Comprehensive research report to accompany my Social Media Strategy recommendations for Yale Repertory Theatre. May be useful to other theatres in particular, and non profits in general, in trying to understand the scope of current social media usage by institutions and their constituents.
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Social Media in Theatre
1. Theatre &
Social Media
in 2009
By Devon Smith
Director of Research and Analysis
Yale Repertory Theatre
January 8, 2010
2. 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
5. 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
6. 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
8. 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
12. 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
13. 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
14. 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
17. 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
18. 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
20. 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
21. 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
23. 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
24. 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
25. 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
26. 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
34.
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
38. 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
42. 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
45. 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
46. 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