Social Media in Theatre

      Theatre &            Social Media      in 2009                                                        By Devon Smith  Director of Research and Analysis  Yale Repertory Theatre  January 8, 2010 

Executive Summary    As the Director of Research and Analysis at Yale Repertory Theatre (and avid social media fan),  in October of 2009 I was tasked with developing YRT’s social media strategy for 2010. The work  plan I assembled included:  1. Review YRT’s current efforts in social & digital   2. Update (and/or expand) measurement metrics created previously by the Marketing  department  3. Summarize field’s use of social & digital media efforts, impact, and measurement  techniques  4. Compare how YRT “measures up” compared to our peers  5. Recommend YRT’s social & digital media strategy for the coming year    This report focuses on Step 3—attempting to capture LORT theatres efforts and impacts in  social media. It assumes the reader already knows a fair amount about each of the socialmedia  platforms, and instead skips straight to my findings.  Here are the most important conclusions I  drew from my research about each platform:  • Facebook—everyone’s using it, and some theatres are getting an extraordinary amount  of user engagement on their pages. It may be the best way to keep fans interested in  between performances.   • Twitter—has become a great way to engage fans in informal conversations, with a focus  on the idea that Twitter is the ultimate two way street. Fans are already talking about  your theatre online; why wouldn’t you want to respond?  • YouTube—is an incredibly cheap way to reach a very large, very diverse population, if  you have the video production skills to pull it off. And forget everything you’ve heard  about videos having to be 30 second polished commercial spots in order to go viral.   • MySpace—is over. Leave it to the musicians, because few theatres, or their fans, have  any remaining interest.  • Flickr—is promising, but no one’s found a great use case for it, yet. Until then,  Facebook’s photo albums should probably cover all your needs.   • Blogs—seem to me to be not worth the effort, if all you’re blogging about is an inside  look at your theatre company. Although there are a thousand (ok, maybe a dozen)  topics I think theatres could be blogging about, which might be great attention  grabbers.      I’ve been most surprised that theatres have thus far focused 99% of their attention for social  media on marketing. What about the development office? What about as a way to organize a  production team? What about as a way to demonstrate thought leadership to the rest of the  arts administration field?    I also wanted to note that this research is very superficial—future research could (and should!)  attempt to uncover how to best disseminate social media knowledge throughout the  organization, put sharper teeth on ROI metrics, address the problems that organizations are          by Devon Smith  2 

already facing in using social media, and develop more innovative business cases for social  media in the theatre.     On the whole, LORT theatres are dedicating time and effort almost exactly proportional to the  rest of the country’s use of social media.  The below chart shows that Twitter is used by more  theatres than its size would actually warrant, and blogs are a bit underused. But since there are  only 76 LORT theatres, as a field we are surprisingly on track.         What follows is a compilation of the research I’ve done over the past 3 months. The tone is a bit  more colloquial than a formal research paper, and the content and theory may be a little  haphazard, but on the whole it should be valuable.     Methodology  From October‐December 2009 I conducted original research on 6 major social media platforms:  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, and Blogs, and conducted an online survey about  social media staffing hours. I used the 76 League of Resident Theatres (LORT) as a bounded  population of peer theatres to Yale Rep. Where possible, I’ve listed contributions made by  everyone from classmates to colleagues, professional bloggers to published books. Apologies  for any broken links, repetitive statements, or sweeping generalizations. All of the raw data  collected has also been posted to my blog at http://devonvsmith.tumblr.com/         by Devon Smith  3 

FACEBOOK    Executive Summary  All but 3 LORT theatres maintain a presence on Facebook. Numbers of fans range from 129‐ 6,623. Some theatres are posting content more than 15 times per week, and generating up to  100 wall comments per week from their fans. Other than wall posts, photo albums and event  pages are the most widely used content by theatres.      In this study, I have tried to use as many data points as possible to capture the full range of the  field’s use of Facebook, as well as fan’s responses. This quickly complicated any potential  measurements of effort, impact, and return on investment. However, based on the (far too)  complicated indexing method that follows, compared to the average LORT theatre:  • 11 theatres have achieved significantly higher impact relative to their efforts. Later  drafts of this study will include a more in depth look at these theatres.   • 4 theatres achieved higher impact than their peers, but with above average effort  • 42 theatres exerted less effort than their average peer, and also found less impact  • 16 theatres have unfortunately exerted greater effort than their peers, but found less  impact    Facebook Penetration  When theatres maintained multiple group, fan, and/or personal profiles, I used the most  generous interpretation of their “primary” page by selecting the type with the highest number  of fans/members and most recent activity.  Similar to the Twitter findings, many theatre’s  websites did not include a link to their Facebook page. It should also be noted that many  theatres are currently rebuilding their Fans from their Members (due a change in Facebook  architecture), thereby clouding true usage, efforts, and impact.     LORT Theatres on Facebook  Not on FB  4%  Groups Page  7%  Fan Page  89%   n=76              by Devon Smith  4 

Data Capture  Facebook offers a high degree of flexibility in terms of the type of content a theatre wishes to  include on their page, and how a fan might interact with the sight, other than simply viewing it.     I found 7 data points that measure a theatre’s activity on Facebook.  • Upload photo albums; disregarded different sizes of photo albums, and whether albums  were integrated Flickr streams.  • Events created; disregarded efforts of individual events.   • Weekly wall posts; captured for the 7 days prior to measurement date (week of  November 11, 2009); primarily used as a proxy for frequency of efforts since most wall  posts come from uploading photos, videos, notes, etc.   • Uploaded videos; disregarded video length, and whether videos were integrated  YouTube streams.   • Pages favorited.   • Notes written; disregarded whether notes were integrated RSS feeds.  • Links shared; disregarded whether links were integrated RSS feeds.     Other interesting efforts I observed (but did not use in the study) included:  • Guthrie Ford’s Theatre have special “Buy Tickets” sections of their pages  • ART highlights theatre merchandise for purchase  • ART and Florida Stage both use a “splash page” function for users to land on  • Alliance has their own Facebook Application  • Kansas City Rep has a music player on their page  • Many theatres have separate pages for alums and/or interns  • Several theatres embedded twitter & blog feeds on their Facebook pages    I found 10 data points that measure a fan/member’s interaction with a theatre’s page. In all  cases, I disregarded that a theatre’s fans/members likely include some small number of paid  staff members.   • Fans or members.  • Weekly wall comments; captured for the 7 days prior to measurement (week of  November 11, 2009), disregarded difference between like, reply, and comment.  • Photo comments; summed comments from theatre and fan uploaded photos.  • People discussing; summed number of people that posted to a discussion forum,  disregarded that staff and/or theatre could be posting to open forum, disregarded  number of comments per person.   • Fan photos uploaded.  • Reviews written; disregarded sentiment and length of review.  • Members of a theatre’s “Facebook Cause.”  • Total contributions to a theatre’s “Facebook Cause.”  • Donors contributing to a theatre’s “Facebook Cause.”  • Fan videos uploaded.   • The following fan’s interactions were deemed too time consuming to capture  accurately: comments on videos, notes, links, all interactions on Events pages.           by Devon Smith  5 

The following chart summarizes the above mentioned data points for all LORT theatres. Note  that “Average” is per theatre, and includes those theatres/fans not using the feature.     73 LORT Theatres  % Usage  Total  Average  EFFORTS           Photo Albums  99%   772    11   Events  86%   1,032    14   Weekly wall posts   78%   313    4   Videos  74%   568    8   Favorite Pages  67%   269    4   Notes  51%   1,245    17   Links  34%   1,634    22   IMPACT           Fans or Members  100%   84,183    1,153   Weekly wall comments   78%   847    12   Photo Comments  74%   913    13   People Discussing  42%   153    2   Fan Photos  33%   217    3   Reviews  14%   23    0   Causes‐#Members  7%   706    10   Causes‐$ Donated  7%   1,932    26   Causes‐#Donors  7%   44    1   Fan Video  5%   8    0     Thus, on average:   • Theatres are adding page content about once per business day  • A wall post by a theatre generates 2.7 fan comments  • A photo album uploaded by a theatre generates 1.2 fan comments  • Causes donors give $43.90    Measuring Effort  To begin thinking about possible Return on Investment, I first needed to estimate the  “investment” involved in posting content to Facebook. I believe the cleanest measure of this is  time. Ideally, I would like to know the average number of minutes that a theatre is posting  content to Facebook, and use that information to scale effort to average amount of content  posted per week.  Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t give a clear indication of a page’s time in  existence, thus leaving me without a denominator in the “total content/weeks in existence”  equation.     Therefore, I assumed the following average number of minutes each of the following activities  took, based on my own experience. Score can also be interpreted as relative scale of effort (so  that on average it takes a theatre 10 times as long to create and manage an event as it does to  post something to their wall). Note that all data points capture lifetime activity on Facebook,          by Devon Smith  6 

except for wall posts and fan’s comments that are measured weekly. However, wall posts likely  occur far more often than the other types of activities, hopefully nullifying the inconsistency.    In general, this ignores the differences in creating original content, and instead focuses on the  time spent to transfer the content to Facebook, under the assumption that much of the content  is being used across multiple platforms (theatre’s website, blog, Twitter, etc).  This also ignores  automated feeds (for example, many theatres seem to use the Notes function as an RSS feed  for their blog), however it still likely took some amount of time to create and maintain that  automated functionality.     Efforts  Score  Type  Events  10  Build  Photo Albums  10  Upload  Videos  5  Upload  Wall posts  1  Write  Notes  1  Write  Links  1  Write  Favorite Pages  0.25  Click    Measuring Impact  Every theatre is using Facebook towards different ends:   • Marketing productions and maintaining brand awareness   • Empowering users to create their own production related content  • Engaging directly with users  • Raising money    Under the assumption that theatres desire and benefit most from user engagement that  requires more time, effort, and/or financial resources on the part of the fan/member, I’ve  constructed a relative index, as follows.  Score can also be interpreted as the number of  minutes (or relative impact) a theatre earns (or saves) per unit of impact. So for example, a  theatre earns 20 minutes of staff time per dollar raised online, and saves 10 minutes of (PR)  staff time per review, etc.      Impact  Score  Type  Use  Causes‐$ Donated  20  Give  Raise $  Causes‐Donors  10  Give  Raise $  Reviews  10  Compose  Empower  Fan Video  5  Upload  Empower  Fan Photos  5  Upload  Empower  Wall comments  2  Write  Engage  Photo Comments  2  Write  Engage  People Discussing  2  Write  Engage  Causes‐Members  1  Click  Marketing          by Devon Smith  7 

Fans/Memb10ers  1  Click  Marketing    Measuring ROI/Efficiency  Clearly, the idea that “Return” should be measured strictly by user effort and “Investment”  should be measured solely in staff time is fraught with issues. In theory, it’s through all of these  efforts that fans (at some point down the line) are more satisfied with their theatrical  experience, buy more tickets, donate more, and introduce new consumers to the theatre.   Additionally, when multiple staff members from across different departments are updating  Facebook content, not everyone’s time should be represented as equally “expensive.”  Finally,  I’m only able to measure publically available data, inside Facebook’s walled garden.     Therefore, in absence of all of that data, I’ve created my own measurement of efficient return  on effort.     First, each of the various types of efforts and impacts have varying degrees of prevalence  throughout the LORT + Facebook community.  So, I scored each theatre’s efforts and impacts as  an order of magnitude index centered to the average case. For example, if a theatre posted to  their wall 30 times this week, and the community average was 15, the theatre earns a score of  +1 (=(30‐15)/15) for that factor. If a different theatre posted only 5 times this week, the theatre  earns a score of ‐.66 (=(5‐15)/15) for that factor. This (somewhat falsely) assumes that the  field’s average effort is ideal effort.     Second, each effort and impact was weighted according to the score listed in the above tables.  So for example, a theatre with a Video Effort Factor Index of 2 (meaning they have posted three  times as many videos as the average theatre) has a Video Effort Score of 10 (=2*5). Similarly, a  theatre with a Fans Impact Factor Index of ‐1 (meaning they did not engage in the activity at all)  has a Fans Impact Score of ‐1 (=‐1*1).     Third, a theatre’s 7 Effort Scores are summed (so an above average number of fans may make  up for a below average number of videos posted) for a Total Effort Score, and their 10 Impact  Scores are summed (so an above average number of fan videos may make up for a below  average number of fans) for a Total Impact Score. For example, a Total Effort Score of 10 means  that a theatre expends 10 times the amount of effort as the average theatre, while a Total  Impact Score of ‐10 means that a theatre’s fans are 10 times less active than the average  theatre’s fans.     Fourth, ROI is measured as: (Impact – Effort) / Effort.  Because the impact and effort scores can  be positive or negative, I’ve adjusted ROI (multiplied it by ‐1) so that any time Impact > Effort,  the ROI score is positive.     The table that follows summarizes the 3 key indices, and each theatre’s rank within that index.          by Devon Smith  8 

  Total  Total  Hardest  Engaged  Effort  Impact  Working  Users  Efficiency  Theatre  Score  Score  ROI  Rank  Rank  Rank  ACT Theatre  10.66  1,578.38  147.06  20  1  1  Kansas City Rep  29.22  604.42  19.68  11  2  2  Clarence Brown Theatre Co  (21.93)  218.66  10.97  68  3  3  CenterStage  15.16  146.21  8.64  16  5  4  Actors Theatre Louisville  12.99  86.85  5.69  17  7  5  American Conservatory  2.13  11.98  4.63  26  11  6  Denver Center PA  38.46  168.97  3.39  6  4  7  Berkeley Rep  30.37  110.70  2.65  9  6  8  Center Theatre Group  12.48  20.66  0.66  18  8  9  Alabama Shakes  (13.07)  (6.26)  0.52  51  14  10  Shakespeare Theatre Co  29.77  14.18  (0.52)  10  10  11  Guthrie  40.92  18.06  (0.56)  4  9  12  Geva Theatre  (14.35)  (22.84)  (0.59)  54  17  13  American Repertory Theatre  48.78  (0.39)  (1.01)  3  12  14  Portland Center Stage  (20.23)  (41.44)  (1.05)  62  22  15  Trinity Rep  (26.04)  (54.00)  (1.07)  73  46  16  Virginia Stage  73.73  (10.84)  (1.15)  1  15  17  Signature Theatre  19.28  (4.66)  (1.24)  14  13  18  Long Wharf  (24.11)  (56.99)  (1.36)  71  64  19  Roundabout Theatre  (23.98)  (57.03)  (1.38)  70  65  20  Laguna Playhouse  (24.26)  (57.72)  (1.38)  72  71  21  Arkansas Rep  (18.74)  (47.92)  (1.56)  60  26  22  Manhattan Theatre Club  (21.41)  (55.78)  (1.60)  67  55  23  Northlight  (21.99)  (57.74)  (1.63)  69  73  24  City Theatre   (20.33)  (53.65)  (1.64)  63  41  25  Lincoln Center Theatre  (21.35)  (57.72)  (1.70)  66  72  26  Syracuse Stage  (20.40)  (56.40)  (1.76)  64  60  27  Asolo Rep  (20.52)  (57.49)  (1.80)  65  69  28  Round House   (19.53)  (54.79)  (1.81)  61  50  29  Huntington Theatre  38.55  (34.40)  (1.89)  5  20  30  Capital Rep NY  (16.53)  (49.84)  (2.01)  58  32  31  Milwaukee Rep  48.97  (52.27)  (2.07)  2  39  32  Court Theatre  (18.32)  (57.29)  (2.13)  59  67  33  Indiana Rep  (16.05)  (51.38)  (2.20)  57  36  34  Cincinatti Playhouse  (15.52)  (55.52)  (2.58)  56  53  35  Arena Stage  30.64  (48.90)  (2.60)  8  29  36  Theatre for a New Audience  (15.51)  (57.64)  (2.72)  55  70  37  Rep Theatre of St. Louis  31.51  (56.48)  (2.79)  7  61  38  Florida Stage  (13.90)  (53.70)  (2.86)  52  42  39  Seattle Repertory  (12.67)  (49.25)  (2.89)  49  31  40          by Devon Smith  9 

Arizona Theatre Co  (14.29)  (55.71)  (2.90)  53  54  41  Maltz Jupiter  (12.65)  (49.94)  (2.95)  48  33  42  Hartford Stage  23.86  (48.20)  (3.02)  12  27  43  Barter Theatre  (12.95)  (52.21)  (3.03)  50  38  44  Intiman Theatre  (12.59)  (51.28)  (3.07)  47  35  45  Yale Rep/Drama  (12.20)  (53.86)  (3.41)  46  45  46  South Coast Rep  22.31  (54.99)  (3.47)  13  51  47  Great Lakes Theatre  (11.15)  (50.48)  (3.53)  44  34  48  Alley Theatre  (11.78)  (57.24)  (3.86)  45  66  49  Fords Theatre  6.52  (22.21)  (4.40)  22  16  50  Marin Theatre  (10.11)  (54.77)  (4.42)  43  49  51  Old Globe  15.61  (53.70)  (4.44)  15  43  52  Alliance Theatre  (9.53)  (54.00)  (4.67)  42  47  53  People's Light  (8.52)  (55.89)  (5.56)  41  58  54  TheatreWorks  (7.32)  (48.79)  (5.66)  37  28  55  Pasadena Playhouse  (4.47)  (29.86)  (5.68)  34  18  56  Florida studio  (8.23)  (55.82)  (5.78)  39  57  57  Philadelphia Theatre  (8.43)  (57.41)  (5.81)  40  68  58  Pittsburgh Public  (8.00)  (55.10)  (5.89)  38  52  59  McCarter Theatre  10.97  (54.69)  (5.99)  19  48  60  Two Rivers  (7.29)  (56.54)  (6.76)  36  62  61  Merrimack Rep  9.42  (56.80)  (7.03)  21  63  62  Delaware Theatre  (5.15)  (55.79)  (9.83)  35  56  63  LaJolla Playhouse  (2.91)  (32.29)  (10.09)  32  19  64  Cleveland PlayHouse  5.66  (53.25)  (10.41)  23  40  65  Wilma Theatre  (3.31)  (53.75)  (15.23)  33  44  66  George Street  (2.02)  (35.61)  (16.60)  30  21  67  Play Makers Rep  2.98  (47.44)  (16.93)  24  24  68  San Jose Rep  (2.48)  (51.94)  (19.91)  31  37  69  Geffen  2.31  (49.12)  (22.28)  25  30  70  Georgia Shakespeare  1.21  (47.81)  (40.51)  27  25  71  Arden Theatre  0.97  (46.17)  (48.55)  28  23  72  Goodman Theatre  0.72  (56.08)  (79.04)  29  59  73    Final Note: An Easier Method  I realize that this indexing method is likely too complicated to operationalize. Thus, I wanted to  give a quick back of the envelope method for potentially calculating ROI:   Simple ROI = # fan comments/# theatre wall posts    This reduces the noise of Facebook down to a single element. It’s clearly not a complete  picture, it doesn’t account for a huge variety of factors, but it’s simple and a short hand for  showing whether your fans are engaged with the content you’re posting.  Measure this over  time, and you can begin to get a sense of how you can get the best “bang for your buck” online.           by Devon Smith  10 

Kansas City Repertory Theatre: the Story of a Facebook Profile    Facebook Insights is only available to Page Admins. In the absence of public data, I decided to  do a little data collecting of my own. KCRT made the #2 spot on my list of Facebook Pages with  higher average returns relative to their LORT peers—in KCRT’s case, this was driven by a high  number of user comments, and their usage of Facebook Causes to raise money online.   Several  key findings from the past 14 days:  1. Fan’s “like” twice as often as “commenting”  2. Asking questions generates the highest level of user engagement  3. Fans seem to be slightly more interested in administrative (rather than artistic) driven  posts  4. While only 56 fans engaged, KCRT reached 17,600+ people  5. While 70% of engaged fans are women, men tend to engage more frequently  6. Only 24% of engaged users are students, those students tend to engage less frequently  than others    It’s challenging to tease out the collective effect of all of these efforts. We’ve seen on a macro  level that theatres that post more often and with greater variety of media tend to have higher  levels of engagement. So a quick word of caution about relying too heavily on just one type of  media (wall posts, photos, videos, links, etc) or just one topic of conversation, regardless of  “how effective” it seems to be.     First, a general idea of KCRT’s activity level. Several lessons:  • Fans “like” items more often than they comment  • Dialogue takes effort (not only posting an original item, but following up also)  • Some posts seem to be generating more likes or comments than others.  • Weekends are fairly quiet    Daily Activity  25  20  15  10  5  0  KCRT Efforts  Fan Likes  Fan Comments  KCRT Followup              by Devon Smith  11 

Now a deeper dive into what exactly KCRT is posting. There’s no secret formula for how each of  these activities should be allocated each week, but kudos to KCRT for using many different  kinds of media.     KCRT Efforts (Mode)  1  5  Link  Photos  2  Video  18  Wall Post      It’s thus far unclear if fans engage more with certain kinds of media, or if it’s more about the  topic of the post. This is clearly subjective, but I defined as follows.  • Promotion—link to a feature story, ticket discount, reminder about dates/time/price of  upcoming production, etc.  • Administration—often a “behind the scenes” look at what’s going on in the office:  photos of the marketing team setting up the lobby, a question about satisfaction with  eating/drinking inside the theatre, etc.  • Artistic—often a “behind the scenes” look at what’s going on in rehearsal: a “making of”  webisode, a post about tech, etc.  • Observation—anything that doesn’t mention the production, theatre    KCRT Efforts (Intent)  Administrati on  31%  Promotion  23%  Observation  4%  Artistic  42%                by Devon Smith  12 

Then I tried to classify the intent of fan’s posts. Again, subjective. Defined as:  • Comment—Commenting on a post (ie KCRT posts a photo, a fan comments)  • Response—answering a question asked of them  • Question—asking a question of KCRT  • Thanks—should be obvious  • Likes—should be obvious  • Posts—Making an ‘unmotivated’ comment, not in reference to a KCRT post (this did not  occur in the 2 weeks of the study, but did appear on day 15)    Fan's Activity on the Wall  28  Comment  Response  16  Question  4  Thanks  109  1  Likes      As mentioned previously, KCRT does a great job following up after Fans have posted online.   Definitions same as above.     KCRT Follow Up  1  1  Comment  16  Question  Response  15  Thanks              by Devon Smith  13 

Now that we’ve got a sense of activity level, I tried to make a guess at cause/effect.   Important lesson learned: Asking a question engages fans (surprise!) and requires less average  follow up. Ideally, this data would be captured over a longer period of time. It’s challenging to  be any more specific with a relatively small dataset.           Average Response per Post  Posts by Type  #  Likes  Comments  KCRT  Link (news article re: production)  1  4.0  1.0  1.0  Photos (admin)  2  2.0  3.5  0.9  Photos (rehearsal)  3  2.3  0.7  0.5  Video (making of webisode)  1  5.0  2.0  1.0  Video (rehearsal)  1  4.0  4.0  0.8  Wall comment (admin)  4  4.8  1.5  0.7  Wall comment (artistic)  6  3.3  0.7  1.0  Wall comment (observation)  1  7.0  0.0  0.0  Wall comment (promotion)  5  4.6  1.6  0.5  Wall comment (question)  2  8.0  7.5  0.5  *note that the KCRT column refers to follow up comments (see previous graph), and are  calculated as an average per fan comment.     Do fan’s engage more with certain modes of media? Based on this chart (and again, being  cautious of the small data set), fan’s seem most engaged by wall posts and videos.     Total  Ave  Total  Ave  POST MODE  #  Likes  Likes  Comments  Comments  Link  1  4  4  1  1.0  Photos  5  11  2.2  9  1.8  Video  2  9  4.5  6  3.0  Wall Post  18  85  4.7  33  1.8      But we learn something slightly deeper when looking at the intent of the post. It seems like fans  enjoy hearing about not only what’s going on “on stage,” but also in the office. A true surprise.     Total  Ave  Total  Ave  POST INTENT  #  Likes  Likes  Comments  Comments  Promotion  6  27  4.5  9  1.5  Administration  8  39  4.9  28  3.5  Artistic  11  36  3.3  12  1.1  Observation  1  7  7.0  0  0.0              by Devon Smith  14 

So we might ask, just who are these fans? How closely do they match ticket buyers? Could they  just be staff at the theatre? Is it the same 4 people in constant conversation? Would it be bad if  it were? How far of a 2nd degree reach does KCRT have?    Over the past two weeks, 56 fans (3% of total fans) made a total of 150 “actions” (likes or  comments), for an average engagement of 1.3 actions per engaged fan per week. Pretty  amazing to stay “top of mind” for so many people if this is maintained over the course of an  entire season.      These 56 fans have a collective total of at least 15,690 friends (11 fans did not have friend data  publically available).  As particular posts by KCRT gain traction (high number of comments or  likes), those posts begin to appear in the Newsfeeds of their Fan’s, and their fan’s friends. This  second order reach is important for not only gaining new fans, but hopefully (down the line)  new ticket buyers. KCRT also obviously also reached their own 1,904 fans. This assumes  (naively) that there is no overlap among fans’ friends.    As can be expected, actions weren’t very evenly distributed among fans. While they didn’t  follow the typical 80/20 rule (the top 20% of fans accounted for less than 60% of activity), over  a two week period:    Distribution of Fan's Actions  1 Action  50%  15+ Actions  3%  5‐14+ Actions  11%  2‐4 Actions  36%                by Devon Smith  15 

Similarly, different fans engage in different ways. While very difficult to capture graphically, I  noticed that fans tend to transition up the scale of engagement (first liking, then commenting,  then commenting on multiple items).  Note that I’m jumping in mid‐stream, so this is a fairly  broad generalization.     Fan's Actions  Fans Who  Liked &  Commented  22%  Fans Who  Liked  55%  Fans Who  Commented  23%        Similar to the generally held perception of ticket buyers, women far outnumber men. Note that  this is based on a visual interpretation of fan’s profile photo and name (2 fan’s were  organizations and thus excluded from gender breakdown).      Fan's Gender  male  30%  female  70%                by Devon Smith  16 

The genders behaved slightly differently as well. Men posted more frequently, were more likely  to both “like” and “comment,” and were less likely to be seniors.        Frequency  Activity Type  Age     # Actions  Like  Comment  Both  Student  Regular  Senior  Male  3.2  50%  19%  31%  20%  80%  0%  Female  2.5  61%  26%  13%  27%  64%  9%      The next graph is interesting, but also:  • Far more prone to error  • Based on a visual interpretation of a fan’s profile photo and listed networks (8 fans gave  no indication and were thus excluded)  • Broken down by the industry standard ticketing categories    Fan's Age  Student  24%  Senior  6%  Regular  70%      Again, small differences between the age groups. Students are not more active than others (as  some would expect), Seniors are less likely to “like” a post (and not also comment on it).           Activity Type     # Actions  Like  Comment  Both  Student  2.1  58%  25%  17%  Senior  2.0  0%  66%  34%  Regular  3.1  64%  18%  18%              by Devon Smith  17 

Wrapping up, it would be great to:  • Use Facebook Insights to splice the data over time, and more accurately/quickly  • Deliberately experiment with different modes and intents of content and track user  engagement  • Find if there is a ceiling of activity level which turns (unengaged) fans off  • Identify a way to capture the impact of an original "voice" to theatre's posts    In a nod to the ever‐helpful @kerryisrael, it's also important to keep in mind that:  • Some theatres maintain production specific pages in addition to their 'main page' which  may account for some variance between theatre's activities  • Theatres have the choice to allow fans to engage with their page in different ways  (restricting certain activities) and may have very good reasons for doing so  • Since KCRT didn't have any original fan posts (only fans responding to KCRT posts), I  wasn't able to delve much into the different value between the two types of  engagement  • Even if you're saving time with an integrated feed for your blog, twitter, flickr, or  YouTube on your Facebook Fan Page, it's important to keep the conversation going on  Facebook with organic posts, comments, and responses            by Devon Smith  18 

TWITTER    Executive Summary  82% of LORT theatres are on Twitter, following an average of 474 users, and being followed by  an average of 631 users. The median theatre began using Twitter in early March of 2009, and  tweets just less than once per day. In any given week, the average theatre will be mentioned by  11 other users (hereafter referred to as an @mention).   Theatres use of Twitter really took off about a year ago  Twitter User Since  70  60  50  40  30  20  10  0  1‐Jul‐07  28‐Dec‐07  25‐Jun‐08  22‐Dec‐08  20‐Jun‐09  17‐Dec‐09    In that time, theatres have acquired a total of just under 40,000 followers collectively  Followers  <100  11%  1,000+  21%  100‐499  37%  500‐999  31%            by Devon Smith  19 

They have collectively tweeted close to 15,000 times  Tweets  1,000+  3%  <100  500‐999  34%  7%  100‐499  56%    And by rough measure (days in existence/total tweets), tweet about once per day. Although,  it’s likely this significantly undercounts current tweets per day (since it’s common for an  account to lay mostly dormant its first few months).   Tweets per Day  2+  8%  1  26%  <1  66%                  by Devon Smith  20 

And the fans are responding!   @mention per Week  0  21%  50+  1‐9  3%  48%  25‐49  10%  10‐24  18%    The following graph shows the distribution of each of 62 LORT theatre’s efforts (tweets) and  results (# of Followers, @mentions, and listed). The first vertical line measures the top 20% of  activity; this is what we’ll be focusing on. So for example, the top 12 theatres that received  @mentions over a 7‐day period accounted for 72% of all LORT’s @mentions. This comes close  to the commonly found 80/20 Pareto Principle we tend to find in cause & effect events.  Meanwhile, the top 12 theatres accounted for only 42% of lists that a LORT theatre appeared  on.             by Devon Smith  21 

Why is this the case? I think because lists are so new that (as discussed later), number of  followers is the best predictor for number of lists you appear on. However, a small number of  theatres are doing something different to grab user’s attention, and inciting them to  interaction. What are they doing that’s so different? My goal is to discover.   Who are they? The top 3 are quickly becoming the usual suspects: @americanrep (110),  @ACTtheatre (71), @pcsghost (48).   A few caveats: I’ve collected data over the course of a single week—maybe these theatres were  running twitter contests, maybe your theatre was dark that week and didn’t have a lot to talk  about. More importantly, maybe @mentions aren’t the best measure of user engagement…           by Devon Smith  22 

Twitter Index     In order to better understand who the best and the brightest (theatres) were on Twitter, I  created a quick index that valued both demonstrated impact, and best practices in the field.     Category  Points  Notes  @mention    Number of @mentions in the 7 days prior to Oct 27, 2009  0  0  1‐9  10  10‐50  20  50+  30        Followers    As of October 19, 2009   1‐499   0   500‐999   10   1000+   20        Frequency    '=Total tweets/time in existence  <1/day  0  1+/day  20        Total Tweets    As of October 19, 2009  0‐99  0  100‐299  3  300‐999  5  1000+  10        Time in Existence    As of October 19, 2009  less than 1 year  0  1 year +  5        Web Badge Location    Based on cursery search of theatre's website for their Twitter  None  0  username  Other  3  Home Page  5        Twitter  Name     Subjectively based on how closely Twitter username   Non‐Branded  0  matched theatre name and/or web url  Branded  5        Client    Included under the assumption that theatres using desktop  Facebook  0  applications (like TweetDeck) are able to better manage   Web  3  their Twitter presence  Desktop App  5          by Devon Smith  23 

Based on those qualities, here’s how everyone stacked up:    Theatre  Username  Score  Rank  ACT Theatre  ACTtheatre  93  1  Portland Center Stage  pcsghost  83  2  American Repertory Theatre  americanrep  80  3  Arena Stage  arenastage  78  4  Cincinatti Playhouse  CincyPlay  70  5  Manhattan Theatre Club  MTC_NYC  68  6  South Coast Rep  SouthCoastRep  68  6  Laguna Playhouse  Lagunaplayhouse  68  6  Alliance Theatre  alliancetheatre  65  9  Kansas City Rep  KCRep  63  10  Old Globe  TheOldGlobe  63  10  Center Theatre Group  CTGLA  58  12  Huntington Theatre  huntington  58  12  Denver Center PA  DenverCenter  56  14  Trinity Rep  trinityrep  55  15  Roundabout Theatre  RTC_NYC  55  15  Guthrie  GuthrieTheater  54  17  Asolo Rep  AsoloRepTheatre  53  18  Pasadena Playhouse  PasPlayhouse  51  19  Fords Theatre  fordstheatre  48  20  Play Makers Rep  playmakersrep  48  20  Cleveland PlayHouse  ClevePlayHouse  48  20  Florida Stage  floridastage  46  23  Rep Theatre of St. Louis  repstl  45  24  Lincoln Center Theatre  LCTheater  43  25  Milwaukee Rep  MilwRep  43  25  Arizona Theatre Co  ArizonaTheatre  41  27  Seattle Repertory  seattlerep  41  27  Capital Rep NY  CapitalRepNY  40  29  Two Rivers  TwoRiverTheater  36  30  Signature Theatre  sigtheatre  35  31  American Conservatory  ACTSanFrancisco  35  31  Berkeley Rep  berkeleyrep  35  31  Georgia Shakespeare  GAShakespeare  33  34  Actors Theatre Louisville  ATLouisville  33  34  Hartford Stage  HartfordStage  33  34  Goodman Theatre  GoodmanTheatre  33  34  LaJolla Playhouse  ljplayhouse  31  38  Wilma Theatre  TheWilmaTheater  31  38  Arkansas Repertory  TheRep  30  40  Shakespeare Theatre Co  shakespeareindc  28  41          by Devon Smith  24 

Arden Theatre  ArdenTheatreCo  28  41  Intiman Theatre  IntimanTheatre  28  41  CenterStage  CENTERSTAGE_MD  26  44  Alabama Shakes  AlabamaShakes  26  44  San Jose Rep  Sjrep  23  46  McCarter Theatre  mccarter  23  46  Indiana Rep  IRTlive  21  48  Round House   RHT_roundhouse  20  49  Geva Theatre  gevatheatre  18  50  Merrimack Rep  Merrimack_Rep  15  51  People's Light  peopleslight  13  52  Maltz Jupiter  JupiterTheatre  13  52  George Street  georgestreet  13  52  Alley Theatre  club615  13  52  Clarence Brown Theatre Co  clarencebrown  10  56  Syracuse Stage  syracusestage  8  57  Great Lakes Theatre  GLTFCleveland  8  57  Long Wharf  Long_Wharf  5  59  Virginia Stage  VAStage  5  59  Yale Rep  yaledrama  3  61  Barter Theatre  BarterInsider  0  62                by Devon Smith  25 

Twitter Lists  A relatively new addition to Twitter, I wanted to better understand what the drivers were  behind a theatre being “listed.” The most likely suspects would be:   • engaged users (as measured in number of recent @mentions)   • user network size (as measured in number of followers)   • prolific postings (as measured in number of lifetime tweets)   Of the 59 theatres tweeting, EVERY SINGLE ONE was being followed by at least one list, with the  avearge theatre being followed by 20 lists! Interestingly, @GuthrieTheater has the highest  number listed (71).  Based on the following graphs, It looks like # of followers is the best (single)  predictor of the number of lists following you.              by Devon Smith  26 

Twitter Metrics    So we've seen who (some of) the leaders in the field are, based on my (explicitly subjective)  index. Now let's take a deeper dive into a few cases to see what we can find...    @pcsghost from Portland Center Stage is prolific, experimenting constantly, and has 2,000+  followers. Let's assume that they're a good test case to see how social media best practices can  lead to ROI. First, an admission: I'm a snoop.  I love checking out what other people are doing,  and copying methods and practices. No sense in recreating the wheel right? So, I'm posting  without permission from @pcsghost, and hoping for the best!    Check out this (free, and available to anyone) data from TweetStats:     Monthly average tweets have been growing fairly consistently for over a year now.  I think we  can assume from this that @pcsghost is posting when the theatre's dark, as well as when  there's a show running.  Wonder what was going on in January?                  by Devon Smith  27 

   This is measured in EST, and they're PST, so count backwards by 3 hours for everything. It looks  like Natalie's tweeting when she gets into work, then doing other things for a few hours, and  then ramps up again in the lunchtime hour. Incessent tweeting is exhausting. Beth Kanter has a  great post about how to deal with social media information overload.    Who are these folks that @pcsghost is tweeting with most often? Looks like a few other  portland theatres, their own individual show accounts, and a few thought leaders in the field.  Twitter's not just about connecting with your audience, it's also a great way to faciltate  communication internally, and to learn from peers and other smart folks. Notice that replying  to other tweeters accounts for nearly 1/3 of their activity online!          by Devon Smith  28 

   ReTweeting embodies one of the underlying principles of social media: give and ye shall  receive. When you notice an interesting tweet, and you think your followers might be  interested, ReTweet. Embrace the power of networks‐‐it's called "social" media after all, not  "post‐my‐press‐release" media.    This is a tag cloud of @pcsghost tweets. The bigger & bolder a word is the more often they've  used it. I think tag clouds are most useful as an overview summary to remind me what I've been  talking about lately. It looks like @pcsghost is a fan of portland, tickets, and a few specific  productions. One of the ways followers will find you is by searching for words they're interested  in. In fact, as Google and Bing begin incorporating real time search into their search engines, it  will become ever more important to tag your posts as related to theatre in your city. And don't  forget that url shorteners like bit.ly can help save you valuable characters (instead of  www.blahblahblah.org).                  by Devon Smith  29 

   Xefer shows much the same information at TweetStats, but includes @mentions (replies) in  their analysis. This can help give you some indication of not only when your best tweeting hour  is, but also when you tend to get the most replies. Twitter exists most usefully in real time; if  you find yourself tweeting on saturday afternoon, and no one's responding, your time might be  better spent elsewhere.     Foller.me shows you where your followers are from. Social media's clearly become a global  phenomenon. True, a few of these followers might be spam bots, but most are real people,  who are really interested in what @pcsghost has to say, and has their own network of friends  around the world who might one day be ticket buyers. Especially useful data for those of you  who tour (inter)nationally.            by Devon Smith  30 

   TwitterCounter allows you to compare the follow rate of up to 3 different twits, and gives you a  few nifty tools to predict how many new followers you should be expecting in the upcoming  month. Much in the way that you can match ticket sales graphs to marketing activities,  experiment to see if you can produce spikes in follow rates based on what/when/how you  tweet.                      by Devon Smith  31 

   Ok. So this one's a little out there. Twitalyzer attempts to measure the 5 key metrics they think  are most important on the web. If nothing else, this is a good reminder about some of the  issues you should be thinking about. For now, pay less attention to the raw numbers.            by Devon Smith  32 

Using American Repertory Theatre to Track @mentions  Twitter has many uses, not all of them right for everybody; Brand Espresso describes them as:  1. Public Relations  2. Customer Service  3. Loyalty Building  4. Collaboration  5. Networking  6. Thought Leadership  7. Customer Acquisition    Since @americanrep has been generating a ton of @mentions, I wanted to delve a little deeper.  First, a review of the past 9 days.     This is a graph of the past 9 days of activity by @americanrep.  It was an unfortunately time  intensive process, and per usual, subjective. Here's the criteria I tried to use:   • RT: @americanrep retweeting someone else's tweet. In almost all cases, those (original)  tweets mention @americanrep.   • Response: @americanrep and someone else having a conversation. At times, difficult to  distinguish from the RT.   • Commentary: @americanrep talking about internal goings on (staff meetings), non‐ theatre events (happy halloween), or similar.   • Promotion: @americanrep promoting their show, or offering links to additional  photos/video   • FollowFriday: @americanrep recommending folks to follow.   What do we learn? @americanrep is doing GREAT work at facilitating a two way conversation,  not just broadcasting ticket discounts.           by Devon Smith  33 

   Same idea, now applied to a search of "@americanrep." Slightly different criteria:   • RT: someone RT one of @americanrep's post. Often this was one of the Promotion posts  above.   • Response: someone tweeting back and forth with @americanrep.   • Mention: someone tweeting about @americanrep (who then uses this great  opportunity to reach out to folks)   • FollowFriday: someone recommending to their followers to follow @americanrep. In  most cases, this was another theatre   What do we learn? There's a whole lot of folks out there just chatting about ART with their  online network. Talk about an incredibly rich opportunity for direct marketing!     Overall @americanrep is tweeting about 10+ times per day, driven primarily by interactions  with other tweeps.          by Devon Smith  34 

   Matching these two graphs over an extended period of time could tell us some pretty  interesting things. For example, @americanrep is seeing an explosion of responses on  November 5 because of a question they asked their followers: What's your favorite  Shakespeare play? Depending on what your goals are for using Twitter, this can be a great way  to get your brand in front of a bunch of eyeballs (not only the people who follow you, but their  followers too), and engage your followers in topics that interest them.          So here's where things have the potential to get really interesting. This graphs daily tweets by  @americanrep versus to or about @americanrep. On most days, you would expect the line to  match up (for a company that's trying to really engage online). On days where the blue line is  above the red, it might feel like you're talking to the ether. In this case, a lack of chatter on  Halloween makes a lot of sense. On days when the red line is above the blue, you're getting          by Devon Smith  35 

good traction on something; the key will be figuring out what that is...in today's case‐‐duh! The  Shakespeare question.     Now that we've seen the numbers, back to my original intent...     public relations     customer service        loyalty building      Collaboration           by Devon Smith  36 

   Networking      Thought Leadership        Customer Acquisition      Final thoughts: I'm starting to think about if #FF (Follow Friday) tags should be included in my  Twitter Index as a measure of influence. Certainly if other folks are recommending you to their  followers, you're doing something right. Also, someone needs to build a tool (and quick!) that  counts tweets and sorts them into various buckets. Seriously folks, I'm a full time student. Who  else is going to have the time or patience to hand count this stuff??            by Devon Smith  37 

YOUTUBE    Executive Summary  • Only 9 LORT theatres don’t have their own YouTube channel  • Viewers engage almost entirely on the “per video” basis rather than on a theatre’s  YouTube channel  • On average, theatres have uploaded 28 videos to their channel  • Videos don’t have to be short, include production footage, or be about a musical to be  incredibly popular  • Men age 45‐54 were the single largest demographic watching the Top 20 (most  watched) videos  • Related videos are the top referral sources for the Top 20 videos  • The vast majority of views occur more than 2 months after the video has been posted  (somewhere in the neighborhood of 80%)      First, a little perspective on online videos: According to Comscore, 84.4% of U.S. Internet users  watched at least one online video in October 2009, and the average person watched 10.8 hours  of video for the month. Facebook’s unique viewers rose by 25% from the month prior, while  everyone else’s viewership was relatively flat. Overall:    October 2009 (Comscore)  140,000  90  80  120,000  70  Unique Viewers (000)  Videos per Viewer  100,000  60  80,000  50  60,000  40  30  40,000  20  20,000  10  0  0                by Devon Smith  38 

As of December 1, 2009: 88% of LORT theatres have their own YouTube channel. Georgia  Shakespeare was the first theatre on board, and City Theatre is the most recent. The latter half  of 2007 and the early half of 2009 were particularly busy times for theatres to enter the world  of online video.     (LORT) Theatres on YouTube  70  60  50  40  30  20  10  0  4‐Apr‐06  4‐Apr‐07  4‐Apr‐08  4‐Apr‐09        The average theatre has 27 subscribers to their channel, while Center Theatre Group, Denver  Center Theatre, and the Roundabout Theatre all have more than 100 subscribers.     Subscribers per Theatre  100+  5%  0‐9  34%  50‐99  18%  10‐49  43%              by Devon Smith  39 

The average theatre’s channel page (the repository for all of those videos) has been viewed  1,770 times, with Portland Center Stage and Arena Stage having the highest number of views.   Channel Views per Theatre  0‐999  49%  6,000+  3%  1,000‐1,999  19%  4,000‐5,999  2,000‐3,999  11%  18%        The average theatre has uploaded 28 videos to their channel, with Denver Center, Ford’s,  Huntington, McCarter, and Portland Center Stage being the most prolific.   Uploaded Videos per Theatre  100+  2%  0‐9  34%  50‐99  15%  10‐49  49%              by Devon Smith  40 

Channel comments were virtually non‐existent for most theatre (on average less than 1, at  most 7). This leads me to believe that users aren’t engaging at the channel (brand) level, but  rather on individual videos. However, subscribers seem to have a more concentrated impact on  channel views than number of uploads (thought both are positively correlated).     Drivers of Channel Views  120  100  80  60  Uploads  40  Subscribers  20  0  0  1000  2000  3000  4000  5000  6000  7000  Channel Views        So, let’s take a closer look at individual videos. The top 5 most popular videos for each theatre  averaged a total of 14,622 views, or just under 3,000 views per video. Center Theatre Group,  with nearly 110,000 views won nearly twice as many “Top 5 Videos” views as their next most  popular colleagues at ART.     Top 5 Videos' Views  50K+  7%  <5K  15‐50K  39%  24%  5‐15K  30%              by Devon Smith  41 

Out of those 335 videos (67 theatres x top 5 videos from each), I more closely examined the top  20. There were 11 theatres represented in the Top 20:    # Videos in Top 20  Roundabout  (1)  ART (4)  St. Louis (1)  CTG (3)  Berkeley (1)  Cleveland  Arena (1)  (2)  Alabama (1)  SCR  LCT (2)  (2)  PCS (2)        And the actual number of views per video:  Views for Top 20  The Color Purple Opening Night in LA  South Paci_ic Video Montage  Next to Normal  Jersey Boys Opening Night in LA  Cabaret: Storm Large TV Spot  American Idiot‐the Trailer  The Donkey Show Promo  Curtains Commerical for the New Broadway  A Christmas Carol Trailer  About the Ritz  Fences by August Wilson  The Glass Menagerie at the Cleveland  Sleep No More Production Photos  Adapting Oliver Twist for the Stage  The Importance of Being Earnest  The History Boys  Culture Clash in America  Mike Daisey Audience Protest  Noises Off at the Cleveland Playhouse  South Paci_ic Tony Performance   ‐      10,000  20,000  30,000  40,000  50,000  60,000                 But here’s where I ran into a bit of a problem. These 20 videos don’t have a whole lot in  common, and certainly nothing clearly distinguishes them from (for example) the least watched  20 videos of the sample.             by Devon Smith  42 

One of the most common rules of thumb I’ve heard is that in order for a video to be  “watchable,” it has to be short. But nearly 1/3 of these Top 20 were longer than 3 minutes:  Video Length  <1 min  >3 min  20%  30%  1‐3 min  50%        More words of wisdom: “videos have to be about xyz.” Even though 60% of the Top 20  constituted what I considered “Trailers” (clips of a show with a call to action to buy tickets), that  probably under represents the percentage of all theatres’ videos posted which are trailers.   Video Type  Audience  Response  5%  Slideshow  5%  Trailer  News Clip  60%  10%  Interviews  20%              by Devon Smith  43 

Nobody would watch a video about a play, right? Wrong again. Although it is worthwhile to  note that every video in the Top 20 was directly tied to a production.     Production Genre  Musical  45%  Play  55%        Maybe these videos were all just produced a long time ago and views have been accumulating?  Nope. But we will return to this idea momentarily for further investigation.     Video Upload Date   60,000    50,000    40,000   Total Views   30,000    20,000    10,000    ‐     1‐Jul‐06  17‐Jan‐07 5‐Aug‐07  1‐Feb‐08 8‐Sep‐08  7‐Mar‐09  2 2 13‐Oct‐09              by Devon Smith  44 

Only young people watch videos on YouTube, so why bother? Actually, 2/3 of viewers are over  45:    Age Demos for Top 20 Videos  18‐24  55‐64  13‐17  2%  17%  15%  25‐34  4%  35‐44  16%  45‐54  46%        It’s long been noted that women dominate both the theatre going audience, and the ticket  buying decisions. But apparently, YouTube is a pretty good way to reach men:    Gender Demos for Top 20 Videos  Female  43%  Male  57%      Note that in general, men tend to dominate the online video watching population, so this graph  isn’t all that surprising. Folks interested in watching online video about theatre seems fairly  representative of the general online population.             by Devon Smith  45 

In fact, Males age 45‐54 are the largest single demographic of these Top 20 videos. Could it be  that partners/spouses are using video to convince these men to attend the theatre with them?    Demos for Top 20 Videos  Female 18‐24 Male 13‐17  2%  2%  Male 45‐54  Male 25‐34  28%  4%  Female  Female 55‐64  45‐54  4%  18%  Female 35‐44  5%  Male  55‐64  Male 35‐44  13%  Female 13‐17  11%  13%        How are all of these people finding these videos? 1/3 of the time simply as people browse other  videos on YouTube (meaning the more content you have online, the more likely someone will  happen upon your video), and ¼ of the time viewers are watching the video on a site other than  YouTube (so it’s important to embed videos on your theatre’s website, and your other social  media sites).     Source of Views  Viewed on channel  page  1%  Related video  View from mobile  33%  device  Embedded  1%  on other  Referral from other  site  site  26%  4%  Google search  YouTube  7%  search  20%  Other/viral  8%            by Devon Smith  46 

One of the most surprising things I noticed was that the vast majority of views occurs far after  the video is first posted. So what’s the value in a video with 50,000 views if 40,000 of them  occur after the production has closed? My guess is increased brand awareness for the theatre,  and exposure to potential new audiences.     These later views may also be the case of “mistaken identity,” (for example, I might be  searching for a different theatre’s production with the same name).     Nearly every video’s viewership over time followed the same linear relationship:       Finally, viewers are in fact engaging more with individual videos as compared to the channel as  a whole. On average:  • 17 comments per video (ART’s Mike Daisey tops at 96)  • 39 favorites (Arena’s Next to Normal tops at 169)  • 18 ratings (again, Next to Normal tops at 63)  • 4.64 stars (only 1 video had less than a 4 star rating)                by Devon Smith  47 

MYSPACE    I was all prepared not to research theatres use of MySpace. All indicators point to the (quick)  decline of MySpace’s importance in the Social Media realm. Since the purpose of all of this  research is to inform Yale Rep’s ongoing social media strategy, it didn’t make a lot of sense to  spend time on a dying platform.      And then someone (wish I could give a hat tip to somebody specific, but that particular tweet  has been lost to the twitterspere), reminded me that compared to other social media  platforms, MySpace is younger, less white, and less well‐off. Weren’t those just the kinds of  audience diversity measures theatres have been looking for? Could MySpace turn out to be THE  place to reach these folks?     What I found:  • Only 8% of theatres logged into MySpace sometime in the past week  • Only 4% of theatres with MySpace pages had fans commenting sometime in the past  week  • The average theatre gets the same number of comments on Facebook (or @mentions  on Twitter) in a week as they do over the entire life of their MySpace page  • Facebook and Twitter both have larger (theatre) fan communities than MySpace  • Number of MySpace friends is not an indicator for number of Facebook fans, Twitter  followers, or YouTube subscribers    So I started digging. Facebook surpassed MySpace in terms of unique visitors over a year ago.  Since then, even Twitter is approaching MySpace’s decreasing size (compete.com)                by Devon Smith  48 

So how many theatres are still using MySpace? If by “using,” you mean logged in sometime in  the past week (an eternity in social media time), less than 8%. However, nearly 50% of LORT  theatres have logged in sometime in 2009.     Last Logged into MySpace  Last  month  No MySpace  14%  page  32%  1‐3 months  17%  earlier  2009  2006  17%  7%  2007  2008  5%  8%      How does this compare to the MySpace friends? The last time they left a “comment” (and for  the benefit of the doubt, I’m including spammy comments in here too):    Last Comment Posted  Last  month  13%  No comments  1‐3  2006  23%  months  2%  15%  2007  4%  earlier 2009  2008  24%  19%              by Devon Smith  49 

But fans were never all that engaged by (theatres on) MySpace. Over the entire lifetime of a  theatre’s MySpace page, nearly ¾ of theatres failed to get at least 50 comments.     Fan's Lifetime Comment Volume  0  100+  23%  17%  50‐99  14%  1‐49  46%      But wait—this isn’t a condemnation of theatres. Newer Social Media platforms have figured out  more and better ways for fans to engage on a company’s page, fans are more interested in  commenting, and theatres are doing a better job at engaging fans.     On the following graph, the outside ring is MySpace, the middle ring is Facebook, and the inner  ring is Twitter. But the key to interpretation is that these comments happened over 1 WEEK in  Facebook and Twitter, compared to YEARS on MySpace.      Not only are comments more voluminous on Facebook and Twitter, but they’re also more  valuable—by showing up in Facebook’s NewsFeed, and Twitter’s public stream.   Comments  100+  50‐99  1‐49  0            by Devon Smith  50 

I was surprised to find substantial communities of fans on theatre’s MySpace pages.  Of those  that still had a MySpace page, 15% had more than 1,000 fans (though they weren’t necessarily  among the usual suspects from top performing Facebook and Twitter using theatres).     MySpace Fans  1000+  15%  <100  35%  500‐999  19%  100‐499  31%      Building a community of 1,000 fans is nothing to sneeze at. But these days, Twitter and  Facebook both outpace MySpace in terms of (theatre) fan community size. As before, MySpace  is the outer ring, Facebook is the middle ring, and Twitter is the inner ring.     The average theatre on MySpace has less than 100 fans, while on Twitter they have 100‐499,  and on Facebook more than 500. But even Twitter has more theatres with very large follower  bases (1000+) than MySpace.     Friends/Fans/Followers  1000+  500‐999  100‐499  <100            by Devon Smith  51 

Much like we’ve seen on other social media platforms, the size of your community is a good  indication of the volume of engagement you can find on your site. These are likely mutually  reinforcing principles (more fans leads to more comments which lead to more fans).     Friends Drive Comments  200  180  160  140  Comments  120  100  80  60  40  20  0  0  500  1000  1500  2000  2500  Friends    A note about the one theatre with very few friends and a whole lot of comments—I checked.  Those comments were almost entirely spambots.     So after all of that, who’s still logging in? Unsurprisingly, it’s those theatres with the most  friends. Those friends are more likely to continue leaving comments, which drives theatres to  log in to their pages to check comments.     Who's Still Logging in?  2000  1800  1600  1400  Friends  1200  1000  800  600  400  200  0  Jan‐06  Jun‐06  Dec‐06  Jun‐07  Dec‐07  Jun‐08  Dec‐08  Jun‐09  Dec‐09  Theatre Last Logged In              by Devon Smith  52 

My conclusions: I think there’s not a lot of fan engagement on MySpace because there’s not a  lot to DO on MySpace.  On Facebook, I can upload photos and video, I can share interesting  articles, and I can play an endless number of games and quizzes.  I can’t do any of that on  MySpace.  On Twitter, I can stalk anyone I want (with a public profile), I can comment on  organizations/products/people without having to “friend” them, and I can listen in on others  commenting on the same. I can’t do any of that on MySpace.     So the question becomes: what’s your exit strategy if you’ve got a solid presence on MySpace  (I’m looking at you Virginia Stage, and Center Theatre Group)—meaning:   • you’ve logged in sometime in the past month  • at least one of your friends made a comment on your page in the past month  • you’ve got more than 1,000 fans  • your fans have commented more than 100 times on your page    It’s long been my hypothesis that one of the most important reasons for a theatre to be using a  social media platform, is so that they understand how to best take advantage of the next  platform that comes around. So the question about whether Twitter is going to take off like  Facebook, or go the way of Friendster is irrelevant; what’s more interesting (and strategic) is to  experiment on Twitter now, and use what you’ve learned to build an even better community  when the Twitter of tomorrow launches.      In theory, it should be the case that a theatre that was good at building a community on  MySpace should be good at building a community on Facebook.  If the audiences were  relatively similar (mass market, began with the youngs, expanded older), if the content posted  was relatively similar (predominately text based), and if theatres were learning as they go.  But  that doesn’t seem to be the case.     The number of friends a theatre has on MySpace has no predictive power over how many  Twitter followers, Facebook fans, or YouTube subscribers they have. What’s the deal?  Do Communities Travel?   4,000    3,500    3,000    2,500    2,000    1,500    1,000    500    ‐     0  500  1000  1500  2000  Facebook  Twitter  YouTube  MySpace Friends              by Devon Smith  53 

FLICKR  In October, the 4 billionth photo was uploaded to Flickr. Impressive. But Facebook users upload  2.5 billion photos to that site every month. Traditionally, the quality and purpose of photos on  these two social media platforms are pretty different.  Except if you’re a theatre.     There’s a few great posts I’ve run across that describe how other non profits are using Flickr:  http://bit.ly/5mF5DU  1. The Houston Ballet: Giving Fans a “Backstage Pass”  2. MassMOCA: Adding Dimensions to Current Programming  3. The Luce Foundation Center for American Art: Using Flickr for Crowdsourcing Decisions    And some best practices from a recent TechSoup chat; http://bit.ly/57DgKB  1. Upload 4‐5 images at a time (instead of 30+)  2. Focus on quality, not quantity  3. Time of day you upload has a correlation with how many contacts will ultimately view  your photos  4. Cross reference your photos in blogs and other platforms  5. Having a presence on Flickr means viewing others’ photos as well as posting your own    Flickr’s search engine is a little tricky, but from what I could find, only 1/3 of LORT theatres are  using Flickr. They’ve collectively uploaded close to 4,000 photos to the site.     # Photos  0  5%  <50  11%  50‐200  9%  200+  No Flickr  9%  66%                      by Devon Smith  54 

Of those theatres using Flickr, more than ½ have no Flickr contacts; meaning, Flickr is probably  being used as a repository of photos rather than an opportunity for a truly social engagement.     Contacts  10+  23%  0  54%  <10  23%        But Flickr users can find photos through 3 other methods as well:  • Favorites (outer ring, 19% with)—when you favorite someone else’s page, they’re more  likely to check out your photos  • Groups (middle ring, 27% with)—joining a group creates more frequent and  concentrated opportunities for engagement  • Tags (inner ring, 62% with)—ensures that anyone searching Flickr for your terms might  happen upon your photo    Searchability  Yes  No              by Devon Smith  55 

Theatres have been joining Flickr for the past 3 years, with early 2009 ushering in a renewed  interest in the site.     Theatres on Flickr   30    25    20    15    10    5    ‐     May‐07  Nov‐07  May‐09  Sep‐06  Jan‐07  Mar‐07  Jul‐07  Sep‐07  Sep‐08  Jan‐09  Mar‐09  Jul‐09  Sep‐09  Jul‐06  Jul‐08  Mar‐06  Mar‐08  Nov‐06  Nov‐08  May‐06  May‐08  Jan‐08      Theatres who’ve had Flickr memberships for more than a year do tend to have a higher number  of photos posted (although remember that quality > quantity on Flickr).     # Photos  700  600  500  400  300  200  100  0  Jan‐06  Jun‐06  Dec‐06  Jun‐07  Dec‐07  Jun‐08  Dec‐08  Jun‐09  Dec‐09  Member Since      As I’ve mentioned previously, not every Social Media platform is worth the effort. Flickr may  just be a good place to store photos that can be embedded on websites elsewhere, or a  convenient place to send out press materials.  Several theatres had Flickr profiles used by their  scenic/props departments, but only 1 theatre really stood out to me as being a particularly avid  user: Portland Center Stage.   • Member since August, 2007          by Devon Smith  56 

• Uploaded 596 photos into 45 different sets  • 136 contacts  • Member of 25 groups  • Photos include everything from production shots, to season artwork, to education  events.    With the vast majority of theatres prohibiting the taking of photos inside the theatre (per union  regs), it’s hard to imagine fans uploading many of their own production photos to a theatre’s  group profile. But I could imagine a case where a theatre would:  • Ask fans to contribute photos that remind them of the current show (Christmas family  photos for A Christmas Carol?)  • Send fans on a photo scavenger hunt   • Use photos to sell or rent costume/set/props pieces to other theatres  • Use photos to promote gala auction items to donors  • Ask fans to provide insight on early design drawings/images  • Use a Flickr group for internal collaboration/sharing of staff’s lives outside of the office    My problem with most of these potential opportunities is that it would probably be easier to  coordinate and drive traffic on Facebook rather than Flickr.     So I’ve yet to find a really good indication that Yale Rep (my true client for all of these reports)  should spend time and effort trying to build a following on Flickr. Has anyone out there found a  compelling case for theatre audiences (or other constituents) wanting to engage on a photo  sharing site?              by Devon Smith  57 

BLOGS    I’m finding blogs a bit more challenging to wrap my head around, compared to theatres use of  Twitter and Facebook. Even after reading the excellent “Say Everything: How Blogging Began,  Where it’s Headed, and Why it Matters,” it’s unclear to me why a potential audience member  would be dedicated enough to a particular theatre to want to read about them on a regular  basis.  Personally, I depend on blogs for deeper insights into topics I’m interested in, rather than  an affiliation for a particular organization.     None‐the‐less, I forged ahead to see what I could discover. Unfortunately, there were so few  user comments per post across all theatres that it didn’t even make sense to keep track of  them. Almost always, no one’s commenting. Occasionally, 1‐2 respond to a post. I have no way  of knowing how many RSS subscribers any theatre blog has, but it’s hard to imagine it’s  anywhere close to the number of Facebok Fans (or even Twitter followers) many of these  theatres already have. A spot check of google confirmed that very few other bloggers are  linking back to these theatre blogs.     So what’s the point? Good question. I’m baffled.     But I was able to find 38 LORT theatres that believe enough in it to continue posting.  The  earliest LORT theatre blogs (that I could find at least) date back to August, 2005 (Virginia Stage).  Intriguingly, 2009 seems to have brought a renewed interest to blogging—see how steep the  line gets beginning last fall.      LORT Blogs Online  35  30  25  20  15  10  5  0  Nov‐05  Nov‐07  Nov‐09  Aug‐05  Feb‐07  May‐07  Aug‐07  Feb‐09  May‐09  Aug‐09  Feb‐06  Feb‐08  Nov‐06  Nov‐08  Aug‐06  Aug‐08  May‐06  May‐08    note: 5 blogs did not include an Archive or did not list dates and are thus not included in the  timeline.                 by Devon Smith  58 

How long ago a theatre began blogging gives no indication to how frequently it was updated in  November—showing that it’s possible to sustain efforts over many years, and ramp up quickly  even in the early days of blogging.     Do Older/Newer Blogs Post More  Frequently?  25  November Posts  20  15  10  5  0  Jul‐05  Dec‐05 Jun‐06 Dec‐06 Jun‐07 Dec‐07 Jun‐08 Dec‐08 Jun‐09  Founding Date      While frequent posting is usually considered best practice in the social media world, only half of  all theatre blogs were updated once a week or more in November. Portland Center Stage and  Arena Stage posted on average once per (business) day.       November Blog Posts (LORT)  10+  11%  4‐9  14%  No blog  1‐3  50%  14%  0  11%      There was quite a wide variety of bloggers posting for theatres.  The most popular option was  for each post to come from a different staff member or guest artist. This likely decreases the  workload for each blogger, and gives the audience fresh insights into many different realms of  the theatre, but tends to be a challenge to coordinate scheduling and content.           by Devon Smith  59 

The second most popular choice was for the marketing or communications office to drive posts.  While a few theatres fell victim to the “use my press releases as blog content” syndrome, by  and large these staff members did a good job using an original online voice with interesting  content.     Whoever was writing, their job title tended to be a good indicator of the topics they were  writing about. Artists gave an inside look into life backstage and in the shop, dramaturges gave  posts a literary bent, and interns included a quirky peek at the inner workings of theatre  administration.  Similar to founding dates, there was no correlation between who was posting,  and how often they were posting.     Posts Written Mostly By  Education  3%  Interns  Unknown  Artistic  3%  32%  Leadership  5%  Literary  5%  Different for  every post  Resident  24%  Artists  10%  Marketing Staff  18%      One of the first choices a theatre must make when beginning their blog is where to host the  content: integrated with their own website, or instead with a dedicated blogging platform.     Blog Hosted On  Blogger  3%  Tumblr  2%  Wordpress  Own Website  5%  66%  Blogspot  24%            by Devon Smith  60 

A few final observations:   • As with Twitter and Facebook, an alarming number of theatres don’t link to their blog  from anywhere on their website, much less in an easily findable spot on their home  page. Why why why.   • 1/3 of blogging theatres also integrated their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Flickr  feeds into their blogs. The experts (well, Mashable) says this increases user  engagement. I think it makes the blog look cluttered. Decide for yourself.   • Denver Center for the Performing Arts allowed a fan to guest post on their blog (though  a little deeper digging seems to suggest the post was originally written for a college  newspaper?). At any rate, getting your audience to deliver a passionate explanation of  why they absolutely love an upcoming show—talk about awesome user engagement.   • Actors Theatre of Louisville has a pretty stellar looking blog (confession: I interned there  two years ago, so I might be a little biased). There’s a dedicated section for audience  reactions, they link to other staff and guest artists’ blogs, the props department has  their own Flickr feed, all posts are tagged and archived in a logical way, and most  importantly the posts have real personality. Nice work apprentices & interns.                 by Devon Smith  61 

SOCIAL MEDIA STAFFING    LORT Theatres on average are using the equivalent of just under 1 full time staff member to  engage in social media. The most interesting findings:  • Total time spent on social media platforms and preparation range from 1‐142 hours per  week.   • As we’ve seen previously, theatres are spending the most time and effort on Facebook  and Twitter  • Theatres are spending more time learning about social media than measuring their  impact in it.   • New customer acquisition is the most popular goal of social media    There are important caveats here:  • These hours are probably spread between several staff members  • The 9.5 hours being used to “create material” would probably be happening anyway,  even if a theatre weren’t to be using social media  • The theatres most likely to respond to this survey are likely heavier than average users  of social media    Social Media Weekly StafZing Hours  20  18   1.3, Other   16   1.2, Flickr   14   2.9   YouTube   1.7  Measuring   12   2.9   2.7  Blog   Learning   10  8   4.4  Twitter   6   9.5  Creating  4  Material    4.8  2  Facebook   0            by Devon Smith  62 

There was of course variability among respondents, so it’s valuable to identify the ranges of  hours spent each week on each activity. The following graph says for example that while 100%  of respondents use Facebook, less than 60% use Flickr. These response levels match relatively  well the overall field’s use of each of these platforms.     Interesting to note that more theatres spend more time learning about social media than  measuring their impact in it. Additionally, more theatres use YouTube than blogs, but more  time is spent on overage on blogs than YouTube.     Percent of Respondents Using  100%  80%  60%  40%  20%  0%      This next graph is a little more complicated. The red bars show the range of activity for the  middle 50% of theatres. The green line shows the average time spent by those who spend time.  So for example, most theatres spend between 2‐5 hours per week on Facebook. Of those  theatres that use Facebook, on average 4.2 hours are spent per week.     When the green line is above the red boxes, there are a few theatres spending much more time  than the rest of the population on that activity.             by Devon Smith  63 

Social Media Weekly StafZing Hours  10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1  0  Low  Average      Only 3 theatres have a staff person working (the equivalent of) at least half‐time strictly on  social media platforms. Also interesting to note the variance of ratio of time spent on these  sites (platform) to the time spent creating material, learning, and measuring (preparation).     Total Weekly Social Media Hours  0  20  40  60  80  100  120  140  Platforms  Preparation          by Devon Smith  64 

Now for the qualitative findings.     As I’ve shared previously, Espresso Marketing fabulously enumerated potential uses of social  media in their presentation ‘What the F**K is Social Media’ as:  1. Public relations  2. Customer service  3. Loyalty building  4. Collaboration  5. Networking  6. Thought leadership  7. Customer acquisition    Unsurprisingly, theatres are most interested in the revenue generating aspects of social media.  But several theatres are also using social media for further afield purposes like volunteer  outreach, audience research, customer service, and thought leadership.     What are your major goals for social media?  New customer acquisition  Brand/product awareness  Engagement  Customer service  Strengthen connections  Audience research  Ticket sales  Experimenting  Building loyalty  Fundraising  Turning customers into advocates  Thought Leadership  Volunteer outreach  0  2  4  6  8  10  12  Mentions  First mention    Note that the coding of these answers was subjective, and likely swayed by the actual wording  of my question: What are your major goals in using social media? (customer acquisition,  fundraising, customer service, internal collaboration, thought leadership, just experimenting,  etc.)         by Devon Smith  65 

There just wasn’t any other way to describe the following responses other than to list them.   The stories of successes and failures are both incredibly useful—social media isn’t  instantaneous, doesn’t work in every situation, is not a cure all, and can be used for a wide  variety of purposes.  I thought some of the most interesting insights were:  • Value of empowering dialogue between audience members  • Importance of analyzing “fit” between theatre and social media platform  • Staff engagement as a measure of success  • “With social media we have been able to cut down our marketing budget and reach  nearly the same amount of individuals.”  • “We track social media participation though audience surveys.”  • “Enhancing our own website with video improves the sites placement on search  engines”    6.  How have you been able to demonstrate the value of social media to others in your  theatre? What do you measure? How do you define success? What's changed at your theatre  since you've begun using social media?   Text Response  We have had some success showing the value given the positive responses from others to what  we have been doing. We want to measure qualitative success as well as quantitative (what they  are saying, not just how many are talking).  Success is being shown by the dialogue we are  having with our community, and even the dialogues I see them having with each other ‐ it  shows an investment in our work. Since we've begun using SM we've allowed phones in one of  our spaces ‐ tweeting during the show.  It's radically changed the atmosphere, and is a great  way to engage people in a different manner.  working on it  we have seen some success in sales by tracking with promo codes, but it's still early in our  efforts be able to see significant effects  Currently, we define success by raw stats ‐ how many people viewed our profile, RT'd use,  mentioned us in tweets, how many views videos have received, how many comments posts  have received. We judge this against ourselves and other cultural orgs of similar size.  Social  media, combined with other efforts, has increased the amount of younger adults in our  theatres.  We have also noticed, through patron comments, that patrons feel more connected  and engaged with what goes on behind the curtain.  Our Artistic Director acknowledges that  social media supports our mission as it engages audiences.  not yet....just starting out  I do not measure the value since our efforts are limited on this subject. I do measure the ticket  sales and survey the audience so I know how they are hearing about us. Not much has changed.  We are now more available to communicate with the public in a one on one situation, e‐mail  blasts are most popular, we gained a younger audience by launching the FB, and Twitter but  still need more friends.          by Devon Smith  66 

I don't knwo that we can call it a success just yet.  We have just over 400 fans.  We've tried  offering a rush ticket if they call at a particular time ("For 2 hours we have 20 tickets available at  $20 each!"), but that's gone nowhere. However, we did market a bus trip to NYC to see a play  and we were able to fill half the bus without even sending an email out to our email  subscribers.  I think it's good that we have a presence on Facebook, but I wouldn't throw all my  marketing into the social media basket.  The community we're in is a little odd and buys last  minute as well as still "listening" to the local newspaper.  I've stopped using my personal  MySpace account and never found it to be a good fit with our theatre. Twitter is still new and  I'm not sure that it too is a good fit.  Plus, I'm a marketing/PR office of one, so my time is  already stretched to the max. If we had more marketing support I would consider using social  media more.  Other than the number of fans on facebook and the number of views of our videos on youtube,  the results are somewhat anecdotal. Nothing has really changed at the theatre as of yet ‐ just  one more thing to do marketing‐wise.  The first measure was last year when we sold a large number of Rufus Wainwright tickets  thanks to Facebook. This season we noticed a large bump in ticket sales when we posted  Yamato Drummers on Facebook and Twitter. Most recently, we got a lot of attention for our  upcoming world premiere of Fetch Clay, Make Man when we posted on Twitter. These are just  a few examples of success but we also measure it by the number of people commenting, re‐ tweeting and generally engaging. This season we have tripled our interactions on Facebook.  Not quite sure what success means yet. Just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks!  I think our followers are growing, and our staff is becoming more engaged in providing this  content ‐ and that to me means success to a certain degree.  Our theater has a larger number of "under‐30" patrons than most others. We attribute this, in  part, to our social media efforts. Our email list, facebook fans, Twitter & blog follower seems to  increase proportionately with our efforts and skills.  Don't really have to "sell it" ‐ they get it! We have a great network of FB people here who all  pick up our posts and re‐post to their own sites.     I measure success by how much interaction  occurs on the site. I'm pretty please with "likes" and comments. Would like to see more patrons  posting their own items.  Record online ticket sales for one show with strong Facebook interaction.  Measure all  interactions on Facebook, and RT's, @replies and mentions on Twitter.  We have become much  more responsive to the immediate thoughts of our patrons.  It has also provided an avenue for  patrons to market our shows to their friends and share views and feedback of productions.  We've focused most heavily on our Twitter presence at this point. We've tracked success based  on retweets, direct messages and new followers.  Success is extremely difficult to measure, but we have some tools to assist.  One is watching the  growth in friends and followers and making sure it is constantly increasing.  We also use Google  Analytics that shows us that patons follow our links to our website to learn more about our  shows, read our blog, etc.  We also use Hootsuite to create links for our tweets.  This tool allows  us to view how many people actually clicked on our link.          by Devon Smith  67 

We have been able to demonstrate the value through events, and ad campaigns on twitter and  facebook, that have brought in a much broader demographic to shows that may not have been  selling as heavily through Washington Post or other ads. Before this year and the start of our  social media campaign we never had an online presence. With social media we have been able  to cut down our marketing budget and reach nearly the same amount of individuals. Also our  demographic and interest through contests and events has changed and we have expanded to  a much wider audience. It's hard to define success in social media as there are a lot of hit or  misses with some of the projects we have launched. However, I would say our success is  defined by buzz. If we can have people tweeting, writing status posts, wall posts and comments  about Ford's and their experience than we have done our job in getting the word out there and  keeping it fresh and exciting.  I like to measure success in terms of conversations. How many posts, retweets, comments do  we get each week? I don't hold much value in how many Twitter followers we have, I search for  mentions. Facebook fans, however, can be a far more engaged audience. They also seem to  know who we are versus our Twitter followers.     What has changed at our theatre since using  social media ‐ internal awareness, realizing employees can contribute in their own way to the  profile of the Play House. I schedule more time to attend rehearsals to get actor footage (with  their permission), I take the camera everywhere and staff knows the pictures can end up on the  Internet (those who don't want to participate aren't made to). Who or what is being said on  Facebook is brought up in a meeting or in conversation between staff members.  We have promo codes that track sales via social media. We track, retweets, followers, fans, etc  via site metrics. We track social media participation though audience surveys.  It's still very much a work in progress. We're experimenting to see what works and doesn't.  We're starting to set some goals for numbers of followers/fans etc. Ultimately, I think we see  this as a way of engaging our audience and making them feel like part of a community. That, we  hope, will pay off in the long term, but we're not expecting our social media efforts to drive  ticket sales in the short term.  The value is not easily measured, but we see spikes in sales when there is a great deal of  interaction through our social media sites.  We also hear a lot more about ourselves and our  productions out in the community when we are in the midst of a heavy campaign.    What's  changed?  I think our audiences are more receptive to us and what we do because of social  media.  They feel like they are now part of our community and have access to the process of  making theatre.  Yes, I have been able to demonstrate the value of social media. We measure fans and followers  on Facebook and Twitter, video views on YouTube, and reviews on Yelp. On Facebook we also  monitor fan interaction, fan demographics, photo views, video views and likes. We also  advertise on FB and we track ad click‐throughs and ticket purchases with our FB ad codes. We  define success anytime a fan interacts with us via social media and are especially excited when  it translates to a new person experiencing theater. Administratively we've dedicated more  hours to researching and implementing social media practices, we've been able to interact with  our patrons and people in our community more than ever, we've begun tagging social media  logos in print material and we have integrated social media into our marketing plans.          by Devon Smith  68 

Thus far, only Facebook has been demonstrably successful, and that primarily at disseminating  information.  This is a difficult medium to show ROI on, as for us it has been more successful  (anecdotally) in building buzz than in driving ticket sales.  We demonstrate value and define success by interaction, ie when we have comments on posts.  We also find our social media usage to be successful when people mention to us offline that  they've noticed and enjoyed our work. Though we can't completely measure it, we feel that our  audience has a better understanding now of the innerworkings of the organization now that we  are using social media.    I was a little nervous about including too many survey questions, but several folks asked:  • How many theatres pay for services related to social media?  • What tools are organizations using to monitor and report their social media use?  • How is social media posting distributed throughout the staff?  • How many theatres have a social media policy?  • How are theatres planning initiatives and educating ourselves about the next big thing?    My current research studying social media is quickly coming to a close, so hopefully others will  pick up with these questions soon!    Methodology:  A 5 question survey was sent to every marketing director of every LORT theatre, in addition to  several Twitter posts on @devonvsmith, which were RT’ed by 4 other people. One week later,  22 LORT theatres had responded, plus 3 other theatres (excluded from the above quantitative  data for lack of statistical significance—but big thanks for the valuable insights provided). This  29% response rate yields statistically significant results for the population.     The survey questions asked generally about various social media platforms; for sake of clarity,  all similar platforms in this paper were titled under the most popular (for example, the survey  asked for theatre’s use of video sharing sights including YouTube, Vimeo, etc; the paper’s  graphs label all of these responses “YouTube”)    “Other” noted social media sites included Flavorpill, Yelp, Goldstar, Foursquare, and Podcasts.     Many thanks to the folks at the following theatres for taking valuable time out of their schedule  to respond to this survey: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alliance Theatre, American Repertory  Theater, Arden Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the  Park, Clarence Brown Theatre, Delaware Theatre Company, Ford's Theatre, Great Lakes Theater  Festival, Guthrie Theater, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Mad Cow Theatre, Maltz Jupiter  Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, McCarter Theatre Center, New York City Center, Northlight  Theatre, Portland Center Stage, South Coast Repertory, The Cleveland Play House, The Denver  Center for the Performing Arts, Trinity Repertory Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Youth  Theatre Northwest.            by Devon Smith  69 

Conclusions    The staffing survey confirmed that very few hours per week are spent on other social media  platforms. However, I wanted to mention a few other places where at least a few theatres are  engaging with their audiences:  • Del.icio.us (for social bookmarking)  • Friendfeed (for social discussion groups)  • Foursquare (for mobile geo‐gaming)  • iPhone apps (for a wide variety of uses)  • LinkedIn (for professional networking)  • SlideShare (for professional presentations)  • Yelp (for local reviews)    And I want to leave you with links to a few other phenomenal folks who are doing incredible  work in social & digital media:    • Mashable.com is as close as you’ll find to the be‐all‐end‐all source for social media news  • Beth Kanter (beth.typepad.com) is the best expert I’ve found on non‐profits and social  media  • Chris Ashworth (chrisashworth.org) is a theatre maker/software developer who often  has smart things to say about technology in the theatre  • Ian Moss (createquity.com) is a former MBA classmate who awesomely blogs about the  role of arts in a creative society  • Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, and Avinash Kaushik are quite simply brilliant. Follow  them on Twitter, RSS their blogs, stalk them at conferences.     A reading list for more in depth research  • Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins  • Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik  • Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li  • Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters by Scott  Rosenberg  • The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowieck    And finally, eternal thanks for spreading the word, critical feedback, insightful suggestions, or  pushing me towards better research must go to: Chris Ashworth, Thomas Cott, David Dower,  Natalie Gilmore, Lindsey Hardegree, Cory Huff, Kerry Israel, Kory Kelly, Ed Martenson, Ann  Sachs, Clayton Smith, Rachel Smith, Anne Trites, and all of my classmates at the Yale School of  Drama Theatre Management program and the Yale School of Management.                   by Devon Smith  70 

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Social Media in Theatre

by Devon Smith

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