The last post referred to Greg Sandow’s list of changes in classical music in the last decade. I took that opportunity to look at a somewhat abstract concept of culture change: That is exactly why we need to get rid of the product-driven culture of superiority, elitism and dismissal. The Internet culture, and particularly social media, is the antithesis of those forces. Shift away from risk avoidance and centralized decision making and move toward innovation, competitive thinking, customer service, and competitive pricing. Over the past months, I’ve seen some projects in the beginning stages that will set the stage...
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Greg Sandow recently composed a list of the top ten changes in classical music in the past decade. It’s an interesting, albeit incomplete, list with plenty of agreeable and perhaps some disagreeable items. What stuck out for me was item number three: a new attitude toward classical music: Mainstream classical music institutions have tried many innovations — new, informal ways of giving concerts, musicians talking to the audience, large videoscreens, and much, much more. Some of these innovations have been smart, some have been silly, and many of them haven’t been well thought out. Rarely have mainstream classical institutions...
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None of the orchestras indicated they have implemented or established metrics for measuring social media activities. However, the majority of the orchestras (73%) recognized the need to measure social media activities and the remaining 27% were currently planning metrics for measuring social media. This is one of the findings I found most interesting. In addition, the majority do find the need to measure and two-thirds of the managers rate importance of measuring social media at least a four (out of five). This, I believe, truly indicates that orchestras are at the brink of a strategic use of social media....
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The survey demonstrates a high participation rate among orchestras in the different social media tools. All orchestras in the survey are on Facebook and 80% of the orchestras have a Twitter account. But this just shows that orchestras have set up a presence, not what they are doing with the presence. That’s where the engagement question can answer some questions. Eighty percent of the orchestras respond to questions and comments on social networking sites. A little more than half (53%) of the orchestras adapt press and marketing materials for social media and 40% actively pitch bloggers, and 20% maintain...
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This is the first post in a series to provide a more in-depth look at the orchestras and social media survey findings. I made the full report available yesterday, to give people the opportunity to take a complete look at the findings in hopes of a better discussion. Others have chimed in already: Drew McManus: Adaptistration Christian Henner-Fehr: Das Kulturmanagement Blog Guest post on Beth’s Blog First, I would like to take the opportunity again to express the informative nature of the report, rather than an authoritative nature. The sample is small and must consequently allow for a large...
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Nonprofit blogger Beth Kanter recently highlighted two new research studies about nonprofits and the adoption of social media released by Weber Shandwick and Philanthropy Action. These studies yielded some interesting results. The Weber Shandwick study of 200 nonprofit executives revealed that an overwhelming majority (85%) will use more social media in the next two years. There is extensive experimentation with social media in the nonprofit sector, but only half (51%) are active users. Most nonprofits (52%) do not currently have the infrastructure, staff and expertise necessary to take full advantage of social media’s potential, and ultimately, for most nonprofit...
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Now that you know a little bit about how ads show up and the typical account structure, let’s look at three important, interdependent aspects of paid search: key words, creative and landing pages. First, you have to build a key word list for each of the ad groups. The categories make it easier to think about what to use, but do the research. Know your industry and competitors (both in the real as well as the search world), understand your goal, and use your patron’s language. Here are some tips for key words: Use common misspellings and plurals Exclude...
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After a couple more classes and a Thanksgiving break, I’m back with renewed energy to write more about search engine marketing and orchestras. This time, I’m covering paid search. As I wrote before, if natural search is public relations, then paid search is advertising. Paid search is instantaneous, direct and controllable, extremely measurable, and when done right, very cost effective. To keep things simple, I will only be looking at Google, as it represents by far the biggest share of the pie, but other search engines will work in roughly the same manner. I will go into the basics...
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The third class went a little deeper into natural search. I think it’s important to first reiterate some important matters. Search engine optimization (SEO) is not an overnight process; it might take 6 months for your efforts to show any results. The goal of SEO is to be the Web page with the most relevant content, all else follows. There’s a difference between paid and natural search and I like to compare it with the difference between advertising and public relations. In very broad and general terms: advertising is paid, you control the message, but it is not as...
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This week, I started my second class in the Integrated Marketing certificate program at the University of Chicago’s Graham School. This one’s on search engine marketing, taught by David Gould of Resolution Media. Last night’s class delved a little into natural search and search engine optimization and there were some interesting points that I wanted to share while trying to put them into a cultural environment. Where needed, I’ll mostly take the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as an example, for old time’s sake. Search is someone telling you what they’re looking for. And for a marketer, that’s pretty powerful stuff....
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I always stress measuring impact and results in social media planning. That’s why I was curious to see what exactly happened this past week. Last Friday, I posted the first list of people and organizations in classical music on Twitter, followed by a Twitter update. I know lists tend to be popular, but this one really took off. First, the size of the list. The quick, down-and-dirty list I posted contained 138 people and organizations. I gave the option of adding and updating your information, which resulted in nearly 70 responses for people and 37 responses for organizations. Bit.ly...
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