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!

Dance Anywhere this Friday!

So I'm a little late sharing this because it's coming up this Friday, but I was contacted by the folks from Dance Anywhere and I wanted to post the information because it's a really great idea.
And you don't have to participate in a full out performance somewhere, as creator Beth Fein says in this interview, your dance can be anything and well, anywhere, just so long as it's at the appointed time. Here's from their materials:

what if the world stopped to dance?

well, it will!

march 30th, 2012 at 3 pm (Atlanta)

8th Annual Conceptual, Public Art Performance

12 noon in San Francisco...3 pm in NY & Toronto...4 pm in Buenos Aires...

9 pm in Rome, Prague & Cairo ...10 pm in Istanbul, Nairobi & Minsk...

and so on around the world! 

Since 2005, on one day, simultaneously around the world, dancers, students, cab drivers, artists, business folk and dreamers, young and old alike put aside their daily grind and unleash their moving creativity in parks, sidewalks, office buildings, schools, museums, subways, anywhere their dancing bodies will fit. Now in it’s eighth year, conceptual, public art performance piece dance anywhere® will take place on Friday, March 30, 2012 at noon pacific daylight time (PDT) 3pm EDT (New York, etc) 9pm in Paris, Rome, etc.

Artist and dance anywhere® creator Beth Fein explains,

When I first thought of dance anywhere® it was just an idea. Imagine if we all took a moment to dance. It changes your day, your mood… when you stop to dance, you find inspiration and creativity you may have forgotten. With tough economic times, and so much divisive discourse, here is common ground we can all enter, even if just for a moment - anyone can dance anywhere.

At noon (PST) on March 30th, thousands of people in countries (including Estonia, Argentina, Italy, Turkey, Ireland) across the globe, will pause to express themselves through dance. Join us for another year of transforming public spaces and everyday relations into vehicles of inspiration.

Everyone is encouraged to participate, and the project involves people of all ages, abilities, nationalities, and backgrounds.  It is free for dancers and audience alike. Participants have been professional dancers and artists, plumbers, doctors, soccer players, teachers and politicians. Some dances are choreographed, some are improvised, and some stretch the definition of what dance is.

Dance and social media

Dance and social media are a funny fit, in that dance is something so primal and physical and social media is entirely heady and virtual. Yet they also make a lot of sense together in that both in some sense are about connecting with other people, sharing personal stories and perspectives. The big question for those of us who communicate about dance (not those who create dance, mind you, technology and dance in that sense is a totally different beast), is: will social media and all the things available to online audiences  occupy people's time instead of dancing or watching dance, or will it actually increase their participation in the art?

The NEA study Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation in 2010 points to the latter, which is encouraging. But despite the positive view that resources online actually increase people's exposure and access to the live arts, I still find it a paradoxical fit. Seeing video of a dance piece (unless maybe it's the 3D of PINA on the full screen--those of you who saw it, feel free to debate) lacks the immediacy and energy of live performance.  When we're in the proximity of actual dancing, breathing bodies, it has a different impact than watching fuzzy images on a tiny screen. Which might be why people would see something online and still want to experience it live. But those are the people who seek out dance videos online. Does social media actually reach a larger audience for dance? Because social media is self-selecting, and to a large degree you only find the information you look for (or happen across because you have some connection through a person you know, etc.) do the larger majority of people who almost never think about dance ever become interested in going to a live dance performance because of something they saw online? Does that matter if they do, or are we just trying to make sure we reach our target dance-interested audience (something like 60% dancers themselves at least on some level, see the study, How Dance Audiences Engage.)

Using social media as a tool for connecting about dance is both strange and natural. I think of the dichotomy of Pico Iyer's speech. He was last year's Dance/USA keynote who discussed how dance can be a sanctuary from overstimulation and speed of modern technologically "connected" life. He discussed how audiences might find stillness through participating in dance--a very strange paradox that still makes sense to me. I think the problem that has to be overcome is that we have these social media tools available to us, and are therefore using the avenues of the overstimulating world, to then share something so completely different from it. So what do people value that would bridge the gap between the virtual and physical world? I would argue again that the avenues are almost opposites, but (at least part of) the "why" is the same: connection.

And now that we've found a why for it all (haha) here are some looks at the more nuts and bolts of the thing:

• Dance/USA's online journal recently posted Telling your Dance Company's Story through Social Media by Amy K. Harbison. Kind of on point, thanks!
• Dance Pulp's post from The Ballet Bag writers on "Social Dancing" coming from a specifically ballet world and a few good examples from there.

And I'm sure there are more, but I'm not finding them when I search right now, so I'll make another post if I come up with a bigger list of useful links! I'm thinking more of a bunch of great blogs and companies that do a good job in the social media space, which I think is a whole other post.

And for those of you who would be interested in continuing this conversation "on land," I hope you'll come to our meeting this Thursday, March 22 at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center from noon to 1p.m.
We have Brian Wallenberg, Social Media Coordinator at the Atlanta Ballet, and Ashlee Gardner, who does social media for the High Museum, joining us, so it should be a great discussion!

We're skipping this one

Ok, everyone, I'm admitting an organizational fail on my part. Trying to do a meeting each month is probably more than I can put together successfully with all this not being my main focus. So there will be no meeting this weekend, the 26th, and consequently no February meeting at all. Sorry. I figured we'd try the every month but I don't know if I can keep it up. BUT the good news is I DO have March 22 at noon set aside for our next meeting, hosted graciously by the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center again. And I also have a plan and am discussing the April 1 meeting with folks already. Then after April we also run into the summer months, which are notoriously empty of dance because almost everyone takes off. So perhaps we can fit in one in May and skip June and July? Really I'm open to feedback here. If there's someone who really has a burning topic etc., or just really can't go a few months without a DanceATL meeting, please let me know!

At one conference presentation I attended on collaboration, they discussed the lifetime of a collaboration in the arts in their experience of funding them and their conclusion was that after two years or so, the people who started with a project tend to get burnt out. I'm happy to say that I don't think that my energy for the project is lessening, and I think we've had a lot of success over the last couple years, but I do feel that I'm running out of ideas for topics without rehashing those we've already covered. I'm happy to reprise a topic, if there is one someone missed before. And of course, from a different angle and with different speakers it can become a totally new discussion. So, again, I appreciate your input.

Oh, and speaking of topics, the one for March 22 will be social media and how we use it to promote ourselves and the entire Atlanta dance community. I'll send out details when I have panelists confirmed etc.

Yay dance!

"Meaning"

Once again, here's someone tackling artists' depths of abstraction and the audience's craving for "meaning" in what they've seen. Or really, a storyline is mostly what "non-dancers" crave, isn't it? Narrative. So here are thoughts from another dance blogger out there: Success and Housewives.
Along those lines, one of the You've Cott Mail missives (for those of you who aren't arts marketers, Thomas Cott is the Alvin Ailey Amer. Dance Theater marketing guru) this week included some articles on elitism and art, which is sort of along the same lines, really, thoughts about how much you should cater to your audience when you chose/create your programming. From Artsjournal Funny, Catching and Not too Challenging. It's a constant challenge in "contemporary dance," or making any type of art, really. Artists sometimes being sort of like twins who have their own language, how much do you need the rest of the world to understand? Or how much of it really does come across to at least some of the audience even if they don't know the exact language? I guess the question is what percentage of your audience do you want to understand, clearly, what's going on in the performance?
A story that comes to mind is a piece I saw years ago where they had a table downstage where they were eating a meal. Or well, they had abstracted it because they weren't actually eating food onstage. Nor did they have fake food. But they did have forks and plates on the table. This struck me as a very strange place to stop the abstraction. Eating, we all do it and it's pretty recognizable. Really just move your hand to your open mouth and I would guess a lot of people watching will get "eat" from it in a charades sort of symbolic way. So how much more of the extra stuff do you need to represent the act of eating? Other concepts, ones that are more abstract already, are certainly harder to communicate. But for the people who like dance, I think there's a general feeling that movement does have the capacity to communicate some abstract things better than words do. And people who don't "get it" just don't communicate that way. The interesting question is whether the capacity to "understand" movement is somehow innate or something learned very early on, or if it's possible to actually teach people to see what they at first are blind to. Any anecdotes of "converts" out there?