lead up to it • Make announcements about performers when they are signed—and other plans as they firm up • Ask for volunteers – Singapore Marathon gets 4,000 of their 8,000 volunteers from Facebook.
More Reasons to Try It • Ask for opinions – who do they want to see perform? • Drive traffic to your main website • Find out what people are saying about your festival • Tweetdeck – saved searches
More Reasons to Try It • Try LinkedIn to identify potential sponsor companies • Company Profiles • Groups • What about finding potential sponsors on Facebook and Twitter? • People are using social media as their own personal website and in lieu of email!
More Reasons to Use It …And other reasons you haven’t even thought of yet, but you will—once you start using it.
Barriers to Using Social Media • Fear of potential legal issues • Unfamiliarity with social media policies • Open Records Act • Open Meetings Act • Lack of interest by top management • Hostility of IT Dept. – fear of viruses, etc. • Unsure of Return on Investment – time drain • Unfamiliarity with the tools themselves • Fear of mixing personal with business
What if you don’t have access? • Start your own presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Learn to use the tools on your own, at home. • That way, when you’re given access, you will already know how to use them.
What if you don’t have access? • Case Study: City of Waco/ Waco CVB • No Access at work • Social media perceived as risk • Called meeting of all dept. heads, they expressed why they felt they needed it and what they needed • “Super Users” got access and training • Policy written to ensure compliance
Wikis for Festival Planning • Every festival has committees • Often members are far-flung • Email is not efficient for discussing ideas • Wikis allow collaboration • Wikis are web pages anyone can edit • Wikispaces.com • Ad-supported: free • No ads: $5/month • No ads plus custom domain name: $20/month
Axbridge Pageant Festival Wiki • Wiki is used to communicate to our various teams • Website is used for all other information • NO email addresses or phone numbers on wiki
Midi Music Festival Wiki - Beijing 500 bands. Wiki lists venues, musicians, music, etc. Anyone can upload!
Back to the Basics • On all the places you appear on the web, include links to all your other presences. (Cross-link) • Always include the festival name and date • Include your full location! (city, state, country) • There are at least six cities named Austin in the US
The Basics – Cont’d. • Include contact name(s), addresses, phone, email, whom to contact for what. • Learn how to upload your festival logo. Just about every site allows at least that. • Include your festival name and keywords in your profile (Facebook, Twitter) so you can be found in the search.
My Recommendations • If you’re not on Facebook, get on it today! • Start a Twitter feed • Use a wiki to help your committees communicate • Don’t neglect your core website • Add others as your time permits – Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, a blog.
Manchester (U.K.) Literature Festival Blog • “the place for news and reviews of MLF events, with contributions from local literary bloggers, guest writers and staff.”
Oklahoma Mozart Music Festival A year ago: 1,462 followers Now: 3,719 followers Growth: 154%
Twitter • search.twitter.com – one of the main search tools • listen to the conversations about your world • “Follow” other festivals to learn the lingo and style • Set up a twitter name related to the festival • Oklahoma Mozart Music Festival: okmozart
Ten Twitter Tips • Decide what your voice and theme will be before you start. • Dialog with other Twitterers. You address another person on Twitter by using their username and the “@” sign. Example: “@carlawaco”. • Post interesting articles you find, as well as links to new info on your website.
Ten Twitter Tips (Cont’d) • “Retweet” interesting posts from others. • It’s not a competition to get the highest number of followers. • Don’t tweet too much! • Don’t follow everyone who follows you.
Ten Twitter Tips • Hashtags (#) are used to group posts into topics (example: #festival) to aid searching. Go to hashtags.org or wefollow.com to see the most popular hashtags. • Use Tinyurl.com to shorten the URLs that you post. • Download a Tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com) to manage Twitter.
Saved Twitter Searches • Use a Tweetdeck to save a search on your festival name or other key words. • Anytime anyone in the world uses those key words, you’ll see the tweet. • You don’t have to be their follower to see it!
Other Social Media Tools • YouTube – upload some videos and display them on your website and/or Facebook page. • Flickr – Create a photo gallery of pictures from the various events you conduct. • Blogs – Create one at Wordpress.com or Blogger.com and put a link to it on your website.
