If only all people were so considerate!

If only everyone was this sweet! I hate feeling like a jack when I accidentally cut someone off in traffic because they were in my blind spot, or not being able to say thank you to the person who slowed down to let you into their lane. The Sorry.Thanks. Road Rage Reduction Project is just amazing! I'm sad I didn't think of it!

Social Media Marketing...Are we doing it right?

We have been talking a lot about how to use social media to market our organizations but are we doing it right? How should we measure the success of our internet marketing in dollars? clicks? fans? ticket sales? Chad M. Bauman is the Director of Communications at Arena Stage who has a fantastic blog about arts marketing issues in the United States. In his blog post "Measuring the Impact of Social Media, he poses that we measure the success of our endeavors in the "engagement levels of our online community" rather than ticket sales.

I had never really thought about social media marketing like this before, but now it totally makes sense! I think that effective social media marketing would create a place where people can go to find out what the organization is about and what it is that they do for the community who views it. Mr. Bauman refers to another blog where the writer relates using social media as only a means to sell tickets to virtual junk mail.

People are all about try it before you buy it, especially with new or unique things. If a theater company was trying to market a new play written by an unknown playwright, they might want to "sell" it by having videos of rehearsals on their page along with a biography on the playwright or director and maybe even a discussion board where people could ask the cast and director questions about the play.

What do you think? Would you rather go to a social media site for an artist that is set up solely for selling their art or would you prefer a site where you get to know the artist as a person before ever being asked to make a purchase?

Re-Direction

I created this blog earlier this year in an effort to keep a diary of my life... didn't really happen. So now I am repurposing this blog for my Arts Management Seminar on Social Media.

I find that more and more I rely on social media for news updates about things that matter most to me. I am a fan of the "NO H8" Campaign on Facebook as well as the "BP Oil News" site.

I have been following the BP story all summer and have been inspired to create art out of the events (thats right plural there was more than one) that occured in the gulf. My hope is to create something beautiful out of this disaster to remind us of what has happened. I feel that too many people have forgotten about the incident and that we all need to be reminded how fragile that ecosystem really is. Not to mention the thousands of people who lost their lively hood like the oyster fishermen in this article fromt the Sun Herald.

http://www.sunherald.com/2010/09/01/2446838/dmr-gulf-sample-shows-abundance.html