Rebecca Krause-Hardie

Who has the most Facebook Fans? A few stats.

I saw a tweet yesterday from @kanter (Beth Kanter) retweeting a question from @farra (Farra Trompeter) asking how to find out how many facebook fans a NPO has...

I was curious myself, and so did a little google search and found that this link would list the NPO's  in order of number of fans (mostly in order). Then I wondered about which arts groups have the most fans. Maybe there is an easier way, but I found myself clicking 'next' for page after page, sort of like putting nickels into a slot machine.... who was going to win.  It was addictive. 

I think the first arts group showed up on page 76 of the search in the Non-Profit category.  It occurred to me that some fan pages got started before the 'non-profit' option was set up, and others might simply have chosen other ways to describe themselves. 

So I did further searches, on 'orchestra', 'symphony', 'museums' and finally 'places'

....and the Unofficial results are in!  

Fans as of 11:30 PM Nov 20, 2009  (I know I should have been sleeping not clicking)

Museum Types

Museum of Modern Art             190,421     (WOW!)
Metropolitan Museum Art          89,896
Le Louvre                                 58,071
Design Museum                         49,405
Guggenheim                             38,335
Monterey Bay Aquarium            36,880
Smithsonian                              34,890
Art Institute Chicago                 23,650 
City Museum of St. Louis           22,948
Tennessee Aquarium                  21,370
Getty                                       18,850
Salvidor Dali Museum                17,134
Victoria & Albert                      16,867
Tate                                         15,743
SFMoma                                    14,543
DIA                                           14,001
Whitney                                    13,470                                             
MFA, Boston                              12,140
Amer Museum Natural History    11,941
Louisiana Museum Modern Art    11,720
Brooklyn Museum                        9,485
Children's Museum                       9,010

Performing Arts Types

Metropolitan Opera                   26,142
Berlin Philharmonic                   23,835
Sydney Opera House                  20,010
Royal Opera House                    18,115
Chicago Symphony                    14,107
New York Philharmonic              12,292
New York City Ballet                  10,301
London Symphony                       9,298
Stratford Shakespeare                 8,892
Oregon Shakespeare                    8,462
Vienna Philharmonic                    5,078
Boston Symphony                        4,870
San Francisco Symphony              4,073

There is a good possibility I may have missed someone, as I was getting a bit click happy, but interesting results never-the-less.

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

I can see that I have my next interviews lining up - lots of questions to ask.

• Does more fans mean anything?
• Does more fans translate into greater attendance, dollars raised, participation?
• Can little organizations have lots of fans?
• What's better - more fans, or deeper connections with fewer fans?

What other questions should I ask when I interview all these amazing people in these orgs?

For example,

• Le Louvre has ZERO updates from them listed on their page. Build it and they will come?
• Do places like the Sydney Opera House have so many fans just because its a cool building or because they are doing something special to engage with their audience?

PS -  Great post from Geoff Livingston about "What 100K followers [fans] gets you".

In the meanwhile we have one little baseline stat for the arts. Where do you fit in?

London Symphony 'Secrets' from Jo Johnson

 

Wow! You have over 9000 FB fans!  How did you do that?  What's the secret sauce?

"First thing to say is that being the LSO is our greatest strength! We're lucky to already have a big profile all over the world, what we call the Star Wars Effect - it's amazing how many people know us just through that! We've been on The Simpsons and Family Guy, which I think is proof that we've made it in the world of popular culture. And we do an awful lot of touring, which takes our name out of the teeny island of Great Britain much more than lots of other orchestras.

So when it comes to social networking we're not really starting from scratch. People talk about us a lot online (recordings they like, concerts they've been to), and it's just a short step for people to find us within the now all-pervasive Facebook. At the beginning we did a little promotion for it among our existing web audiences, but after that we've let it grow itself. Facebook is really geared towards that anyway, since whenever you join something it's published in your friends' news feeds, and that creates the viral effect.

I think the key (your 'secret sauce'!) to its continuing success - we have a very active page and that in itself makes it an attractive page to join - is that we've made a very clear decision to NOT use it for marketing. We consider that to be a massive turn off. People do not use social sites to be marketed at, they use them for friendship and keeping in touch. Yes we occasionally throw in a bit of promotion for a concert or CD, but largely we simply let people know about what we are doing and where. We're never short of things to say, since the LSO is never ever (or very rarely) not working in some capacity! And lastly, we try to reply to every post we get, and to do so within a couple of hours at the most. No point in doing social networking if you're not going to network with those interested in you, is there!"

Why do you use twitter? 

" Twitter is our newest effort in the social networking area. We joined in January at a time when there was a sudden huge upsurge in usage, which helped us grow our followers (we just passed 6000 a day or two ago) quite quickly. We were unsure at first how best to use it - there were all sorts of experiments around using it during concerts - but what has emerged it that it is simply a tool for conversing with our followers and opening up our world by posting photos and links.

Like Facebook, our strategy is to NOT use it for marketing. I see so many arts organisations just tweeting about their next concert, mostly in corporate language, with a link to buy tickets - that's just very dull. And they are ignoring the fact that most of their followers are most likely not in their vicinity to be able to come to their concerts! What Twitter is good for is slightly quirky, informal conversations. Interesting photos, snippets of backstage news, discussing recordings or soloists with the very people that buy the tickets or CDs... then the occasional piece of promotion doesn't seem quite so offensive!

Then the overall feel of our presence to those following us is relaxed, open, friendly, approachable - that we're an orchestra of passionate individuals that want to engage with people and who appreciate the people who buy the tickets to enable us to keep putting on our high quality concerts."


How much time do you and other staff put into your social media activities?

"Probably a bit more than I should! Not really in office time - I have a wide-ranging role which includes looking after our main website, e-marketing, text messaging, film-making and general marketing duties which takes up a lot of time - so I tend to find myself tweeting and Facebooking from home, which is probably really unhealthy! It's addictive, I love chatting to people who are so interested and passionate about the LSO.

In the office I usually start the day with a round of updating each site (we're in Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube), and then occasionally drop in throughout the day for 5 mins at a time to check any responses and answer them. I also keep an eye on others' activity on Twitter in case there's something I want to respond to or a conversation I want us to take part in. I'd say that during the day I would spend a total of 30-40 mins on social networks.

My colleague Gavin, who works in our record label LSO Live, is also involved in our social network presences, and there's a few players that get involved, mostly when they're out on tour or when they remember!"

Do you have a strategy or plan or policy (written or otherwise?)     

"We started out without anything official written down - Facebook was the first, and it was a bit of an experiment. When it started to grow and Gavin came on board with me, we sat down together and talked about what we were doing and how we should try and make it a little more official to satisfy our bosses, who were starting to ask about what we were up to (we didn't ask in the first place... they'd have probably said no!). We wrote a paper on what social media was, how we were using it now and what benefits it has for us. And we set down a few ground rules for ourselves and the players who we were going to ask to take part - like 'remember that you are the LSO and everything you say will be viewed as official', 'no swearing or nudity', 'don't drink and tweet' and 'NO MARKETING!!'."


How much of the success is personality driven? What if a development or finance person was doing this... would it still work?

Ah now, what you're suggesting here is that development and finance people don't have personalities! ;-)

Yes, a lot of the success is down to the personality we've managed to create for the LSO online. But to be honest, that wasn't hard! When Gavin and I are doing the updating from the office we imagine ourselves as the orchestra. What would we say if we were an LSO player and in a rehearsal or out on tour? Office life is fairly boring, other than really select things, and we think what people want to hear is what the Orchestra is doing. So in theory, anyone from the admin staff could do the updating, as long as they were properly briefed as to what to say and how to say it. There are people that are better at it than others of course, so the key is to pick your participants carefully. For example, Gareth Davies, our Principal Flute, has a fantastic way of writing that works so well on our Tour Blog, but other players having the same experiences as him may not be so good, so I tend not to ask them.

I suspect what you're getting at is whether if development and finance tweeted about their own work, would it be as interesting. Probably not! These departments are an essential part of our organisation of course, but they're not so interesting to the public (sorry guys!). When I see people tweeting for arts orgs under that organisation's name, but writing in the first person as if it were their personal account and with their own opinions, or about boring things like staff meetings or IT problems, I wonder what possesses them! Is that the image they want to project? And why?!"

Can you share some key learnings with us? What was something you thought would be a clear winner, and it flopped? What happened that you didn't expect?  

"We haven't had many abject failures I have to say! We've discovered that the things that work best for getting people to comment and Re-Tweet are the quirky things - like a funny photo or video, a vote for what CD to upload next on our Facebook store, or little news items about personalities at the LSO (for example when we appointed our new 21-year-old just-out-of-music-college Principal Trumpet). Sometimes it's the things you least expect that are popular, you never know what might capture people's imaginations!

Something that we learned quite early was to not get involved in arguments from a personal point of view. There was one incident with our Principal Flute Gareth on Twitter, who joined in a discussion on whether Tweeting during a concert is good or bad. He felt that it was bad, and got into a scrap with Greg Sandow, it got heated and, well, I had to step in and censor it. The problem was not that he had the opinion - he has a right to it! - but that the opinion was being communicated on the LSO's account and to the casual viewer would have looked like it was the Orchestra's official line. Because we are all passionate about the LSO, it can be easy to get drawn in, but the place for that is on a personal account."


Do you use any specific ROI metrics?

"The most difficult thing about doing social networking for a company is tracking the results and trying to find quantifiable results to justify spending staff time on it, since much of the content that is produced is not geared to making the sale immediately. But to rely on just these results is a mistake I think - see the final question for an expanded answer.

The tracking that we are able to do is through our Google Analytics on our main website, tracking direct journeys through from social media sites. This was we are able to see that Facebook is the fifth biggest referrer of visitors by income. Not bad! Twitter is much harder to track because of the large variety of thrid party apps that people use, and that don't show up in Google Analytics. We also use the Bit.ly link shortening service which tracks clicks on the links.

As for specific ROI, there's no monetary investment in social media, so measuring return on it isn't possible."

I just read a study that says that Social Media is a 'waste of time' and that there are little quantifiable results like increases in contributions, attendance, or new volunteers.  What do you think? Are they missing something? [btw, here's the link if you want to read it.... ]

"Oh dear! Like the majority of people who commented on the article, I think it completely misses the point. So they've discovered that it doesn't attract volunteers? That's because this is not the right use for social media! It is not a marketing or fundraising tool, it is a communication tool. They seem to have the beginnings of a positive argument in there:

'For them, and indeed anyone else in the nonprofit space asking how to get value from social technologies, now is the time to take a deep breath and reconsider what social technologies can best be used for and what nonprofit executives can reasonably expect from them.'

People really need to think carefully about what they use it for and recalibrate their (and that of their Board's and CEO's) expectations in terms of hard returns. The article is more about fundraising than the area I'm involved in, but the reason behind the usage is the same - to cultivate relationships with the audience and people interested in you, to open up lines of communication and to make yourself a relevant part of their lives. These days marketing communications is a lot about the cumulative effect - decision-making is influenced by many different things, for example a poster, a press ad, a PR article, a radio ad, a brochure through the post, a piece of news delivered via social media. All or some of these may influence the decision to buy a ticket or a CD or make a donation, generally not one alone, and it may be a little while down the road when the trackability has become completely blurred.

And you have the opportunity to create ambassadors for your cause. Enthusing about a charity or arts org to your friends has never been easier! In a world where more people trust their friends' opinions about products and services, this is incredibly valuable.

I'm kind of intruiged about the assertion that social media is "a surprisingly expensive strategy" - what on earth are people spending money on? If you're spending money on social media, you're doing it very wrong! As one of the commenters said, using social media has zero cost, so any gain from it is a 100% gain, financial, profile or otherwise."

Thanks Jo!  You Rock!

About Jo Johnson

After gaining her Batchelor of Music degree from the University of Hull, Jo spent five years working for the BBC, cutting her teeth on the newly emerging novelty, the orchestra website. After four and a half years at the London Symphony Orchestra, running the main website and all sorts of digital activities such as mobile marketing, email marketing, film making and lately social networks, she just about feels she understands what it's all about! Although as soon as that happens, something new comes along and she has to start all over again. She is in demand as a speaker on the subject of orchestras online and is particularly passionate about debunking the myth that social networks are a waste of time.

In her spare time, Jo enjoys playing the violin and viola in orchestras and show bands, and has recently taken up the ukelele. When not at rehearsal she can generally be found in the swimming pool or at the sushi bar.

Persistence - "Just Keep Going" Pays Off

I recently heard this poem again from Rilke.  This part really connects for me:

"Let everything happen to you,
beauty and terror.
Just keep going.
No feeling is final."

Rainer Maria Rilke

There are so many new tools for social media - it seems like I can barely learn one and the next one comes along. Its overwhelming! Invites come for yet another social network..... what might I be missing? 

I stopped writing blog posts for most of a month, with various excuses, some valid and some not. It was just hard to know where to begin.

Many years ago when I was at music school, I was a 'natural' player.  I could play just about anything and it all came so easily. The challenge came when there was something really difficult and I had to develop discipline and learning skills to persist through to the other side.  My horn teacher wisely pointed out that the payoff is not immediate - that results rarely come at the moment of work, but only later. Thus it is sometimes hard to be objective and trusting with delayed gratification.  

I wandered off the professional horn playing path in pursuit of other ideals, and proceeded to watch a dear friend, just keep going, one foot in front of the next with unbelievable discipline until he sat in the chair of one of the top orchestras in the country, and continues to sit there today.  He 'Just Kept Going.' 

So what do we need to do to succeed in the online social world?

Persistence

What else?

I took this picture at one of the scarier points in a trek some years ago and sometimes working with new media can feel this way. 

Web Lessons from Rich Bradway at the Boston Symphony - Part II

So Yesterday we talked about Podcasts and how important they are for the Boston Symphony's business now....

With over 75,000 people subscribing...

Integrated Email Campaign

Boston Symphony created an email marketing campaign that sends out a preview email for the concerts coming up the following week.  It includes links to podcasts, music clips, program notes, and bios.  They send it to ticket holders and those whose musical interests match those on the program as identified in the MY BSO profile.  The profile includes musical interests, genre, and types of soloists and day of the week.  If there is a match, they get an email.

New Opportunity for Sponsor Support
Their season sponsors are interested in extending their sponsorships to include the podcasts because they now see the exposure.  That helps to underwrite the costs of doing them. 

INTERNET TV

The BSO began to explore the idea of Video on Demand, through a project launched in October called “Internet TV”.  The project is a parallel program to their latest Pops CD.  Its like a mini concert on the web.  The reaction has been very positive.  People have been asking for the DVD of it and it’s had about 60,000 views in the first 6 weeks. 

If the value is there, it may translate into buying a CD, or attendance at a concert, and in the future a video on demand.

The podcasts, and Internet TV, are in large part driven by the agreement with the union as well as requirements from the music publishers.  Everything was specifically delineated for the website by the business agreements which currently don’t address reusing at other sites like YouTube.  While the agreement allows the podcasts and Internet TV to be used without additional compensation, there are payments to musicians for any sales directly attributable from the Internet TV, such as CDs. 

Interestingly, for Rich, like a lot of others, his job has gone from being a technical person, to having to deal with business issues and overall strategy.   

Music Distribution On The Web - with CD Baby

As Rich says, taking the ‘Distribution Method for Idiots’ approach, they are taking their self produced albums and distributing them through CD Baby. The barrier for entry is low with a setup fee of $35.  They distribute to iTunes-  (all the 6-7 versions across the world), Napster, Rhapsody, Amazon Music, etc. 

This is allowing them to explore the online distribution and learn the ropes.  Later they may do these things themselves to increase their cut.  This lets them see which functionality and channels offer the best opportunities

The downside is that since CD Baby acts as middleman, they take a cut in addition to the retail sites. 

CD Baby sells conventional CD’s as well as digitizing and selling individual tracks or the entire CD. The Oscar and Tony CD they put out had the benefit of promotion from the Internet TV site and sold a thousand conventional CD’s, enough to register on Billboard.

New Amazon MP3 Service

Amazon has a new MP3 service.  It includes an MP3 downloader which allows the download manager to ‘resume’ downloads.   It will go and find which players you have and distribute to those libraries like iTunes or Windows music player.   It’s cheaper for the consumer then iTunes and the bit rate is much higher then the standard iTunes MP3s. iTunes does offer the higher quality versions but at a higher cost.      

Offering the higher bit rate, and having the functionality of the Amazon downloader are attractive features to the BSO.  They like to the model.  The downside - While you can use Amazon’s technology, you are then required to have them host your files and use their technology to sell and distribute it.   While their agreement works for CDs the pricing model doesn’t work for longer files like concert performances.

Social Network Based Advertising with PaperG


Rich mentioned a new advertising model that they are looking into called PaperG. It's a flash based advertising model that works on social networks.  The idea is like a digital version of the postcards that one can pick up at a nightclub, and then pass along to friends.  This digital version has a virtual ‘cork board’ where you can post your flyer.  Anyone clicking on it can then forward it to a friend. 

I can’t wait to hear more about this.   Anyone using anything like this?

Web Lessons from Rich Bradway at the Boston Symphony

Meet Rich Bradway at the Boston Symphony

Rich Bradway, Associate Director of E-Commerce and New Media for the Boston Symphony, and I spoke the other day about the BSO’s strategies for the web.

What’s the goal?   First Things First.

I’m so interested in exploring social media and web 2.0 and for me it’s a really good reminder that first things come first. One of the first goals is to enhance the user experience, and make things as easy as possible.  There is no point in making all sorts of content and connections out on the web only to have people struggle to get around and find what they want when they land back at your site.

For the BSO, on the most fundamental level, one way to accomplish this has been to find ways to make navigation simpler and reduce the number of clicks and pages that have to be refreshed.

Calendars:

Says Rich, “One of the most visited places on the site is the calendar. To navigate between all the performances, flip flopping between Pops, and Tanglewood, or trying to find Mahler required a lot of clicks.”

Using web 2.0 technologies like those that underlay tools like Google calendars and maps, they rebuilt their calendars so that that they automatically refresh content without having to reload pages.

Continues Rich, “Visitors can now navigate through each month and pages automatically update without having to be refreshed.  They can go from calendar view to list view, or search within list view to dynamically narrow their search so people can see what they want to.”

 

This is really important for the BSO because they have 4 brands and hundreds of events to manage. Their new rebuild allows a visitor to see any of the events for any of the brands with just one click.

Similarly, they wanted to keep a calendar on every page, wanted a small foot-print and also to maintain functionality. Now with their horizontal calendar anyone can easily see a month out and every event with one click.

The goal:  It helps people get to what they want more quickly. 

Creating Versatile Module Based Content: Flash

The BSO is changing how it presents its interactive and educational content.  They are converting their “Online Conservatory” to something more accessible and versatile called Classical Companion. The Online Conservatory was an in-depth look at just a few programs from the season, with all the content combined together in a way that limited its ability to be used for other purposes.

Now each small piece of content is being created as separate flash modules that can be used more frequently and in varying contexts.  Rich notes that “we have the ability to showcase many more programs, or composers, or music being performed.” Something that could be dropped in and not its own separate website. 

Starting last fall with their Carter program, and continuing with other concerts like their Family concerts, they are creating small modules showcasing each of the composers and including kid friendly interactive modules with quizzes, and timelines with certain milestones in a composer’s life or other important dates in history.  Another basic module will be called Timbre – and it explores the ‘colors’ of music and how you can orchestrate or arrange a piece of music to create or change that timbre.   

The long-term goal is to build an interface independent of the programs so content can be used anywhere on the site.

Podcasts are Incredibly Powerful! 
Direct link between podcasts and increased ticket sales.

Last year the BSO started producing podcasts that were concert previews for the BSO season. 

“We tried to create a slimmed down version of our pre-concert lectures that we could extend through the Internet and allow people to subscribe to.  Over the course of time, while the audio portion is still trying to be a snap shot of the pre-concert lecture, these podcasts are getting longer and with more ancillary content. People started asking for the program notes at the same time, so now we also pass in the program notes at the same time as the podcast.  We try to supplement with other content.  For example when we did Daphne and Chloe, we were able to put up some footage of a concert we did in 1967, and getting our toes wet in doing video podcasts” says Rich.   

WGBH had some great features and interviews that they were unable to reuse and were happy to provide to the BSO for the podcasts.

So here is the amazing thing….

“We saw a very direct relationship between the podcasts and sales and a direct increase in online ticket sales which increased 50% over the year.”   

Every year online BSO ticket sales tend to go up 10-12 % each year, and that was the only thing that they really did differently. This year they are continuing with excellent results.  The current challenge is to be balanced with the right amount of content without overdoing it.  At the same time keeping the content compelling with each item supportive of the next.

So Podcasts are an important part of their business now.
75,000 subscribers!
 

There are over 75,000 people subscribing to their podcasts, of which about 40,000 are regular down-loaders  -  (either every week or every other week). 

Rich says, “Its gotten to the point if we are 2 hours late in posting a podcast we hear about it.  Someone is saying, ‘I’m at Logan, at the airport, and I’m waiting to hear this podcast…’ People are clamoring for this.“

Considering how many people come to the BSO during any given week, this seems like a huge following. 

The podcasts were originally designed to augment the concert experience, and make the experience more enriching for those already planning to attend. They thought it might be helpful to those ‘on the fence’. 

This is part 1 of a  2 part series.  Part 2 tomorrow.

MeetUp with Alan Brown

"We must become expert facilitators of social experiences to be successful as arts organizations" says Alan Brown as part of a recent presentation at APAP.  I had the opportunity to talk more about this with Alan yesterday.

Why must we become expert facilitators of social experiences?  "Because lack of social context is the biggest barrier to attendance." says Alan, a leading research expert. People need "external stimuli to activate demand."   They would go to the symphony or opera or theatre if they had a social group with which to participate.   

If we look at the huge divorce rates and number of people using tools like eHarmony, it becomes clear that these underlying social trends point to opportunity.

Alan's theory is that if you set up groups through tools like MeetUp, then this would help to create that context.  Just on a whim, I did a little search of 'opera' in New York City  and  found this MeetUp Opera Group,  and this New York Philharmonic Group.    Interestingly, the opera group was started by a fan, and the Philharmonic group by the orchestra itself.

These are great opportunities to start building new connections and relationships.  How can organizations build on these groups and support them more?  Alan suggests finding some of these groups and interviewing some of the people in them. Questions might be about their experiences, how well they are supported by their arts groups, and what would make their experience better.  I think that's a great idea.   Also integrating the various tools and channels could be helpful. For example, linking the MeetUp group to the website, and from the MySpace Page, and the FaceBook Page. It seems to me that having many portals that all point to these same groups could help to increase visibility and participation in the groups.

Anybody doing this?

Since I originally posted this, Vince Ford at the New York Philharmonic, notes that they have presences on FaceBook, Meetup and MySpace, all of which are referenced on their special series page. While it is a little buried in the site, it does make the rounds occasionally to the home page or the What's New Section.

So what are the obstacles to participation by arts groups?

Here's a few from Alan's list...

• Perceptual barrier -  Its a challenge to just set up an account.  We don't see the value
• Not recognized way of consuming arts - Until major arts groups use these tools won't be considered important or valid
• Not Scalable -  There is a concern that management of these groups will not be viable.   

In response that last point, Alan reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article on the Cellular Church which describes how Rick Warren built a church with over twenty thousand members by creating small group 'cells' around all kinds of interest areas.

Gladwell says "...In order to attract newcomers, they must have low barriers to entry. They must be unintimidating, friendly, and compatible with the culture they are a part of. In order to retain their membership, however, they need to have an identity distinct from that culture. They need to give their followers a sense of community...

...to create a church out of a network of lots of little church cells—exclusive, tightly knit groups of six or seven who meet in one another's homes during the week to worship and pray..... The focus was on discussion and interaction—not one person teaching and the others listening—and the remarkable thing about these groups was their power."

How do we translate that for our cultural organizations?

What are other ways to get past these obstacles?

How do we do a better job of demonstrating the benefits? 

Post a comment and join in the discussion!

   

Pittsburgh Symphony - Build on Institutional Strengths

    

Like most performing arts groups, budgets are tight at the Pittsburgh Symphony, so projects that can be done by volunteers, or as part of someone’s day to day job, or require limited funds, have been the primary focus.  This is not to say the senior staff is not interested in social networking tools.  Larry Tamburri, the PSO President, is strongly in favor of exploring activities like blogging. A number of basic projects have been undertaken including podcasts, blogs, MySpace Page, video posts to YouTube, as well as some more unique projects like web talk shows, and blog fests.

A strong team atmosphere as well as some key volunteers has been crucial. Says Jeff Tsai, Director of Corporate Support & Special Projects, “A wonderful resource in the orchestra is horn player Bob Lauer. He’s accustomed to bringing a camcorder into places we go or when interesting things are going on. 

"For instance we recently played Messiaen's Turangalîla featuring the weird and wonderful instrument, the Ondes Martenot. Bob filmed this whole behind-the-scenes video for YouTube, with a good portion of the brass section and the Ondes Martenot player talking about what it is, and how it works.

WEB TALK SHOWS

“Bob’s also been involved with our web talk shows.  We use a technology called ‘Talkshoe’, developed by a former Pittsburgh Symphony Board member, which allows people to host web-based talk shows.  After a recent concert, the horn section remained on stage and hosted the show. People could call in, email or use a ‘chat’ function to pose their questions. At the end of the show, an MP3 of the event provided a ready-made podcast.  The Talkshoe model also includes a revenue sharing feature that generates ad income for the host, based on traffic to the site.”

BLOGS and VIDEO INTERVIEWS

“We also have four blog hosts for our site.  When we originally started our work, we wanted it to be a little different - not just having voices from within the orchestra, but invite outside opinion.  The original purpose was to drive more web traffic, and therefore more foot traffic to the symphony. We had this naive idea that the involvement of volunteer writers would somehow duplicate the role of newspapers - magically at  1:00 am after a concert, blogs would appear about the concert, people would flood the site to read and comment, and ticket sales would soar.  In reality, blog posts are often a week or more after an event, too late to drive traffic.  If one takes away the ‘volunteer’ aspect it derails the purpose of having the blog. In the abstract we hope that the audience wants to read everything, but ultimately it’s the author’s individual voices that are interesting, not the organization.

Other projects have included hosting “blog fests” where members of the local blogging community are invited to come to concerts and then write about them on their blogs. IT Manager, Kevin DeLuca created short videos of upcoming events featuring musicians in the orchestra. For example, Principal Bassoonist, Nancy Goeres talks about the special role the bassoon plays in the Rite of Spring, both the genuine excitement, and real fear, around the unusual solos.

BUILDING LOYALTY

While there is not “risk capital” available for more extensive social networking activities at this time, there do seem to be some openings falling into place within the framework of their overall institutional goals. One of these goals is to build loyalty and create value through life long relationships (from the point of first contact, to their bequest). Key elements include: combining all the institutional relationships with a given household into one unit, building commitment, and creating easy and intuitive ways to connect with the symphony.

Social networking activities could be a perfect fit.

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA – Always keep your core values in focus

As I listen to Elena Park, Assistant Manager for Editorial & Creative Content at the Metropolitan Opera, talk about what is currently going on at the Met, I can’t help but think of Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, and his idea that everyone should get on the bus and go in the same direction, with Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs).

Whether it is Web 2.0, wig design or Playbill content, everything at the Met (and they really mean everything) comes back to core guiding principles. Says Park,

“Our thinking about the web ties in with the overall philosophy of the Met under the leadership of Peter Gelb. Peter wants to take away the veil of formality that envelops the Met. It’s really about access and opening up this place, which has so many stories and so much behind-the-scenes drama.”

Gelb has made a huge commitment to opening up the Met to a broader public, and to sharing its great stories and music, without compromising artistic content.

This is an adjustment for some, and it requires an understanding on the part of the artists and directors to open up and reveal what is happening before opening night or dress rehearsals.

Ms. Park notes, however, that both cast and crew have “been game,” explaining how they used a sports model for their radio and HD broadcasts:

“We’re interviewing them live during intermission. It’s a new experience and it’s very exciting. We don’t always know what is going to happen. This new approach is very much in keeping with Peter’s background as a producer for the Met in the 80’s. People are excited, and they are responding. One of the most memorable experiences was giving away 3000 tickets for our first Open House. People were walking around backstage, and there was such a thrill generated internally by seeing all the people that wanted to come to the Met.”

This energy translates into people buying more tickets, and the Met reaching a broader audience. After 5 years of steadily declining ticket sales, this year the Met box office was up 7%.

At the Met, everything is rolled out from a central governing approach. When they think about questions like: “How do we use Web 2.0? How do we take advantage of all the technology available to us to have a social conversation and link people?” they are also asking, “What does a live HD transmission mean in terms of stage lighting, or more generally giving people access?”

The Met’s website was revamped last year. The first phase of this project was to convert the site from a purely ticketing and sales oriented vehicle to an editorial destination. The site is rich with editorial and media content, including multi-media interviews with artists and directors, in-depth articles, video and audio clips, blog posts with insider perspectives on upcoming productions, as well as links to their “Live in HD” broadcast series and Sirius Radio Channel.

A key part of the Met’s new strategy is forging links with contemporary culture. Park says that “cultural conversation pieces” that appear on the website or in Met publications will help people find points of access to opera and to the Met.

“

People might not be thinking about going to the Met website, but find their way there through these [other] links and connections… Much of our content appeals both to the connoisseur as well as to people that might come across it inadvertently. That might be the interview with Academy Award–winning filmmaker Anthony Minghella in his role as director of the new production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, or the challenges Anna Netrebko faced in performing the ‘mad scene’ in I Puritani.”

The Metropolitan Opera’s web traffic has increased over 37% from a year ago, and online sales have gone up over 25% in the same time period, so it’s clear that they are meeting with some success. But meeting the challenges of accessing a broader audience through the Met is a constant process.

As Park notes:

“What we’re working on now is the next phase of our web presence. We‘re thinking about how it can be more interactive, have a greater sense of community, and link the international network of opera lovers together. We have extensive media agreements that allow us tremendous flexibility to utilize our huge archives of video and audio footage.

Things we need to be focusing on – whether that’s making the Met’s MySpace site a cool destination, or creating more forums for conversations and discussions – are all about creating this sense of community.”

One of the things that is challenging not only for the Met, but for any arts organization, is acquiring and responding to audience feedback. If you have an open forum where people are talking about performances or repertoire, you want it to be free flowing. At the same time, particularly with opera, people have very strong and sometimes over-the-top opinions. The Brooklyn Museum, Park says, was able to create an open forum and in so doing, earned praise from audiences and industry insiders alike. Guided by the understanding that is important to invite conversation that is entertaining as well as enlightening, the Met is garnering similar praise.

This holistic approach, Park says, is a reflection of the Met’s “core values.” Park believes that an important part of this new strategy is their web presence, saying,

“Our web strategy reflects our identity. When things are considered more holistically, the results in the long term will be better. If an idea is great, it will work on every level – whether that be artistic, fundraising or marketing. If we try something new – like HD – and people respond, then funding falls into place. If the product is compelling and the buzz is really good, and if you are able to talk about it in every single form in which you are communicating with the public, then you’ve met your goal: a positive audience response. At the end of the day, if you give people captivating images and fascinating stories, then naturally they will be interested in buying tickets.”

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in Second Life

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (RPL) will be doing its first concert in Second Life (SL) on Friday September 14, 2007. I talked with Marketing Executive, Millicent Jones about the event and how it came about.

Ms. Jones had been reading about SL for about 9 or 10 months in various journals and articles. The possibilities seemed intriguing. Just down the road from Liverpool, the City of Manchester launched a virtual version of itself in SL in February. The goal was to promote the Manchester `brand' and raise awareness of the city in the real world.

This summer the RLP had an intern from Harvard delve into SL and research what sort of projects might be possible and what it would take to implement them.

“Our goals include broadening our reach, and to experiment and test the effectiveness of some of the new technologies” says Ms. Jones.

The RLP is working with a company called Fusion Unity Scotland. The folks behind Fusion, started off in the oil industry, and then started transferring their design and cad work into SL. Now they are working with a wide variety of organizations including the Manchester project.

“In SL, they have created a replica of our concert hall. For the concert, avatars will be sitting in the audience while the concert is streamed in real time.”

The performance will take place on Friday 14 September at 7:30pm. Principal Conductor Vasily Petrenko conducts Ravel’s Sheherazade and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, as well as world premieres by Merseyside-born composers Kenneth Hesketh and John McCabe.

Afterward, the audience is invited to visit the virtual Grand Foyer Bar at the Phil where Petrenko, Ken Hesketh and the soloist Kate Royal will be on hand to chat and answer questions about the performance.

“Response to the SL event has been strong”, says Ms. Jones. “More than 800 people have signed up for the ‘tickets’ to the virtual event. Current capacity is about 100, so tickets will be distributed through a lottery and lucky winners notified on Monday Sept 10th.” [wish me luck!]

The event will also include free giveaways like (virtual) Tshirts. Second Life Cable Network will also be carrying the concert to TV’s in SL. A consultant will be available in advance of the event, (both in person, and virtually), to help people get their avatars setup and connected to the RLP’s virtual Hall.

Ms. Jones jokes that probably 99.9% of them are from somewhere else, but in truth the demographics have not yet been fully analyzed. When people register for the event, they are asked to include information about their familiarity with SL, if they have a SL avatar, and if so, what their name is. So far, about half of the people who registered, already have a SL avatar. A little research today shows that 121 people registered from the UK, and the rest from all around the world. "Lots of US and Canadian signups, but also a good representation from Japan, Israel , Australia, and most of the other European countries." says Ms. Jones. A quick search of blog postings shows over 400 references to the event.

Marketing for the event has included a Press release, email newsletter and inclusion in a recent hall brochure that is distributed to about 90,000 people locally.

A YouTube video of the virtual hall has also been created. The video will be promoted on their website, email newsletter and as a piece to use as another chance at getting local TV.

Total costs for the event are between £7 and 8,000. This includes the purchase of 2 islands in SL, building the virtual concert hall, and streaming the audio/video. The RLP musicians’ media rights are already covered in a larger agreement, so there are no additional costs for the event.

Tickets and info for both the live and SL show are here…

New York Philharmonic - Use Web 2.0 to Build Loyalty

New York Philharmonic Marketing Director, David Snead is in the midst of hiring his second web person and a ‘web strategizer’ – someone to help them design and implement web projects. They’d like to duplicate the success in building loyalty and audiences of some of today’s commercial artists. Granted, that generally we are speaking of younger demographics than for orchestras, but still in terms of technology life-cycles; use of social networking tools is quickly moving beyond the scope of ‘early adopters’, to the more conservative ‘early majority’ folks. The opening of FaceBook to the general population, and its recent adoption by highly correlated likely patrons, with the right demographic profiles, is a good example of this.

Snead sees their web initiatives as a key element of a broader marketing strategy to “turn people on to the music.” Current web endeavors include ring tones, web streaming of concerts, downloads on I Tunes, and online video interviews with guest artists also available as podcasts. An indepth look at featured artists is available with the Insights Series (Exec Producer of the Mahler site was me.) Visitors to the site can use RSS feeds to subscribe to them, allowing them to get up-to-date information without having to visit the site.

In addition to the ‘formal’ voice of the institution, there is a strong presence of ‘individual voices’ represented on the social networking sites. For example, many younger players in the orchestra like Principal Oboist Liang Wang, or violinist Yulia Ziskel, have their own MySpace sites.

The Philharmonic also employs a robust outbound e-marketing effort to communicate with its audience: they email advance program notes, customer service notices, and occasional ticket discount offers. 45% of their single tickets are now sold online. Overall, $7.3 million of tickets (amounting to 35% of all ticket revenue) are purchased online.