Commonsense Social Media for Small Arts Organizations:

what the “social media mavens” won’t tell you

•psst… you really can do it yourself

1. Make a skills inventoryDo remember to include all your skills!

Survey your organization’s staff, board, volunteers who are the best writers?who are already blogging, on facebook, on other social media?who are the photographers, videographers?who has design skills?

You are artists, for Pete’s sake, you have all these skills in your organization!

2. Do have the confidence to run your own

social media campaign.

The best social media campaign is grass-roots—just like you started your arts organization

3. Consider voiceDo listen to the tone of the media, but be authentic.

Social media is, well, social so adopt a conversational toneTake time to listen to your followers and other organizations like your own. Find your voice in their conversationsNote that various social media have their own tone

4. Don’t delegate social media to the intern

They may be digital natives but do they have the facts and tools to represent your organization?Being able to Facebook a keg party is not a qualification for blogging your arts season.

5. Don’t turn your Artistic Director into a sock puppet

If a post says it is from the AD, it should be.You can help by sending the AD questions, or taping interviews and turning these into posts.Assigning a staff member to write under the AD’s name isn’t fair to anyone.

6. Do use more than one social media outlet for news

Consider which social media is most relevant to you: consider tone, demographics, format.Think of your chosen channels in terms of synergy, e.g., longer content in the blog (connect through FB &

tweets) videos on YouTube (shared to blog & facebook) form a community on Facebook for event

promotion drive traffic to appropriate channels on Twitter

7. Do be careful with auto-linking posts

Think before you link your media streams: when in doubt, don’t connect! Some advice: Link low frequency channels to high frequency

channels but not the reverse Auto-tweeting your new YouTube videos makes

sense Facebooking every tweet will turn off Facebook

followers due to both style and frequency

8. Do buffer to maximize reach

You can use tools like http://www.bufferapp.com or http://hootsuite.com/ to buffer postings space your important announcement over the day

without boring your audience time your announcements to hit peak times for your

audience, often after business hours economize on the time that staff/volunteers spend on

social media

9. Don’t automate!

Auto-tweets of quotes and random messages are a turn off and will not secure you a loyal and high-relevance audience.

10. Do engage your audience.

Social media is social. It is not one-way Take time to check for

comments and messages Read your audience’s posts Comment back Share

11. Do turn your colleagues and competitors into assets

Arts organizations have been exchanging program book inserts and advertising for decades. Use the same strategy with social media. Share a colleague’s non-competing event with your followers.

They’ll return the favour. Tweet about your colleague’s news. When they re-tweet, you’ll

pick up followers. People searching for news of a competitor’s events will visit

your stream if you post about them and sometimes add you to their “follow” list or like your Facebook page.

12. Don’t be a broken record.

You wouldn’t invite a friend to a party today, and tomorrow and the next day, and the next…. Remind your audience about events

with new value-added content Share interesting news you’ve read

on the internet relevant to your audience

Don’t be afraid to share the occasional joke.

13. Introducing the #tag

Tagging is a way that people find relevant information in a sea of irrelevant news Create your own twitter tag for core followers to find you Research what tags are commonly used by organizations like

yours and use them when appropriate in blog posts and twitter hash tags

Use local and community tags to help people find events that are close to them and invite re-tweets from community groups.

14. Getting started

Reach out to your followers through existing channels and invite them to connect Offer incentives for them: discount codes, contests Share the benefits you hope to derive for the

organization: saved money, greener operation, increased reach

Consider investing in low-cost, short-term social media advertising

Don’t get discouraged: growth is exponential

15. Do have an evaluation plan

Have a plan to evaluate and put the tools in place Use Google Analytics or other tools to see what social

media campaigns drove people to your website Ticket discount codes will indicate the success of

social media campaigns on sales: vary codes on different social media to see what works best

Set targets and evaluate strategies for increasing followers

16. Do remember the goal

You want to deepen the engagement of your existing audience You want to increase attendance and financial contribution. You want to reach new audiences--while spending less money You also want to be able to brag about how efficient and green your company is in achieving these goals.

That's pretty hot stuff so it's worth some work, right?

So let’s get started.