When it comes to social media, technology and algorithms change quickly, which means you have to be adaptable. Luckily if you are an arts marketer - you already know a thing or two about adaptability. In the end, it doesn’t matter how much things change, one thing will always remain the same: social media is all about audiences.
With that in mind, let’s jump into the three trends that put your audience goals (and audience engagement) front and centre in 2020.
Often on Twitter, you will see long threads or chats happening on a given topic. Why not create these chats yourself? Initiating a chat thread on Twitter is a great way to deepen engagement. Here is how to do it:
Pick or theme or topic that is of interest to your target audience. This could be about where fundraising monies should be direct, feedback on programming - anything that will engage your specific target audiences.
Come up with a unique specific hashtag for that theme or topic.
Pick a date and time that suits your audience. You want the most people engaged so remember to pick a date and time for the chat that suits your audience’s schedule. Check your Twitter data to understand when the bulk of your audience is on Twitter.
Be sure to have an engaged moderator who can devote their time to stay on Twitter for the duration of the chat session.
Promote your Twitter chat to your audiences! Treat it like any other content - and give yourself enough time to let people know what is happening and when.
Remember to end with CTA (Call to Action). This can be anything from Donate Now to Check Out Our Programme of Events
These sorts of moderated chats are a great way build brand awareness and improve SEO, plus you will get a better understand your audiences and engage with them on topics they care about. Twitter is probably one of the best spaces to hear your audiences, see how they think, understand their humour, see what kind of language they use, etc. It is the brevity of it really - 280 characters to say what is on your mind means you are getting the essence of their thoughts. You can use that knowledge to tweak your brochure content, advertising, etc.
Facebook and Instagram Stories really gained ground in 2019 - and now in 2020 they are a powerful way to instantly share moments with your audiences. The audiences along are a big draw: 300m active daily users of Instagram Stories - will give you huge reach. The real benefit here are the add ons you can do like adding gifs, polls, and sliding bars. Plus, since stories are shared at the top of your feed there is no scrolling - allowing your audience to engage right there and then with you.
Stories give your audience members a way to get to know your team and your organisation better before they even attend a show.
Perhaps the only issue with Stories is that they vanish after 24 hours, Instagram Stories Highlights can live permanently on your profile. They're like curated collections of Instagram Stories that your followers — both old and new — can tap into and watch any time they like. Ticketsolve customer, Regent Ipswich used Highlights really effectively for their Panto release.
While it might seem daunting, live streaming from social media channels can be a fun, playful few minutes for your team and your audience members. According to Fidji Simo, Facebook’s head of video, 20% of all Facebook videos in 2017 were broadcast live. In 2019, live videos on Facebook experienced six times as many interactions as regular videos on average. With such an increase in demand for live video, live streaming should be on your content to-do list in 2020.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn have all now integrated live video to their platforms. LinkedIn when you live stream, you need to be Now, Premium, or Enterprise Subscribers.
On a blog by Vimeo, they offer easy steps to get started with Live Streaming. https://livestream.com/blog/social-media-streaming-livestream
Regardless of what you decide to focus on this year in social media, is going to come back to building community and real connections with your audiences. It is almost like a back to basics - listen and learn to what your audiences are after, connect with them personally and help foster your communities of fans.