Posts filed under ‘Social Media’
The Tangled Web that Social Media Weaves
Theatre Bay Area commissioned Devon Smith of 24 Useable Hours (now Threespot in Washington, DC) to conduct a Social Media Audit of the arts and cultural sector.
The results have just been published and provide a valuable insight into a rapidly evolving area that seems to be characterised by enthusiastic adopters and sceptical recalcitrants, and little in between.
The study looks at 207 cultural organisations using over 20 networking platforms. I am not sure how internationally representative the sample is, but it does include a sprinkling of non-US organisations.
Two interesting top line findings are:
- The average arts organisation is active on 3 social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and uploads 66 new pieces of content each month.
- Facebook Pages that are updated multiple times per day, use a customized URL and feature a custom Welcome tab have more fans, who interact with the page more often, than those who do not.
The full report is available online here: “The Tangled Web: Social Media in the Arts”
It is well worth a read.
16 June, 2011 at 2:07 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Emerging practice shared with you from Chicago
I recently attended the annual CultureLab meeting in Chicago and as part of the meeting of cultural consultants, funders and practitioners. The second day consisted of a variety of international best practice case studies ranging from Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago to Malmö Opera in Sweden.
The presentations are available online at the CultureLab Emerging Practice Seminar
CultureLab’s Emerging Practice Seminar is a concerted effort to bring forward promising new practices in the cultural sector and transmit them to the field.
Each year, two practice areas are selected that represent important developments for the arts field. The 2011 seminar focused on:
- Uses of technology in audience engagement
- Revenue management and dynamic pricing
The discussion of each topic featured several case studies drawn from arts organizations from USA to Sweden, and Australia and New Zealand in between.
13 May, 2011 at 11:54 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Foursquare ‘Explore’ Tab offers new venue discovery options
I am not a big fan of the term “Social CRM
” as I think it distracts from the larger strategic focus of CRM by concentrating on one new medium.
Foursquare has allowed consumers a means for “sharing their activities and loyalty with their social network ” and a means for venues to allegedly attract new customers and reward the loyalty of existing customers.
Recent enhancements announced at South by Southwest (SXSW) may be taking Foursquare to a new level as described in Foursquare Upgrade Enhances Marketer Appeal.
It is adding more levels of potential engagement, rather than just a Mayor - “Previously, the most frequent patrons at some locations were named “Mayor” and were rewarded with special treatment by many businesses.”
The article also discusses the possibilities of “a new form of search optimization; B2C merchants will want to be sure their businesses show up at the top of Foursquare search results.“
“As we started to tinker with our recommendations algorithms, we started to see “expertise” starting to emerge from the data – we’re seeing friends that have been to every karaoke place within 10 miles or tried every burger in Los Angeles. … letting you seek guidance from your friends on the categories and places they explore most.“
It will be interesting to see where this development leads.
5 April, 2011 at 10:57 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Does Facebook & Social Media really fuel ticket sales?
Some interesting stats by way of a case study in Ticketfly: Facebook really does fuel ticket sales
- “In Jan 2011, Ticketfly sold 3.25 tickets for every Facebook share/tweet
- Facebook is Ticketfly’s top referrer at roughly 9% of total traffic“
However, I am not so sure of the liklihood of the following ‘giant killer’ analogy … “San Francisco startup Ticketfly aims to take on concert ticketing giant Ticketmaster. Its main weapon? Social networking.“
On the subject of proof of Facebook and other Social Media to impact ticket sales refer to an earlier FULLHOUSES post Proof: How social media sold a theatre ticket on Facebook
28 February, 2011 at 9:34 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Are the “new” ticketing models really new, let alone better?
The article GigsWiz Launches at Midem Providing Artists With New Revenue Stream reports that “the landscape of gig promotion is changing rapidly“. So why are the same old models being rolled out and trumpeted as new and innovative?
“By providing the artist a share of the ticket sales revenue, GigsWiz becomes a key factor in increasing ticket sales.” So let me know if I have this correct, the event owner is paying no booking fees and the ticket agent is sharing revenue with the artist. So it sounds like the artist is being paid a split of the additional outside fees charged to consumers to buy tickets.
GigsWiz does appear to assisting artists to go direct to consumers, but it is not cutting out the other middlemen. So you have to ask how efficient this new model is.
“Fans are increasingly linked to bands online and the traditional marketing methods used by promoters are increasingly inefficient at reaching fans.“
Surely the most efficient (and dare I say effective) model is for the artist or event owner to deal directly with the fan or consumer without the need for the interventions (and added margins) of others?
From that sort of foundation, real Customer Relationship Management is possible.
27 January, 2011 at 9:49 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 1 comment
Why are marketers not measuring consumer engagement with various channels?
Some concerning findings discovered by CRM software vendor Alterian which undertook a survey 1,500 marketers, agencies, marketing service providers and systems internationally.
The vast majority of marketers state that they personalise at least one marketing channel (website or direct mail or email or social media etc.), but only 11% tailored user visits to websites.
While 43% segment audiences to deliver specific (targeted) email messages, only 13% deliver communications based on individual customer preferences monitored in real-time.
“These figures indicate that a mass-marketing strategy is still considered the norm by many. There is still much room to improve both web site and email engagement strategies through message customisation, particularly based on individual preferences and needs rather than a particular segment,” said David Eldridge Chief Executive of CRM software vendor Alterian.
The arts and entertainment also seem to be stuck depending upon mass-marketing strategy and ignoring the potential of CRM to deliver a better knowledge of various consumer behaviours and capitalise upon better targeted direct marketing, whether via the web, email, direct mail or social media.
How do we get arts and entertainment organisations past this shortsightedness?
24 January, 2011 at 1:12 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 1 comment
Sustainable Growth needs Customer Focus = People and Leadership
An interesting post from Adrian Swinscoe on MyCustomer.com: Customer strategy: How to cure ‘hole in my bucket’ syndrome
It discusses Reichheld and the foundations of his Net Promoter work and then refers to Chris Anderson and the Long Tail and how technology is “fundamentally changing the way companies do business and how they are viewed by their customers.“
However, it is the simple model supported by the stool image (right) that I find most interesting. He suggests that “sustainable and customer focused growth strategies are enabled by two things: people and leadership.
- Customer focus is all about ideas and strategies that will help companies build customer retention, loyalty, service, experience and their brand. I believe that if you do these things correctly, referrals and great word of mouth will flow naturally.
- People is about ways to help build the team and culture, develop innovation, improve communication and increase engagement with employees.
- Leadership is about how to develop the vision, strategy, and leadership style, whilst also cultivating innovation and managing the change that you will need, to create the sustainable business that you want.“
Guess what – there is no mention of technology! This seeming CRM contradiction was put well by Dr Adrian Payne at the NARPACA Ticketing Professionals Conference in Melbourne in 2008.
“About 92% of CRM costs go towards the technology but … only 25% of CRM success is attributable to technology.“
Similarly it is often said that about 2/3 of CRM projects will fail or fail to deliver on expectations, therefore we need to be addressing a lot more than just buying new software. It ain’t a Field of Dreams.
15 November, 2010 at 11:27 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Is it Ticketing Going Viral or are Ticket Company Startups Going Viral?
Another day, another article about a new ticketing option. This is great for innovation, but is it sustainable?
One such new entrant is Amiando with the aim “to harness the cost benefits and reach of the internet, as well as social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, to offer event organisers on demand invitation management, promotion and attendee registration, as well as integrated billing.“
Ticket sales attract a charge of $0.99 (£0.79) per attendee plus 5.9% of the attendance fee. So on a US$30 ticket that is US$0.99 plus US$1.77 = US$2.76 or 9.2% on a $10 ticket it grows to 15.8% of ticket price. While it compares well for higher priced tickets, it is a pricey option for lower priced tickets like children’s events etc.
However, price may not be the issue … for long. The article then discusses other numerous similar online options like: Etouches, TicketBiscuit and Fatsoma. These are just a few of the options in this rapidly growing area and the common trend in a market as more entrants are attacted is the shift to price competition, with the eventual result of commodity pricing when there is little differentiation left amongst competitors as they compete for market share. It is early days but the accelerated product lifecycle of such Internet offerings makes one wonder how long till these companies are cannibalising each other’s market share? Afterall, a SaaS solution based in the UK available on the Internet can compete just as easily as a service in Australia or Singapore. The barriers of payment gateways and the like are less and less of an issue, particularly with global solutions like PayPal.
The article then discusses the dominant agency model and opportunity that these new players may present.
Neil Saunders, senior analyst with Verdict Research suggests that in comparison to the newer leaner distribution options, ”companies like Ticketmaster don’t really add a significant amount of value.“
However, this ignores one important issue, whether traditional ‘middlemen’ add value or not, when it comes to venues – the agencies like Ticketmaster have venue exclusive ticketing contracts that preclude competition.
Until venue exclusive ticketing contracts or similar handicaps to competition are discouraged, agencies like Ticketmaster will preclude these numerous new ticketing options from moving beyond small venues and events.
With the recent launch of Foxtix in Australia, going head to head with both the current dominant agencies: Ticketmaster and Ticketek, one has to wonder how much money Rupert Murdoch is prepared to throw into the bidding war to assert control with exclusive ticketing contracts. I suspect the result will be a leap in the quantum of ‘key money’, and unfortunately reducing the options for a change in these contracts that maintain the current duopoly. But is there room for three agencies in Australia? Time will tell.
1 November, 2010 at 10:10 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 2 comments
What is a tweet worth in ticket sales? 43c?
A colleague Steven Roth pointed out this research Social Commerce: A First Look at the Numbers:
“one share on Facebook equals $2.52, a share on Twitter equals $0.43, a share on LinkedIn equals $0.90, and a share through our ”email friends” application equals $2.34. On an aggregate level across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and our email share tool, each share equals $1.78 in ticket sales.“
Eventbrite has taken a similar approach as mentioned in a previous FULL HOUSES post Building “Real World” Relationships Online and offers an integration with Sales Force CRM software. The Eventbrite Connector makes easy work of the API and allows the export of ticket purchasers to Sales Force to build a prospect database. The issue that is not clear is whether full purchase history is taken across to Sales Force and if the API is two- way. But it is FREE and it is a good start and I suggest that we will see more of this sort of integration with existing standards and less reinventing of the wheel.
18 October, 2010 at 9:29 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
This is your mobile ticket
We have heard of a fair few different mobile ticket options now using different methodologies from 2D to 3D and so-on.
What I find really interesting is how many are coming into the market and the best bit of all is that they are all adding their own unique features. From that will spring all sorts of unique innovation!
By way of example, I was intrigued by some fatures that San Francisco start-up MogoTix offers:
“The system can let multiple organizers see who’s checked in, broadcast the names of guests as they arrive and send out alerts to guests a few hours before the event.“
These sort of things may not appeal to everyone, but I love the fresh thinking and the application of the technology in new ways.
In actual fact, announcing guests “on arrival at the Ball” may have been around for centuries, but who is to say that in a social media world with its ever connected constituents that this may be as relevant today to Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters as to … the court in other fairytales like Cinderella?
Sending out alerts to guests a few hours before the event, why stop there? Send them out warnings about car park capacity, or a special offer at the in-house bar or restaurant or a special deal after the show and so-on. I know that some organisations have requested functionality to warn subscribers so they don’t forget that they have seats for a show the following week. Maybe the secret of good service is timely, relevant communication, whatever the medium.
24 September, 2010 at 5:28 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 1 comment
