Notes from March meeting on Social Media

DanceATL Meeting
March 22, 2012
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
In attendance: Ashlee Gardner – High Museum, Brian Wallenberg – Atlanta Ballet, Claire Horn, Jenna Farmer, Aly Brock, Douglas Scott

Jenna’s questions: content calendar, Pintrest, the newest social network (most successful page so far is “best dressed” board at the Ferst), one unified voice

Figuring out what is best for your organization – video, behind the scenes, use content that helps people get to know the people within the organization, interaction

Content Calendar – it is supposed to be spontaneous, if you don’t have anything to say don’t push it, include different departments, interviews, make it personal, interact

Video – 3 min max, interviews are pretty brief, rehearsal clips – edited in best – teasers,

 Facebook – notes are good content – doesn’t have to be video, content that stays longer – reviews, you don’t want to spam people with too much marketing, educate and excite, giving people what they want so they continue to follow you, send out a call of action to share our page with 3 of your friends – encourages exponential growth, tricky because they keep changing things on the platforms (Facebook eg)– just when you think you’ve figured out things – you have to constantly learn things – that is the nature of social media to keep people interested, ask them what they would like to see more of – they will tell you

Brian average – 3-5 times a day on facebook – but not all about AB also tie in similarly interesting things,

Twitter – more, re-tweeting Twitter – online conversation – between the hours of 9-10 X will be there to answer your questions, very conversational, fast paced

Asking staff to share specific language and links on their own social media to help share a unified message.

The nature of social media is that you can’t control it.

Environmental scanning to monitor – hootsuite.com, manage twitter accounts, scans any post mentioning your company, don’t delete negative comments, on twitter they go by very fast and disappear, and on Facebook a lot of times your fans will come in and respond for you – engage them and create a conversation to show that your organization really is interactive, the customer service aspect of social media, no matter what people say interact with them (Hootsuite, Socialbro)

Blog – not competing with other posts, a general message that stays united throughout different media, blog posts to facebook – facebook posts to twitter, but not in reverse

Twitter audience is different than other media, different way of interacting with people, their policy is never to delete anything, the community will usually police the negative people, respond in a neutral and helpful way to any comments

Discount offers through social media – adds a special element, providing things that you can’t get anywhere else, facebook deal, careful about what the reach of your organization is

 Ads for facebook/promoted tweets – non-profit discount that you have to apply for, better for organizational awareness and ‘likes’ not for particular performances/events

More valuable to spend the energy than pay to promote, more important to have a high level of engagement rather than the numbers

Trades/cross-promotion – create a plan to cross promote and share opportunities when they are available Ideas to share email marketing opportunities – a link at the bottom of the email suggested but most seem to feel more comfortable with one on one trades

Storify – social media is moving toward having the ability to collect everything in one place

E-news is a different voice and a different audience than social media, though they connect and will have similar content

Video – polished but high quality is not absolutely necessary

Video is a topic that we should revisit and have a meeting specifically geared toward. Brian agrees to return and speak on that topic for us. (We have it planned for May 17 at noon at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center)

Atlanta Spaces

Atlanta Spaces was a topic for our meeting back in February, but I have to admit, I was participating in the discussion and didn't take very thorough notes. So rather than trying to recap that discussion, I'm linking to a blog so you can find out more about it. This is a great overview from our partners in the project, C4 Atlanta. I know at least one more dance venue joined the listings because of our enewsletter, but in case you have a venue and haven't heard about it, or if you need to find a space to dance, we hope it's a useful tool! Thanks for bringing it to Atlanta, C4!

Today's meeting

I wanted to write something at least somewhat researched and somewhat contemplated, or maybe an overview of some of what other people say about gender in dance. But I'm giving in to the constant nagging of my 3-year-old to turn on a movie on the computer. So instead, I hope YOU have some brilliant thoughts you'd like to share this afternoon at the DanceATL meeting.

The Atlanta Ballet studios
3:30-5pm
We're talking with Melanie Lynch-Blanchard and Zoetic Dance Ensemble, and Brandon Keith and Gordie Holt from LIFT Dance about gender in dance. And if we have a really small group (which is pretty likely since I didn't send a reminder email, and it's ACDFA week and spring break) we'll all be going to get pizza! :) Yay dance!