smArts & Culture | your arts marketing edge

Start Something New This Week

It’s Mother’s Day.

I’m not a mom myself. All I have to care for is a sweet elderly dog named Edie.

Needless to say, she didn’t take me out for brunch today. She never does.

In honor of Mother’s Day though, I thought, maybe it would be cool to encourage people to bring something into the world, arts marketing-wise.

Maybe, if there’s something you’ve been thinking about doing to help your organization connect with the people who love you the most, this week might be the time to start.

• Maybe it’s something new, like twitter, that you just haven’t taken the time to figure out (and when you do, you’ll see how little time it actually takes).

• Maybe it’s rewriting the copy on your home page to be less about how fabulous your organization is (and no doubt it is fabulous) and more about how incredible your patron feels when she’s involved.

• Maybe it’s brainstorming how to engage your people in ways that are far more participatory and satisfying than the usual pre-concert lecture.

• Or, maybe it’s getting your blog off of your to-do list and onto the computer screens (and mobile phones) of all your biggest fans.

(If an organizational blog has been on your to-do list for the last year and a half, you might think about taking my Intro to Arts Blogging class as a first step. I won’t get into the details; you can find out more about it here. The main thing is, from Mother’s Day until the end of this week, you can get it for half price. Or not, if this isn’t your thing. Just saying.)

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What have I been putting off that I’d like to bring into the world this week?

Well, I’d like to work more with audio (see above-mentioned class). I’ve never been a podcaster, and I can’t stand the sound of my own voice. But some people don’t have time to read lengthy articles.

You can listen to an mp3, on the other hand, on your way to work, while you’re doing the dishes, or discreetly in staff meetings. I recommend the last option.

It takes me out of my comfort zone, but being comfortable is not important. What’s important is that arts people might need another way to expand their marketing skills, and offering audio articles and classes might fill that need.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

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What are you going to start this week?

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Can Opera Go Viral?

Yesterday was all about twitter, and we continue on that topic today with Miss Mussel.

Who is Miss Mussel, you ask?

AKA The Omniscient Mussel, she is classical music critic and photographer Marcia Adair, whom I found via Greg Sandow’s twitter stream.

Miss Mussel is such a pleasure to read that I would recommend you check her out even if she wasn’t running a clever twitter contest. But she is.

It’s called #Operaplot.

If you don’t use twitter and you don’t recognize it, that’s a hashtag. Hashtags are terms or acronyms preceeded by the pound sign or hash symbol, and used to track topics on twitter. A tag, preceded by a hash sign. You can search hashtags on Twitter Search for example, on the topics that interest you, and subscribe to the resulting feed.

Back to #Operaplot.

#Operaplot is a contest. You must summarize an opera plot in 140 characters or less. That’s all you have to work with when you use twitter. The competition started on Monday, and you have til Sunday, May 3, 2009 at midnight Eastern Time to tweet your entry, which must include the hashtag as part of the tweet.

There’s a celebrity judge! Soprano Danielle De Niese, who was recently so fantastic in the Met’s production of Orfeo ed Eurodice.

There’s a growing list of fabulous prizes! These include a weekend package featuring tickets to Turandot and the Opera Ball from Washington National Opera; and tickets offered by Palm Beach Opera, Wolf Trap, Glimmerglass, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, LA Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Vancouver Opera, Glyndebourne, ENO, Opera Australia, and more. Wow.

Some sample entries:

@dumbledad: #operaplot Women eh! You recon? You're on. 'Told ya.

@asthiggins: Building deal gone sour - nymphs in an uproar - mutterings from below! #operaplot

@2ndsandpiper: #operaplot Headline: Debutante becomes nun, then martyr.

@vkline: #Operaplot Artist executed for treason during failed rescue attempt. Thespian lover stabs judge and later jumps from building.

@NLebrecht: #operaplot: Seedy Don has three girls on the go, more in the backlist. He can't hack it any more. The furniture speaks and he's toast.

(Not sure if that last one is the Real Norman Lebrecht.)

This is not the first time Miss Mussel has run #Operaplot, so take a look at past entries for inspiration, if you prefer.

I love this idea.

It’s fun. It’s highly targeted. It’s for people who really love opera and have a sense of humor about it, rather than for the masses. It’s successfully viral, and how often can you say that? Major opera companies have taken note and become partners, which adds to the viral effect by making it even more desirable for contestants to enter.

If an arts organization had to get this contest off the ground, how long would it have taken?

Brava, Miss Mussel! Can't wait to see what you do next.

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More:

• How Artists Use Twitter

• Follow smArts & Culture on twitter

• When Art is Viral

• Engage Your Artists with Social Media

• What's Holding Back Your Arts Blog?

• Artist An Xiao on Twitter as Medium Part 1 and Part 2

• Live-Tweeting Theater

• Follow Your Arts Tweeps

• Twitter for Arts and Culture

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What’s Holding Back Your Arts Blog?

I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging lately.

True, it’s not the most cutting-edge social media tool anymore, or even the hottest – twitter and Facebook probably fit that bill right now.

But it’s very possible that your arts organization still hasn’t taken advantage of blogging as a part of your arts marketing strategy -- as a tool to connect with the people that are craziest about what you do.

Is that even the tiniest bit accurate?

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I took part in a panel on nonprofit blogging for Philly Net Tuesday back in January. I was surprised to see that we had the highest turnout thus far for that meeting – the place was packed. People were standing in a balcony overlooking the main room. And over and over we heard the same stories from the nonprofit staffers in the audience:

“Well, we have a blog, but we’re not really doing anything with it …”

“We really want to start a blog, but we have no idea where to start …”

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You probably already know that a blog could be helpful in reaching your patrons – you don’t need to be sold on that idea. Your executive director probably doesn’t need to be sold on that idea, at this point.

Or, maybe you’ve already gone to the trouble of launching a blog, but now what?

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I recently held a free question-and-answer session on blogging for my newsletter subscribers (newsletter subscribers get these kind of perks, by the way). Before the session, I checked out the organizations represented by the people who signed up. And I was a little taken aback to find that none of their organizations seemed to have a blog up and running yet (that I could tell).

In the works? Yes.

But up? No.

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So here’s what I've done.

I’ve put together a class that will ease you into the process of launching (or resuscitating!) your arts blog.

It's called:

Intro to Arts Blogging

(Clever, huh?)

What you’ll learn:

• You’ll learn what goes into the planning, and yes, a blog starts with planning, not with building a site! When you need a marketing campaign for an exhibition or performance, you don’t just wing it, do you? Same thing here. You’ll learn how decisions made early in the process can ensure your blog’s success.

• You’ll get juicy tips on attracting readers. The whole build-it-and-they-will-come thing just doesn’t work anymore. You’ll hear about proven methods to find visitors who care about the fantastic things you do.

• You’ll hear success stories – arts organizations that have integrated blogging into their marketing mix in a way that helps them reach their real fans.

• You’ll hear about common barriers and pitfalls, and how to overcome them. Sometimes it’s about countering internal organizational fears and assumptions. Sometimes it’s about thinking ahead. Sometimes it’s about fixing what’s broken. You’ll learn about solutions that get you past these obstacles.

What you’ll get:

• One hour live teleclass* on Intro to Arts Blogging

• Your blogging questions answered live during the Q&A

• Bonus: An mp3 recording of the class to listen to any time, on your computer or mp3 player

When:

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

2 - 3 PM Eastern Time (11 AM – 12 noon Pacific Time)

Don’t worry if you’re running late – you can join the call at any time without disrupting the class – no one will know.

Is your office noisy? Class participants will be muted until they’re ready to ask questions, so no one will hear the rehearsal going on in the background where you work.

Are you worried you'll disturb your office mates? You don't have to say a word in the class unless you want to -- you're welcome to just listen.

If your schedule’s too packed for the live class, no worries. Sign up anyway for the recording, and listen at your leisure, on your commute, or at the gym. And you’ll always have the recording for reference.

*What’s a teleclass? It’s like a conference call. I’ll be teaching the class live, on the phone, to a group of callers like you. After you sign up for the class, I’ll send you a phone number and an access code. At the time the call is scheduled, you’ll call the number and follow the recorded directions to enter the access code. That’s it!

Cost: $42

For a stress-free entry into the world of blogging, your burning blogging questions answered, plus the recording to listen to any time. That's about a third of what it costs to work with me one-on-one. This is a deal.

(If you're viewing this post in a reader like Google Reader or Bloglines, or reading it via email, please click here to register for the class.)

And if you take the class and feel like it wasn't all that, I'll refund your money right away. Promise.

Please note: registration closes on Monday, May 4, 2009 at midnight Eastern Time.

Your Cultural Clipping Service

New Music and Really New Audiences

Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era

Nonprofit Career Advice

Artists: Free PDF Can Inspire

Yay! Friday!

Take a break, have some coffee and enjoy these clippings from the past week:

• On Drew McManus’s Adaptistration, Nashville Symphony President and CEO, Alan Valentine relates a fantastic story about programming new music that starts out with an enthusiastic audience of construction workers.

• I’m not really a McSweeney’s reader, but this is kind of hilarious, and a little too close to reality. Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era (via @kanter)

• Insightful conversation at The Chronicle of Philanthropy about career-building in the nonprofit sector, for both recent grads and those already in the field. In a recession, this kind of discussion is even more vital. Consultant and author Shelly Cryer provides the expertise.

• I know that a lot of the people who follow me on twitter are artists (thanks, guys!). I’m not sure about my blog readers, because I haven’t done a survey in a long, long time. If you are an artist, and you want to make money from your work, and you’re not afraid of the internet, read Chris Guillebeau’s free PDF 279 Days to Overnight Success. Practical advice, very inspiring, and totally not cheesy. (via Seth Godin)

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More:

• Last week's Cultural Clipping Service

• How to Get an Arts Marketing Edge

• Has the YouTube Symphony Helped?

• Can Recession be Inspiration?

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Photo: svanes. Some rights reserved.

How to get an arts marketing edge

I don’t want to be a downer, but the truth is that there’s a lot to be worried about if you’re working for an arts nonprofit these days. Are the strategies we used only last year still relevant? Will our patrons see what we do as essential, or as a luxury meant only for the best of times?

We all want an edge. We all want to know that we’re doing the best job possible to keep our organization in the hearts of the people we serve.

Well.

If you want develop your arts marketing skills to their fullest, then consider adding my newsletter to your bag of tricks.

• You’ll get tips and advice written exclusively for my newsletter readers.

• You’ll get a free article just for signing up, called “7 Ways to Recession-Proof Arts Marketing Copy.”

• And, in the current issue, you’ll get a big discount on something cool I’ll be announcing here next week. My newsletter readers have already heard.

But if you sign up now, you’ll receive a link to the current issue and you can find out what I’m talking about, and get the discount, too.

Maybe it’s not for you. Maybe you want more details. Or maybe you want to cut to the chase and sign up now. Whatever works for you.

P.S. If you're reading this in a feed reader, like Bloglines or Google Reader, or via email, click through here to sign up.

Has the YouTube Symphony Helped?

I’ve been procrastinating writing about the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.

If I were smart, I would have had something ready to throw up right after the Carnegie Hall concert and gotten some great traffic for my blog.

It’s just so complicated, and I wasn’t there. All I have to go on are reviews and concert video. My primary interest in the project is the hype, and the double-edged-sword-ness of it all.

Some of the good:

The project got tons of attention for classical music. How could it not? In addition to the novel idea, and the muscle of Google, and the star power of artists like Michael Tilson Thomas and Tan Dun, musicians were chosen from about 30 countries around the world, ensuring global media coverage.

It may be a cliché, but it’s still a story that resonates with us: musicians who dreamed of playing at Carnegie Hall were chosen from 3,000 audition videos. How could we not be thrilled for them?

The process got the public involved in classical music. People voted for their favorites in a group winnowed down by a panel of esteemed professionals. Every-day citizens had a voice in creating this orchestra.

Some of the bad:

Both positive and negative reviews of the Carnegie Hall concert point out that two days’ rehearsal with completely new colleagues was inadequate, and it showed. It seems to me that, after all the hype, the concert organizers could have done more to ensure that the concert was not just warm and fuzzy but critically spectacular.

I think there are two major audience segments that are important here: people who are casual fans of classical music; and people for whom the music is a big and serious part of their lives – concert-goers and professionals in the field. If the YouTube Symphony is to be more than a feel-good publicity stunt, and either move forward or inspire similar efforts, it needs to please both groups. You can’t have people in the field grumbling about it, even with good reason.

People who are casual fans of classical music may not be bothered by the glitzy, American-Idol tone of the whole affair. They may have been happy to vote for the finalists, and cheer for the winners. The visual effects used in the concert may not have been distracting for them. That’s fine.

But to be embraced by classical music professionals, the project organizers needed to produce a stellar performance, and by accounts that I read, it wasn’t. Furthermore, it needs to be explicit that the talent and experience of major orchestra musicians is not devalued by a project such as this.

Besides publicity for Google, I’m not sure what the goals of the project really are, and have not been able to find them posted – maybe someone can point me there. But if a goal is to get the public excited about classical music in a longer-term way, they need to do more. Just think of how long American Idol and Dancing with the Stars goes on – fans are involved for weeks and weeks, and their popularity means the shows keep coming back. I don’t see why something like this couldn’t translate to network TV in the U.S. – the BBC has done it with Maestro and Classical Star.

Other ideas? I want to think more about this.

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More:

• Arts Newbie Bloggers Part 1 and Part 2

• Orchestra Market Research

• Your Arts Blog Readers: Why Less is More

• Why Now is a Good Time for Arts Marketing

• Met Broadcast Backlash

• Rethink the Rules for a New Audience

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Your Cultural Clipping Service

Do symphony orchestras need a new business model?

Facebook as Google

What Makes Good Online Content

The Benefit of the Benefit

Your favorite volunteer brought muffins in to the office! Time to take a little break and go over the doings of the past week:

• Do major symphony orchestras need a new business model? The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Peter Dobrin thinks so. Drew McManus weighs in. I’m reminded of Allison Fine’s post on the unthinkable: we can no longer assume that a large endowment keeps our arts organizations financially secure.

• Facebook as Google. Andrew Taylor describes a session with Nina Simon of Museum 2.0 at a recent Wallace Foundation conference: “During the session, she underscored a rather striking point: For most of the middle to senior managers among us, Google is the common start page to our engagement with the web; for younger users, the start page is Facebook.”

• Business blogger Chris Brogan on Elements of Good Online Content. A short but sweet list checklist we can all use to make the most of what we put out there.

• The Benefit of the Benefit. Paul Williams on the Marketing Profs, reminds us what “benefit” (as in Marketing 101: don’t sell features, sell benefits) really means: Taking automobile tire  design as an example, Paul describes the benefit of the benefit: “I know my family is safe when we're taking our roadtrip family vacation to Florida.” Speaks volumes more than facts and statistics.

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More:

• Last Week's Cultural Clipping Service

• It's Not About You

• Is Your Arts Org Boring?

• 7 Ways to Recession-Proof Arts Marketing Copy
  

• Why Now is a Good Time for Arts Marketing

• Can You Reach Your Core Arts Patrons on Facebook?

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Photo: shok. Some rights reserved.

Social Media: How I Deal

I use social media. You might have noticed.

Now, I can’t hold myself up as a shining example of how to do it perfectly. Sometimes I spend way too much time in social media environments. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed that I find myself ignoring writers that I actually really love.

But I thought you might find it interesting to see how I process social media. I’ll start with blog reading.

BLOG READING
Quite a while ago, I saw a video (scroll down) showing the ubiquitous Robert Scoble doing his blog reading for the day, more than 600 feeds.

It’s actually a really boring video, but you only need to view a little bit to see what he’s doing, and he explains it as he goes along: he’s using Google Reader's key commands to quickly scroll through what seems like an endless stream of excerpts from the more than 600 blogs that interest him (!). He waits til he sees something that grabs him, whether it’s because it’s some professional news, a piece written by a colleague, or just something really cool. (To him. Cool to him. Remember, he’s a professional nerd).

This video was instrumental in changing how I felt about social media consumption. The idea that you don’t need to read everything that shows up in your reader may seem obvious to you, but I’m the kind of person who worries about missing stuff I should know. When I was doing PR for AVA, it seemed as if no matter how hard I worked to stay on top of everything that had anything to do with the institution and opera, someone was always pointing out some important story I missed. The reality is that there’s so much news, information, and opinion out on the internets that it’s impossible to keep up. There’s no use in trying to be so thorough.

So what I do now is similar to what Scoble demonstrates. I use Google Reader to subscribe to a little more than 100 feeds (they're not all blogs -- some of them are saved searches), and I use key commands to quickly scroll through til I find something compelling, optimally once a day, but not always. I don't read posts that are more than a couple of days old, usually, and Google Reader shows the most recent first. Sometimes the sense that I need to read everything creeps in and I start procrastinating because it seems like such a huge undertaking. But soon, when I see that way too many posts have accumulated, I just mark all as read and start over.

I’ve just added another criterion.

I just took a small business teleclass on productivity with Charlie Gilkey and Naomi Dunford (sometimes NSFW, potty-mouth-wise), and one of the things they tried to get across to us was to think about whether blog reading does anything to move your business forward. So that’s what I try to keep in mind when I’m scrolling through Google Reader.

You can think of it the same way, if you have blog overwhelm. Is the way you’re reading them contributing to being a better arts marketer, or arts fundraiser, or whatever fantastic thing you do for your organization? Does it move you toward your goals? 

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More:

• Your Arts Blog Readers: Why Less is More

• Does Your Arts Blog Miss You?

• 7 Ways to Recession-Proof Arts Marketing Copy
  

• Why Now is a Good Time for Arts Marketing

• What Are Social Media Metrics for the Arts?

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Art Video Nicely Done

I kind of don’t know what to say about ArtBabble, it's so nicely done.

Created by the always-innovative Indianapolis Museum of Art, ArtBabble is a site for viewing high quality (as opposed to DIY-- not that there’s anything wrong with that!) video about art, artists, design, and designers, geared to anyone who’s interested, not just Art People.

So far, ArtBabble features its IMA's own videos, plus those contributed by Art21, LACMA, MoMA, SFMOMA, the Louvre, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the New York Public Library. With a very easy interface, ArtBabble boasts channels for many topics including Abstract, Origami, Fonts, Chinese Art, and Textiles, and I assume they’ll add even more as they add more videos. You can also find videos categorized by artist, by institution, and grouped into series curated by museum staff.

It’s wonderful to have video resources from multiple arts institutions all in one place. I don’t have to wonder, hmmm, where would I find art videos that interest me? SFMOMA’s site? The Smithsonian? I can get a good start at ArtBabble.

ArtBabble is also a social networking site that allows you to save and share favorite videos via email and Facebook. You can add notes at particular points in a video, and add comments of your own.

When you select a video, you’ll also be presented with “Notes” – links that help you go deeper into the subject, internally for more ArtBabble videos, and externally, at Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon (for related reading), and other sites. It’s nice to see that ArtBabble is actually looking out for your needs, rather than trying to keep you chained to their site.

When you visit the site for the first time, there's a short, sweet introductory video that tells you what to expect.

ArtBabble doesn’t allow you to upload your own video content, but it’s very clear about the purpose of the site – to showcase art video and help you spread the word. Coming on the heels of the MoMA site redesign, which talks all about community, but is mostly not, ArtBabble’s take on social media is refreshing.

Go see for yourself.

If you're part of a museum or other organization, you can get in touch ArtBabble about becoming a partner at contact@artbabble.org.

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More:

• Socially Networked Membership

• MoMA's New Site: What Works and What Doesn't

• What Arts Marketers Can Learn From Skittles

• What Are Social Media Metrics for the Arts?

• It's Not About You

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Screenshot shows Lawrence Lessig, Steven Johnson, and Shepard Fairey, in a video from the New York Public Libary on ArtBabble.

Your Cultural Clipping Service

Search the Social Web

Graphic Design for Regular People

Raising Major Gifts with Social Media

Facebook at 5

 Ahhh, Friday.

Maybe you have to work a performance or opening tonight? I hear you.

All the more reason to grab a nice cup of coffee now and ease into your day. Your Cultural Clipping Service has gathered up some useful gems from the past week that you might have missed.

• Search the Social Web - Ultimate Tool Kit – Wow. Robin Broitman of Interactive Insights Group puts together a fantastic list of tools, some that search across micro-blogging platforms, and some that are more specific. (via @maddiegrant)

• Become a Really Good Graphic Designer. A talented designer can make all the difference. But if your budget is stretched to the limit, there’s still hope. Seth Godin offers up a page to help regular people like us be better DIY designers.

• Social Media for Social Causes. Qui Diaz, Beth Kanter, and Geoff Livingston share the results of their survey of social media power uses. The data suggests that social media isn’t just for raising large numbers of small donations – the potential to raise major dollars is there, too. (via @juropel)

• Facebook at 5. This piece by Brad Stone in the New York Times gives an overview of Facebook’s growth -- including its recent 8-month doubling in size! -- and looks at the challenges the social network faces now that the community it built feels empowered. One thing that keeps coming up for me, and the article touches on this, is: how realistic is Facebook’s mission to be relevant to all people, when people naturally want to form exclusionary groups? – teens and tweens don’t want to hang out with their parents’ old high school buddies. Facebook growth for younger people is nothing compared to the increase in boomer members. Will people start creating their own enclaves within Facebook, or will they abandon it for more niche networking sites?

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More:

• Can You Reach Your Core Arts Patrons on Facebook?

• What Are Social Media Metrics for the Arts?

• 7 Ways to Recession-Proof Arts Marketing Copy
  

• Why Now is a Good Time for Arts Marketing

• Socially Networked Membership

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Photo: Omar_MK. Some rights reserved.