Intro to Social Media for Festivals and Events

Carla Pendergraft Associates Web Designwww.carlapendergraft.com

What We’ll Cover

Characteristics of Social Media… statistics

How to Listen – setting up alerts Intro to Facebook Intro to Twitter – Twelve Tips

Social Media Characteristics It’s about conversations and

communities It requires a new way of thinking. Push vs. Pull; Telling vs. Asking Allows your audience to connect with

you and with each other. It can no longer be ignored.

Social Media Communities

Facebook – 350 million users, top 10 websiteMySpace – 110 million users

LinkedIn – about 30 million usersTwitter – about 100 million users

YouTube – 70 million videosFlickr – hosts over 2 billion images

Blogs – over 200 million

And new social communities are added every day.

What do you get from it?

Singapore marathon gets 4,000 of its 8,000 volunteers from its Facebook page

South by Southwest has 42,000 fans on its page. Every announcement goes to this list.

Austin City Limits Music Festival has 86,000 fans.

Reasons to Use Social Media Promote your festival or event – and

the events that lead up to it Make announcements about

performers Recruit volunteers Solicit opinions, get suggestions Drive traffic to your main website Get more sponsors! Recruit exhibitors

You Can’t Do it all…

Start with a Facebook Fan page Start a Twitter feed Look for user-generated videos you

can use from YouTube Invite people to share their photos of

your festival Don’t neglect your core website

Facebook – Getting Started Start by setting up your own personal

Facebook page. “Friend” family, friends, business acquaintances.

Listen and learn Facebook’s communication style.

Study the Facebook pages of your competitors and others in your industry.

Then set up your entity’s Facebook fan page. This is separate from your personal Facebook page. Your name will not show up when you post.

Facebook Groups vs. Pages “Facebook Groups” are for groups of

people with some interest in common – biking, Star Trek, etc.

“Facebook Fan Pages” are for businesses, including non-profits.

Pages are visible to everyone, even those who are not a member of Facebook

Pages allow you to view statistics on page usage (“Insights”)

Groups have members; Pages have fans.

Creating a Facebook Fan Page

Creating a Facebook Page

Go to facebook.com/pages/create.php

Some festivals choose Local – Other Business.

Others choose Brand, Product or Organization - Non-profit. This is my recommendation.

Just don’t put it under groups!

South by Southwest Music Festival

42,000 fans

History and background of the festival

Info on performers

Soundtracks

Discussions on where to stay, transportation, newsletter signup.

Florida Strawberry Festival

Grew from 1,400 fansto 6,700 fans in 1 year

Hours – parking – costs

12 photo albums

Parade and contest winners

Performer stories

Links to website, Twitter

Singapore Marathon

50,000 runners

9,500 fans

96 discussions – People trading T-shirts, talkingabout the raceexperience

Your Facebook Profile Badge Use your festival logo in about a

200x200 size Change it out every year Customize it with the festival’s dates This is the main flaw I see with

festival fan pages!

Stratford Shakespeare Festival

Facebook's Main Tabs

Wall – mini press releases, announcements

Info – static information about your event. Overview, mission, etc.

Photos – multiple photo albums Many other possible tabs; start with

these 3 and build.

Twitter

Oklahoma Mozart Music Festival

Following 1,9831,462 followers106 updates

Twitter

search.twitter.com listen to the conversations about your

world “Follow” other festivals to learn the lingo

and style

Set up a twitter account for your festival or event Choose an easy username related to the

festival Oklahoma Mozart Music Festival: okmozart

Twelve Twitter Tips

Decide what your voice and theme will be before you start.

Dialog with other Twitterers. You address another person on Twitter by using their username and the “@” sign. Example: “@carlapen”.

Post interesting articles you find, as well as your own.

“Retweet” interesting posts from others – use RT and the other poster’s Twitter ID. Example: RT @carlapen: [original post goes here]

Twelve Twitter Tips (Continued) It’s not a competition to get the

highest number of followers. Don’t tweet too much! Only tweet if

you have something to say. You don’t have to follow everyone

who follows you. Unfollow people who spam you.

Twelve Twitter Tips

Hashtags (#) are used to group posts into topics (example: #festival). Go to hashtags.org or wefollow.com to see the most popular hashtags.

List yourself at the Twitter directory at wefollow.com.

Use Tinyurl.com to shorten the URLs that you post.

Download a Tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com) to manage Twitter.

Other Social Media Tools

YouTube – upload some videos and display them on your website and/or Facebook page.

Flickr – Create a photo gallery of pictures from the various events you conduct. Put a link to the gallery from your website or FB page.

Blogs – Create one at Wordpress.com or Blogger.com and put a link to it on your website.

Questions?

Thank you for your attention!