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Your Website Is Doing The Heavy Lifting Getting Visitors In The Door

August 20, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Colleen Dilenschneider and her colleagues at IMPACTS Experience recently released data on social media engagement for cultural organizations.

If you don’t intend to read any further in this post at least read this: Keep your website up to date and make sure it works well on mobile.

Looking at data from Baby Boomers, Gens X, Y, Z, the top three sources of pre-visit information, in order, are Mobile Web, Web (desktop/laptop), and social media. Level of use various a fair bit with Gens Y & Z hovering around 80% on each of these. Gen X around 75% for both types of web and 68% for social media. Boomers are around 45% for mobile and social media and 63% for web.

However, regardless of the level of these percentages these top three are far and away the dominant sources of pre-visit information. The fourth highest source, word of mouth ranges between 22% for Boomers and 15% for Gen Z.

It just underscores the importance of making sure your web content is up to date, inviting, and contains the information people are seeking to make their visitation decisions.

One interesting observation they make about peer-reviewed sites which come in as the fifth most popular source of info:

Interestingly, Boomers very slightly outpace other generations for using peer-review web sources such as Yelp and TripAdvisor. It is not a massive difference, but it may be enough to make senior leaders think twice about Google reviews not reaching more senior audiences.

Source

Looking at how social media influenced people’s satisfaction during a visit, they found that people who referenced online content related to their visit while onsite had a greater level of satisfaction than people who didn’t check out online content. This level was slightly higher for exhibit based entities and performance entities. They attributed this to the lack of opportunity to access information during a performance vs. wandering around a gallery, garden, zoo, etc.

Providing people with content that allows deeper exploration related to their experience can be beneficial to their enjoyment.

Social media may cause an even greater bump than mobile web because social media encompasses sharing and allows guests to meld their own personal brands with a museum or performing arts brand. It allows us to say to the world “I’m the kind of person who attends art museums!” and to share the experience with friends, adding a layer of personal relevance.

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In terms of what social media platforms receive the most engagement from high-propensity visitors: For performing arts entities it is Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter/X in that order.

Exhibit based entities are slightly different

For exhibit-based organizations, Instagram is a 4.3x more important platform for millennial engagement (i.e., likes, shares, comments) than is Facebook. For Baby Boomers, Instagram is 1.3x more important for engagement than Facebook. That said, Facebook beats out TikTok for the Baby Boomer crowd…but only the Baby Boomer crowd.

Source

Arts in an Age of Technology, Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Marketing/PR

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Showing Off An Art Prescription

August 19, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

While I was scrolling through Reddit this weekend, I came across a post about a doctor’s office in the San Diego area prescribing visits to the New Children’s Museum for the poster’s 4 year old (New is its proper name, not an adjective. It opened in 1983 and changed its name in 2008)

In addition to advising daily structured and free play time, the prescription serves as a one year membership to the museum and encourages visiting once or twice a month. The program has lead sponsorship from GitHub, but the museum site also lists Dr. Seuss Foundation, The Parker Foundation, and First 5 San Diego as supporters.

I have posted quite a bit about social prescription programs in various locales around the globe. They typically include everything from passes/vouchers to arts and culture, outdoor activities, rail passes, and book purchases. I was glad to see an examples of one of these programs with pretty generous terms.

Obviously, if people attend twice a month for a year with a 4 year old participation is likely to turn into a habit. I imagine the museum is hoping that translates into paid memberships for at least another 4-5 years of a kid’s youth.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Marketing/PR, New Initiatives

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Perception of Cultural Orgs By Party Identity Not As Different As You May Think

August 18, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

When I saw that Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS Experience had posted data about whether Democrats and Republicans feel differently about cultural organizations (subscription required) I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read the results.

The answer, however is, not really.

They compared The National Awareness, Attitudes, and Usage Study data from the 2nd quarter of 2022 to the second quarter of 2025 for both exhibit based and performance based cultural organizations comprising 11 different categories. The responses of those who answered that they agreed or strongly agreed with statements is presented.

Across pretty much every category there was a slight increase between 2022 and 2025 on questions about whether an organization had a political agenda. However, the percentages started relatively low in 2022 and only increased a few percentage. This is compared to the same sentiments about newspapers, non-governmental organizations and state agencies which all had high perceptions of having agendas.

In terms of cultural organizations being perceived as mission driven, the percentages responding agree or strongly agree were very high and there was little daylight between Republicans and Democrats.

There were similar results on the question of whether an organization “should suggest or recommend certain behaviors or ways for the general public to support its causes and mission.” The percentage of those agreeing was high in 2022 and has only increased in 2025. Again with only a few percentage points difference between party affiliation.

In terms of a question about whether a cultural organization was welcoming to people like themselves, the percentage of those feeling welcomed by an organization was very high. Unlike the previous questions where Democrats were more likely to agree/strongly agree by 2-3% over Republicans, in this case Republicans tended to feel more welcome. It was only 2-3% more for exhibit based organizations but for performance based organizations the difference was 6-7% more.

Based on the way the questions were phrased, it was likely people were responding about their perception of local cultural organizations with which they were familiar rather than organizations by category. So while there may be a general narrative on social media, etc that seems to reflect a significant divide in opinion about cultural organizations, it seems that people have a positive view of organizations local to them.

It should be noted that Dilenschneider & Co. observe that Democrats are more likely to report being high propensity visitors to cultural organizations (36%) compared to those identifying as Republicans (29%) or Independents/Unaffiliated/Other (35%)

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture

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Podcasting Pre-Nups And Other Legal Arrangements For Digital Media

August 13, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

I haven’t written about any of his posts for a couple years, but I have been following Gordon Firemark’s entertainment law blog for 15 years, if not longer.

At one point he wasn’t posting with great frequency, but recently he has been releasing quite a bit of content. A good deal of it has been related to online content.

For example, he recently wrote about making sure you have a “podcast pre-nup” in case one of the co-hosts decides to leave and take half the podcast with them. He cites an example of a client who came to him after making a couple mistakes and provides advice about how to draw up agreements to avoid these issues before they crop up.

He offers a mix of free and paid templates for podcasters to use. Another section of his site has forms for digital entrepreneurs which covers everything from media rights to providing coaching services.

Another topic he recently covered was Brand Deals for social media influencers. He notes there are a lot of legal issues influencers can run into and some forms of disclaimer may not be enough to fend off accusations of fraud or misleading claims.

He points out that that just because platforms provide resources and tools, it doesn’t mean one has unlimited use of them without proper licensing. Similarly, the platform rules are there to protect them and not you.

Platform Policies Are Not Legal Advice

Each platform has its own rules, but those are designed to protect them, not you. Just because a platform allows something doesn’t mean it’s legal. And just because a brand sends you a contract doesn’t mean it’s fair, enforceable, or protective of your rights.

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Another recent post warned anyone using websites to support their business not to ignore the content of the site policy language in the website footers. Using the boilerplate language provided or copying the language from another site can get you into trouble.

Here’s why:

-If your disclaimer doesn’t match your niche (coaching, wellness, financial), you’re leaving yourself wide open.

-If your Privacy Policy doesn’t align with how you actually handle user data, you’re violating FTC rules—and likely breaking GDPR, too.

-If your refund policy isn’t clearly disclosed at checkout, you could be in violation of new “Click to Cancel” rules.

Source

If you are looking for some basic information about the legal side of entertainment law in a number of different formats and media, stopping by his website to look at his posts and the issues addressed by his forms can be a good place to start. Especially in terms of giving you a sense of what sort of questions you should be asking.

Arts in an Age of Technology, Legal Topics

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