Speaking at the stART.09 Conference

September 8, 2009 By

As I mentioned in my last blog post, good things are brewing. The first one I can tell you about is my speaking engagement at the stART.09 Conference in Duisburg, Germany on September 25.

A while ago, I got in touch with Christian Henner-Fehr of the Kultur Management blog, as I detailed in a blog post here. This later turned into an invitation to speak at the conference. I would have loved to be able to be there in person and listen in on some of the presentations as well, but fortunately technology at least allows me to do my presentation remotely in Chicago.

I will be covering much of what I wrote in my e-book on orchestras and new media, attempting to explain the following concepts in the 45 minutes allotted to me:

  • The role of the changing media environment in your communication strategy;
  • How social media strategically fits in your communication efforts and why it is important to fit it in (and how to convince your boss);
  • Why social media is not a business model, but rather a channel to aid your organization in its core mission, and why arts organizations are uniquely primed to be great in social media; and
  • How to measure the results of engaging your audience through social media and how to craft your social media strategic plan.

Those are lofty goals and I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I can at least get the thinking going. (And by the way, those were also the key bullets in my chapter proposal for the 20under40 challenge.)

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to tune in to my presentation unless you happen to be near Duisburg, Germany (then go buy your tickets). I will be using Adobe ConnectNow. And rest assured, I will upload my presentation to SlideShare shortly after September 25.

Lastly, while I am on the topic of orchestras and new media, I was recently blessed with two great reviews of my e-book. L. Corwin Christie reviewed it for the Technology In The Arts blogs of The Center for Arts Management and Technology at Carnegie Mellon. Find the post here. Zack Hayhurst reviewed the e-book in two parts on his blog Artistic Discourse. Find the posts here and here.

It gives me much satisfaction that people use and benefit from the energy I put in the project. I am currently hard at work on another closely related project, but that will take a fresh new batch of energy, writing and hard work.

Filed Under: Across the board Tagged With: ,

Social media, money and the mission statement

June 19, 2009 By

During last week’s League of American Orchestras conference, I was following the session on social networking on Twitter. Mark Pemberton, who tweets @aborchestras, asked where the “business” is in social media. In a blog post on the League’s conference blog, he wrote:

I found today’s Social Networking session interesting up to a point. But Russell Jones was spot on in his cry of “what about the dollars?” The speakers kept talking about the “new business model.” But Facebook and Twitter have no business model! They have no means of generating income.

Here is an excerpt of what I commented on his post:

Social networking is not “a business model.” Social networking is a tactic or tool in your strategy. Most managers will want to see dollars coming in from social networking in the short term. But that is exactly the wrong approach. Social media is not a short term solution. To think so is short-sighted.

Going into social media with the objective to sell tickets is, in my opinion, wrong as well.

There is a lot of pressure in marketing and public relations departments of orchestras to sell tickets. Fewer subscriptions bought and more single tickets to sell means more and harder selling. It’s not surprising that a lot of managers look at social media as an addition to their marketing and sales efforts.

In these departments, it might almost seem that selling tickets is the organization’s mission statement. I was glad to see another post on the League’s conference blog. Alan Jordan posted the following:

A constituency session comment re-iterated a line shared with me a long time ago from a concert hall manager in Concord, NH who passed away from cancer a few years back: the official moniker for 501(c)3s is not “non-profit,” but “not for profit.” For profit firms are obligated to their shareholders to produce results. We are obligated to the public to produce results, and those results are not necessarily—and most beneficially—financial ones.

In my comment to Mark Pemberton, I continued:

Although nonprofits need to make money to operate, they are not here for profits. Social networking/media can help you in your core mission: bringing art and music to people. It can extend the life of a performance and engage and build communities. And that’s a goal or objective too.

Beth Kanter writes about return on investment on the NTEN blog and hits the nail on its head:

If you approach ROI as a financial analysis only, you’re missing the point. An ROI process focuses on identifying and unpacking the benefits of efficiency and effectiveness and how these support your organization’s mission.

Well, what is your organization’s mission exactly? Let’s look at some of the mission statements from orchestras around the country:

New York
To maintain and foster an interest in the enjoyment of music and musical affairs, and to inculcate in its members in the community of New York city and the nation at large, an interest in symphony music and in order to foster such interest and the appreciation of music, among other things to cause the performance of symphonic and other musical performances in the concert and other halls, over the radio, television, by phonographic recordings, and in any other manner now known or hereafter to be.

Chicago
The central mission of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is to present classical music through the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to Chicago, national and international audiences.

London
The LSO’s mission is to give the finest performances of music and make them available to the greatest number of people.

These statements speak of bringing art to communities and audiences the world over. While ticket sales and revenue are important for the financial stability of the organization, the statements do not mention financials.

Clearly, the New York Philharmonic’s statement was written decades ago—yet still pertinent—and I particularly like “in any other manner now known or hereafter to be.” Let’s add the Internet to the list.

Alexandra Samuel has an interesting article at the Harvard Business blog on why nonprofits are so good at social media. Although the article should have been more appropriately named why nonprofits are uniquely primed to be good at social media—because not many are so good—she does bring up a couple of excellent points. Alexandra writes that “in the nonprofit sector, relationships have always been the key currency.” How can social media build upon those relationships? She outlines five points, three of which I thought particularly noteworthy:

Engage your audience by speaking to their core concerns: What do your customers care about most, and how can you speak to those concerns?

Offer a mix of tangible and social benefits: What tangible benefits can you offer that will encourage their participation?

Innovate within the bounds of your core mission: What value or services do you offer that could be delivered through a social network or online community?

In the SWOT analysis found in my Orchestras and New Media e-book, I look at some of the market opportunities best suited to company strengths and capabilities: maintain strong relationships with patrons; extend the life of a performance; and open the door to other geographic and demographic markets. (Read the e-book for particular examples.)

Sure, it is okay to think about monetizing these market opportunities to strengthen your financial base, but more importantly, you should start thinking about how they can help your organization’s core mission of providing classical music to audiences in your community and around the world.

That’s your first order of business. Heck, that’s why you’re in business.

Filed Under: Culture, Social Media Tagged With: ,

A German orchestra and social media: Philharmonie 2.0

May 16, 2009 By

When I wrote the blog series and e-book on Orchestras and New Media, I looked almost exclusively to the English-speaking world. But there are some really interesting things happening in the rest of the world. On Twitter, for example, I’m following some classical music organizations from the Netherlands, including @radio4nl and @muziekgebouw.

And a short while ago, I found Christian Henner-Fehr (@kulturmanager), or rather, he found me. Christian has an interesting blog named Kultur Management and he told me about the stART Conference in Duisburg, Germany, which will take place in September of this year and looks like a must-see event for any European arts managers that want to know more about social media.

A little while later, Frank Tentler, who is also involved with the stART conference, contacted me about the Duisburger Philharmoniker project Philharmonie 2.0. Frank told me in an e-mail he normally works with corporate clients, but:

it is possible to create a company-like concept for an orchestra. I was fascinated: normally you have to create a story to tell at first, then to produce content around the story. But here all content was lying in front of me and I only had to pick it up and lead it to the most important communities.

As project manager, he built a team including a musician, a content manager, and a professor in communication design and his students. And, as Frank writes, “with this experience, I had the idea for a conference – the stART.09. One of the co-initiators, Christian Henner-Fehr told me, that he had contacted you, too.”

Don’t you just love the possibilities of social media and social networking? Through my blog and Twitter I was able to connect to these great resources and share thoughts and comments.

I had a brief look at the Philharmonie 2.0 concept as introduced by Christian and Frank. Frank also forwarded an article from a German orchestra trade magazine, which describes the project, its successes and core ideas. What stood out from the article was the following sentence:

Klassische Musik hat kein Problem mit ihrem Inhalt – es geht darum, mit ihr Leute persönlich anzusprechen

Or, in English, “classical music does not have a problem with its content; the point is to speak personally with your patrons.” Indeed, as I wrote in my brief SWOT analysis, content is one of the main strengths of orchestras. Use it to connect. And make it personal. And talking about content, a lot of content by the Duisburger Philharmoniker is licensed under a Creative Commons label. Smart move.

The channels used by the Duisburger Philharmoniker include Twitter (including separate accounts for the general manager and conductor, although there has not been any recent activity), YouTube, Delicious and Flickr. The orchestra is most active on its blog and they seemingly reach out to newcomers as well, inviting bloggers and Internet users to a free concert (reminiscent of San Francisco’s blogger night). Strangely, and unfortunately, although the orchestra is actively blogging, there are not a whole lot of user comments underneath its posts.

I will keep an eye on these developments in Germany and will continue to browse around the Philharmonie 2.0 project. If only to keep up my fast-dwindling German language skills. I’m curious to see if the orchestra will keep it up and what they learn in the process.

Mach’s gut!

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , ,

An interview with Miss Mussel of #operaplot fame

May 13, 2009 By

Classical music can go viral too. And you can thank Miss Mussel for that. Who, you ask? Just follow her @missmussel on Twitter and read her blog The Omniscient Mussel. Alternatively, she is known as Marcia Adair, a Canadian freelance classical music journalist.

Marcia started the #operaplot craze, where tweeting opera fans summarize an entire opera in just 140 characters or less, using the hashtag #operaplot. (Search the tag in Twitter)

In its first incarnation, Marcia purchased a $30 gift certificate to give out as a prize. She barely had 50 followers on Twitter, but the word spread around the tweeting classical music world and soon there were about 80 entries.

The buzz continued after the contest and before long a second contest was set up. This time, it went truly viral and even mainstream. Opera star Danielle De Niese signed up as a guest judge, famous opera houses offered tickets for prizes and mainstream media including The Guardian and The Washington Post covered the initiative. After a week of tweeting opera plots, De Niese had more than 500 entries to judge!

I was curious about this phenomenon and Marcia graciously answered a couple of questions:

The big question is, how did you come up with the idea?

#Operaplot started on a whim.  I was writing program notes and tweeted that I was having trouble with word creep….one of those mundane details Twitter disparagers claim not to be interested in.  @pattyoboe, an oboist blogger from California suggested I should tweet the notes.  That seemed impractical but then I thought, what about opera? The irony of compressing the most extravagant of art forms into the smallest possible unit was appealing plus I’m relatively new to opera, so I thought the results might be an easy way to get a handle on what the operas are actually about.

Did most of the “promotion” of the contest come from Twitter? If so, do you have any idea how fast it spread and in what proportion?

It’s difficult to separate out because all the press outlets played off each other.  The original announcement was on Twitter and my website. The story was picked up by the Washington Post and The Guardian, which helped a lot. When the partners were finalized, I sent releases to papers in cities that had participating houses, which caused more people to check it out on Twitter.  Then people started blogging about it, which led to more traditional press and more Twitter and even Facebook.

Did you do any other promotions for the contest? How did the media learn about it?

If I remember correctly, Anne Midgette of the Washington Post was the first on the story, which was then picked up by Charlotte Higgins at The Guardian. Where other people found the story after that, I can’t really say. Everything is so connected, it’s likely they saw it on several sources before writing about it. Once Danielle De Niese got involved, her publicist sent out info to her list as well.

[If you're interested, a full list of press clipping is here]

Did you have any idea it would take off like this?

I hoped it would but I didn’t really think I had the influence to organize the press or the houses.  After talking to arts admin people at various houses, I think the reason for the contest’s success is that it was the right idea at the right time with someone who was willing to put the time in to organize everything.  I think the press was all over it because the story involved Twitter, which is a hot topic, there were a lot of houses involved and the contest is just plain fun.

For the second round, what was the reaction from opera houses when you approached them for the prizes?

The first house I contacted was a disaster.  I called for an email address and ended up having to give my spiel to three different people only I was completely unprepared for it so I didn’t inspire much confidence. Needless to say, I didn’t get the desired result there. I regrouped, wrote a good email and things improved markedly.  Houses were very receptive and took far less convincing than I expected considering no one had heard of me before.  I think the chance to explore the possibilities of Twitter in a no-risk way was appealing. The Washington National Opera was first on board with their monster prize pack, so that helped with my credibility and by the end, when I was calling to follow up, most people had already heard about the competition and were excited to join in.

What kind of audience do you think you reached with this contest?

The contest naturally excludes people who don’t know much about opera because you need at least some knowledge to summarize and a lot more to make jokes. I didn’t look at everyone’s profile but I’m guessing the age range is 25-50.  If I had to make further generalizations, I’d say they are the type of people that are looking for a new kind of relationship with performing arts institutions….one that is more transparent and honest rather than the traditional cursive script, lush images and WE ARE AWESOME AT EVERYTHING attitude.

Are there any lessons for classical music organizations to be drawn from this contest?

The big one is right idea, right time, right audience.  Difficult to predict but if you take the time to know your audience, or at least the one you’d like to attract, you’ll have a better chance.  Lesson two is that people will get excited about something they’re passionate about — harness that and have fun along with them.

Also, when using social media, particularly Twitter, be real.  Take the time to build relationships and put selling to the back of your mind.  Social media is all about saying, “Thought you might like to know that….” relationships rather than “SUPER WORLDCLASS CONCERT TONIGHT WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE – V PRESTIGIOUS (and also we are awesome by association for booking these people)”

I follow a couple of hundred arts organizations and get messages all the time about sales, promotions, the next superfantastic show etc.  The organizations that stand out are those that don’t try so hard and actually post things that might be off message but still interesting. They comment on what other people are doing, encourage their colleagues and contribute to the community.

I could go on at length here but the overall point is relax and enjoy connecting with people.  Your ROI, as it were (ugh), will come in a thousand small and unexpected ways.

Have you seen traffic to your own Web site increase?

Of course, although it remains to be seen how many will stick around after #operaplot fever dies down.

You’re a freelance music writer. What does this contest mean for your own personal “branding”?

In many ways, the contest is an extension of the brand I’ve created with my website, so it hasn’t changed anything as such.  As a PR exercise however, it means a lot for me because I don’t have the advantage of co-opting the brand of the newspaper or magazine at which I might have a staff job. There are loads of excellent freelancers out there but hopefully next time I pitch a publication, my name will resonate a little bit more than it otherwise would have. I live in a small market inside a small market (Canada) and being “that girl that did that competition” can’t hurt.

And lastly, of course, will it continue? Or do you have any other things in mind?

I always have something in mind!  Whether the ideas are viable or not is another story. I hope #operaplot will continue. At the moment, it’s just a matter of sitting down, looking at everything and finding a way to make it work even better.  People are welcome to leave comments about what they would like to see in future contests at http://theomniscientmussel.com/2009/05/operaplot-feedback-form/

Filed Under: Culture, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Orchestras and New Media: A Complete Guide

April 9, 2009 By

After the blog series and presentation on orchestras and new media, I have just finished an e-book called “Orchestras and New Media: A Complete Guide.” In this book, I look at the current print environment and arts coverage, followed by the new media revolution and what it means for orchestras. Alongside a description of tools and sites, I offer thoughts on how to adapt your press materials and how to measure your results. A SWOT analysis includes examples and two brief case studies provide more insights.

» The e-book can be downloaded for free from my Web site.

Executive Summary

The past 30 years have seen a significant proliferation of arts organizations and activities throughout the country. Cultural participation is up, yet arts coverage in print is down. But it would be an error to attribute this downturn to an attack on the arts. Newspaper circulation numbers have been going down since the mid 1980s; from a daily circulation of over 63.3 million in 1984 to a daily circulation of 50.7 million in 2007. On the other hand, monthly unique visitor numbers for newspaper Web sites rose from 41 million in January 2004 to 75 million in January 2009.

In the past decade, the Internet has moved to more participation (encouraging contributions), openness (no barriers to content and feedback), conversation (listening, not just broadcasting), community (gathering around a common interest), and connectedness (sharing content).

Seeing the decline in traditional arts coverage and the proliferation of culture, brands and media, the inevitable, it seems, is an increase in participation, openness and connectedness with your community, invigorating the conversation about the arts. And new media is here to help.

Survey the environment, determine what you are trying to accomplish and then find the right tools that work for you. The best advice to start? Just explore! Here are some of the places you must know about: blogs, Facebook and MySpace, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube, Digg and Delicious, Yelp, Wikipedia and Last.fm.

Connect with bloggers and content generators: read (know who is writing and what they are writing); participate (become a genuine and active member); build relationships (provide good customer service); and adapt materials (personalize your pitch and remember you are working with a multimedia outlet).

Social networking sites are the embodiment of new media; more than any other service they encourage participation, openness, conversation, community, and connectedness. Keeping that in mind, your approach to social networking should be based on the following three rules: add value; online relationships complement offline relationships; and provide content to be shared and syndicated.

Sharing content, word-of-mouth, is one of the key strengths of social media. Measuring results, however, especially return on investment, can be difficult. Page views and unique site visitor statistics can only tell you so much; they don’t tell you what kind of activity. In its most basic form, your measurement should consist of the following elements: interest: how interested are people in your company; attitude: what attitudes do people hold about your company; action: what actions that matter from a business perspective do people take as a result of your campaign?

The last step is to determine what impact these results have on your organization and the future actions of your organization. From a detailed SWOT analysis, the following recommendations ensued: use your strengths as cornerstones for strategy (content, brand, audience and infrastructure); pursue market opportunities best suited to your strengths (maintaining strong relationships; extending the life of a performance; other geographic and demographic markets; and collaborations and partnerships); and correct weaknesses that impair pursuit of market opportunities or heighten vulnerability to external threats (budget for new media; hire or train staff; review limitations of media contracts and copyrights; and keep track of changes in technology).

Filed Under: Communications, Culture, Featured Posts, Social Media Tagged With: , ,
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