In her post Monday Marty asked how arts organizations can reach their audiences amid the tumult of today’s media landscape, inspiring this response. Many of these thoughts also apply to public broadcasters — a good number of which present and promote arts to their audiences. The guidance reflects my experience as a follower of various kinds of organizations through media and what I’ve come to expect and appreciate from them.
This may sound basic, but first an organization must review what it most desires to accomplish via promotional media. Then it must determine which opportunities are its biggest priorities. An organization should do a great job on starting a new blog or overhauling its website in lieu of trying 20 things all at once and doing most of them poorly.
Who is their audience? What unites the members of that audience? How is the station already bringing those people together? How will their media efforts further that?
More questions to consider. Again, no doubt some of this seems basic, but I’m just trying to take an inventory of all the tools in the toolbox.
Is the organization’s website clean and easy to read and navigate?
Does it have a blog? Does the blog have an RSS feed?
Do individual employees blog? Do they reply to comments left on their posts? Does leadership set an example and encourage likewise?
Does the website have audio clips or streams for visitors to play and/or download? Are they easily found? Are they available in idiot-proof multiple formats that work across all browsers? Are they easily linked to?
Does the website have video?
Does the organization offer podcasts?
Does it have a page on Facebook?
Does it post photos on Flickr? Has it created a pool that friends can contribute to — photos that are then incorporated into the website? (For an example, see the website of Chicago Public Radio.)
Does the organization use Twitter?
Does it put videos on YouTube?
(What’s the average age of classical radio listeners? Of users of these platforms? Should that matter? I don’t know. What do you think?)
Are all of the channels committed to by the organization united by a common voice and purpose?
Do they all point to, support and promote each other?
Does the new-media presence suggest at every turn that its creators are passionate and personally invested in their work? Does it give them room to express their distinct personalities? Are employees allowed to identify themselves on Twitter, on the website or elsewhere and speak in a personal voice? Or is all communication cast in group-speak, void of personality? Personality and flair will make the audience want to follow what an organization is doing by adding a level of instant enjoyment and gratification.
Is the universal voice approachable, familiar, casual, readable? Does it sound at all insular or self-satisfied, in a way that would discourage direct contact via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or elsewhere?
Are these platforms used as a means to bring voices from outside the institution into the institution? Do members of the target audience get elevated to roles as, for example, guest bloggers? Contributors of audio and video?
Reader, what do you think? Is this list useful? What would you add?
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Yeah, Mike. This list is useful enough that I’m sending it to some of my staff here at NFCB as we begin our major website overhaul, and after having just begun our FB fan page, and a Twitter feed. We’ll see how well our staff answers some of those questions you pose.
I might add to your list an item about setting some kind of measurable goals with each undertaking to decide if it’s working, and if you should continue with that pursuit. That’s a major component of knowing when to keep fishing, and when to cut bait.
Thanks, Mike. This is awesome. We just had a “Bach to Byte” conference in Seattle, and now some of us are meeting to follow up with more specifics in our pursuit of media strategies. Your questions are the perfect place for us to start.
I wonder how organizations have fared with using social media like Facebook and MySpace. My gut feeling is that those still require people to come to us, when in fact we need to be going to them more, by asking our core audience members to help us reach out to others and by inviting our cyberfriends to attend events in person (a la Obama). Also by getting out more in our own communities with neighborhood events and person-to-person social networking.
You’ve given us great food for thought.
Marty
Marty: I think you’re dead on about going to people rather than relying on Facebook and the like to bring them in. One main use of Facebook, in my opinion, is to stay in front of people who already know you exist.
Facebook does offer some chance for discovery as well — for example, I can see when friends of mine become a “fan” of something or have planned to attend an event. In this way Facebook might put something in front of me I didn’t already know about. But that alone isn’t enough.
I think Myspace has mostly dropped off the radar, though I could be wrong. I don’t find it especially useful. But it seems to me that bands and musicians still find it more useful than Facebook when it comes to promoting and offering samples of their music. (They can now do this on Facebook as well, though.)
Martina: You’re right about setting goals for success and tracking progress — very important. Having a blog, getting into social media and so forth isn’t just something to do so you can feel good about yourself — it has to pay off somehow. Especially in these economic times.
And to really make headway, I think stations are going to need to hire people or rearrange responsibilities. New media can’t just be tasked to one part-timer or a volunteer with no additional support. So if they invest the resources, they need to guarantee it’s worth it.