Learning the art of Social-‘media’-ising

AUSPICIOUS ARTS INCUBATOR: Canadian based arts publicist, blogger and author Rebecca Coleman.  

How many friends have you found on facebook? Updated your blog lately? Tweeting? More than likely you think you should, but there’s a daunting learning curve. How do you do it? What’s the proper etiquette? What is this new fandangled thing, ‘social media’!

‘Social media allows you to specifically target people who are actually interested in hearing what you have to say,’ enthuses Rebecca Coleman, Canadian based arts publicist, blogger and author of ‘Getting Started with Social Media For Artists and Arts Organizations’. ‘

It also allows you to reach that target market ‘wherever they want to be’ whether that’s twitter or facebook or a blog. ‘And then the third thing that’s really awesome about social media is that it allows you to create ‘ambassadors’ for the work that you do.’ If one of your fans retweets your message, or publishes it on their facebook profile then it can quickly reach a lot of people in a very short amount of time.’

‘The old methods of marketing where we were shouting at people and saying, ‘Hey, buy tickets to come and see my play’, you know, that kind of stuff doesn’t work anymore.’

Coleman works specifically with artists, showing them how to create effective marketing plans for their arts businesses using social media and is in Australia for the next ten days as a guest of Auspicious Arts Incubator for a series of workshops.

‘It’s not just, showing people how to use facebook, she says, although for some people learning the technology and the jargon is a big part of what they want to know. For a lot of people that’s confounding, if not overwhelming, she agrees. It’s about being deliberate, planned and purposeful in the way you use social media.

An effective social media marketing plan uses time effectively, keeps the message clear and prevents running around posting stuff in a ‘higgledy piggledy’ way.

What Coleman is often saying to people is, it’ll cost you nothing in terms of money but what social media does cost you, is time. ‘There’s a commitment of time involved with it, where you have to really invest three to six months in your plan to see some results.’ You’ll always here of those ‘love at first site’ examples but they’re the rarity, more often developing a relationship takes time.

‘Web 2.0 is all about community and it’s all about creating relationships,’ Coleman says. In this new technology, communication flows not in one direction but through a network of relationships. Social media allows an audience to respond to you and to each other. Your audiences can comment, write back to you, and give you instant feedback.

Social media is the antithesis of that old ‘spray and pray’ shouting style of marketing, it’s a conversation. Obviously, says Coleman, we want to sell our CDs, paintings, tickets to our shows or whatever, but, ‘I’m turned off as much as the next guy if, say, I follow someone new on Twitter and they send me a DM (Direct Message) that says, “Visit my website and buy this”. I unfollow them immediately. People who try to really sell outright are often shunned on Twitter, she says.

In Coleman’s work as a publicist she interleaves traditional and new media. ‘So say for example one of my companies has a great review in the daily newspaper. I would take that link and twitter it and say ‘Hey, guess what, so and so got a really great review in the newspaper’. It’s an indirect thing, and quite casual. You’re just trying to peak people’s attention.

You also have to draw distinctions between the different forms of social media. There will be considerable overlap of your messages as they go out in e-newsletters, on your website, your blog, your twitters and on your facebook page but they will each also require their own tone and reach slightly different audiences. You have to be very specific, about the instrument that you use, how they interlink and what information is going to go in which places.

One of the toughest things about social media is to prove the return on investment because it’s so new. It’s nearly impossible to say, at least at this stage, ‘if you do this then you’ll experience X percentage increase in ticket sales’. But with a plan in place you can seed interest and mobilise an audience.

For instance, Coleman says, through developing a social media marketing plan recently with an independent feature film from the inception of the project right through to its premiere at the Kamloops Film Festival, a sufficient following had been developed through the website, blog, youtube, tweet and facebook network to sell out it first screening and require a second.

‘It’s not made a million dollars, but it’s a real life example of when you have the system in place and its all good, and ready to go, in a very short about of time you can mobiles it and really kick it into action.’

And that’s something very few people trying to make a living in the arts can ignore.

Auspicious Arts Incubator
Website: www.auspiciousincubator

Seminars & training workshops run by Auspicious executive director, John Paul Fischbach, with international social marketing expert Rebecca Coleman on effective use of social marketing platforms for creative arts businesses.

Melbourne
Thursday 26th August, 2010
9am - 4pm
South Melbourne Town Hall theatrette
(Cnr Bank & Fishley Streets, South Melbourne)
To book contact: www.trybooking.com/622

Gold Coast
Monday 30th August, 2010
10am-5pm
The Arts Centre
(contact www.theartscentregc.com.au

Adelaide
Tuesday 31st August
10am – 5pm
Nexus Cabaret Adelaide

Cost is $90

* Some discounts available.

For more information on Rebecca Coleman go to her website www.rebeccacoleman.ca or read her blog The Art of the Business.

Rebecca Coleman’s book ‘Guide to Getting Started with Social Media For Artists and Arts Organizations’ is available as a downloadable pdf – click here for more inforamtion.