As incredibly useful as social networking tools are, they are limited because they are used voluntarily and by the self-aware. There are many instances where organizations are not, in their processes, motivated to function horizontally or outside of their traditional bounds, and there are many talented individuals locked in the tunnel vision of their pursuits, blindly unaware that collaboration could be the best move they make.
most consumers – while they might want to contribute – find that it’s too difficult or too much hassle. Which is why you can expect to see more IDLE SOURCING initiatives in 2012: products and services that make it downright simple (if not effortless) to contribute to anything, from pinpointing roads in need of repairs to finding signs of extraterrestrial life.
I have an odd habit – I collect snippets of celebrities’ musings about social media. For instance, this from Mike Skinner:
one of the things I’ve come to lately is that social media isn’t really for content providers, it’s for the people and if you place something on the internet, that’s all your social media done….
Instead of kids going out and making their own moments, they’re just taking these images and living vicariously through other people’s moments. It just kills me. Then you’ll meet them and they’re just the biggest turkey in the world. They don’t actually embody any of those things. They just emulate. It’s scary man, simulation life that we’re living. It scares me.
Not that I always agree with what they have to say, but their perspective can sometimes be quite interesting. Probably because their view of interaction via social media is quite different to yer average. After all, whereas many people are concerned with getting someone (anyone!) to notice them online, celebrities have a surfeit of attention to deal with.
A few years back there was a Twitter search tool (I can’t find it now) that allowed you to swap your keyword for another in the results that were returned. Putting your name in place of @ladygaga and seeing the flood of messages (not all of them pleasant) was eye-opening.
With social media you can’t check into a hotel under a fake name for a bit of respite. The fans are always there, screaming outside the window.
A few years back there were stories in the papers (accurate or not) about people/bands/whatever coming to wider prominence having built an audience via their Myspace accounts (think Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, Tila Tequila and so on).
Meanwhile on Wikipedia there’s a whole list of YouTube personalities featuring plenty of people who have used the platform to find fame and, in some cases, fortune. There are comedians, actors, musicians, beauty experts and people selling blenders.
So what about Facebook? There have been plenty of causes and campaigns that have gained traction there, but I can’t think of any individuals (or bands) who’ve translated big followings into recording contracts, book deals or TV series. Have I missed something?
When I wrote that post about trailers in the theatre I searched around to find any discussion on the topic elsewhere. I couldn’t find much and what I could see was concerned with howbadtheyare.
I also had a search around some theatres’ YouTube accounts and it occurred to me that there might be a more fundamental problem here. In fact Rachel Coldicutt preempted this post in a good comment on that previous one, saying:
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why theatre isn’t very good at being cinema. And it’s because, I think, cinema is already amazing at being cinema and the theatre is pretty damn good at being the theatre.
What happens
I’m going to generalise a bit here, but bear with me because (give or take a few exceptions) I think this holds broadly true:
Cinematic trailers are made to be shown on TV and in the cinema. They’re then also put online.
Theatre trailers often mimic cinematic trailers. However, they aren’t shown on TV or in the cinema (nor in the theatre, for that matter). They just go online where, for the most part, nobody sees them.
An alternative approach
These videos are going to be shown almost exclusively online – on YouTube, on the company or venue’s main website’s event info page and maybe (hopefully) on some blogs. The key thing is that audience here isn’t captive – it’s prone to clicking away within fractions of a second.
As such, it would surely be better to take inspiration from successful YouTube videos, rather than going toe-to-toe with the cinematic trailers that have been made for very different viewing conditions. I’m not necessarily saying that adorable kittens should feature in every video (although…) but, depending on what you’re looking to achieve (and that’s the most important thing to bear in mind), there are ways to play to the strengths/mitigate the weaknesses of the medium:
be brief and try to get the key information in early – remember you’re losing viewers with each passing second
make use of clickable annotations, adding links to further info/tickets
in fact, just watch this video (NB: some of it’s outdated and I really wouldn’t endorse everything the guy says)
If you’ve made a beautiful piece of content but not created an audience for it, you’ve wasted your money
It’s not quite as easy as all that though, is it?
Of course, there are things that a respectable arts organisation won’t be able to get away with and that may well prove to be a hinderance. For instance, yesterday I was mighty amused to read a post by Kingsley Jayasekera from Sadler’s Wells.
It’s exactly the same video, so why has this one scored so many views? Well, it can be hard to tell exactly how/why these things come to be spread around more widely, but looking at the differences between the two:
The official video has a descriptive title, is tagged and contains a short description – all of which will help it to be more easily discoverable by people who know what they’re searching for. However, it’s also age-restricted (over 18s only)
Of course, Sadler’s are unlikely to be able to describe a trailer in those kinds of terms. The brand perception that serves them so well in other areas would preclude it.
Still, there are other ways for an organisation to play the YouTube game. ENO deliberately courted an online audience with their ‘Can I be your friend?‘ video for Two Boys (which I notice includes a link to a more traditional trailer) and I helped Birmingham Hippodrome to score an accidental hit with this video.
You could also argue that Sadler’s Wells’ succeeded by putting out a video deemed worthy of reposting (with ident and end card intact). How many others can claim that? After all, if Tim O’Reilly is right then:
Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy
For The Inbetweeners you could quite easily substitute, Skins (3.4m), Misfits (1.4m), Peep Show (480k) or several others. The point being that the individual shows tend to get a great deal more traction than the channel that hosts them (although you have to wonder which FB Pages get the most on-air promotion/marketing budget).
That makes sense though, doesn’t it? You’re more likely to be a fan of a show (generally and/or on Facebook), than you are to be the fan of an entire channel with a varied output. The channel is just a wrapper, and who cares about that? The show is the tasty treat inside.
I think the C4/E4/Inbetweeners situation matches that of performing arts and concert venues. I’ll only go to a theatre, gig venue, comedy club or symphony hall if I want to see a particular show (lovely as the venues may be in their own right).
Whereas museums and galleries (and country houses, nature centres, gardens and so on) are more akin to the 24 hour news, music or sport channels – you can turn on/up at most times of day and be reasonably confident of what to expect.
The play’s the thing
Where performing arts are concerned, people are more likely to anticipate, book tickets for and tell their friends about an individual play, musical or performance.
Of course, none of this is news. It’s surely the reason why theatres put out posters and flyers for individual shows, rather than advertising the theatre as a whole. They’ll build up mailing lists and segment them so they can send out more relevant messages to people.
Segmentation in social media: a different approach
So, bearing this in mind, why do theatres concentrate on building up fans to venue-specific Facebook accounts? They have their uses (after all, marketing isn’t everything) but it occurs that it may be going against the grain of what Facebook users would prefer. To use my earlier analogy, it’s a case of selling the wrapper rather than the sweet inside.
I suppose in one sense it’s like building up other forms of marketing lists (email, SMS, direct mail, etc) – the difference being that post-signup segmentation of messages isn’t yet possible with Facebook Pages (save for specifying location and language). As such, they’re limited to sending the same message to a group of people who want to hear everything they’ve got to say.
It’s not that segmentation of audiences isn’t possible with social media, it just needs to be approached very differently.
There’s been a rash of this stuff lately. It irritates me in a way that’s hard to explain but usually I ignore it – we were all new to this stuff once upon a time. Thing is, not only is this cack-handed and lazy but, because LDR London claim to be a decent agency, some poor sod must be paying for this.
It’s not as if I don’t try to help. There’s a contact page on Created in Birmingham - it has an email address, a contact form, a postal address and, in case that’s not enough, there are some step-by-step instructions explaining how to get onto CiB.
For that matter, because I don’t use the account in a particularly conversational manner, the @createdinbrum Twitter bio says “@ChrisUnitt is the person to chat to”. And anyway, why would I want to follow a Twitter account that spams people like that and just wants to send me a press release? That doesn’t sound fun.
It wasn’t just me who felt the need to point out the obvious:
But wait…
Is my minor hissy-fit missing a bigger point?
Perhaps the accepted wisdom – that a more personal, conversational approach is the way to go – is wrong, and the way to extract maximum value from Twitter is to use it ruthlessly efficiently.
Maybe, in a commercial context, it’s enough to use Twitter to follow your industry peers/contacts/sources of info and occasionally fire out messages to people who might be useful. You’d miss out on some of the deeper benefits that Twitter offers but they’re not guaranteed anyway and you’d be minimising your level of investment in the platform.
It’s not necessarily what I’d recommend, but I’m not blinkered enough to think there’s only one way of using a tool.
It strikes me as a risky tactic though. Beyond a bit of antagonism from people who feel like they’re being cynically targeted, there’s a chance Twitter will think you’re a spammer and shut you down – after all, it’s the way spam bots behave. I’ve tested this out and, on a new account, you can usually tweet the same message to about ten or so people before Twitter catches on and closes your account. Quite right too – imagine if every brand used Twitter like that.
The other week the British Museum tried this tactic to promote a debate with Grayson Perry. In a short period of time they put out 100 identical tweets to a range of people before Twitter applied the brakes – not because they were seen as spamming (presumably having an established account with around 65k followers gives you some leeway) but because they reached their daily limit (see info about limits here). This caused some issues.
Still, I didn’t see any complaints from anyone and presumably it had the effect of increasing the number of people who were aware of the debate and the museum’s Twitter account more generally. So that’s good.
In conclusion
Like I say, I think it’s a good thing to find new ways of using these tools. Accepted wisdom is fine and useful as long as it doesn’t limit invention and lead to needless homogeneity.
On the other hand, if you want me to promote your client for you, a little effort on your part wouldn’t go amiss.
This isn’t yet another post banging on about how great socia media is, ok? It’s a glorified links round-up. Sure, I might want to prove a point, but it’s mainly a round-up of useful scraps of info.
Just wanted to make that clear.
For a bit of background, the Birmingham Post printed a piece by John Lamb, Birmingham Chamber of Commerce’s Press & PR Manager, today in which he castigated social media – seemingly Facebook updates in particular (although Twitter and MySpace got a mention too). Dave Harte and Jason Hall have pretty much covered my thoughts on the matter.
Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with giving social media a kicking if it’s done right, but John Lamb’s attempt was so clumsy and unbalanced that I’ve been moved to provide some redress.
So, as John cherry-picked the most banal things he heard via social networks (mainly Facebook, I think) over the past week, so I’ve picked out the most useful things I’ve discovered via Twitter in the past 24 hours.
Fusions is a space for organisations or individuals to explore new, potential projects, forge partnerships and share funding opportunities (via @wesharestuff)
The Birmingham Bead Shop is setting up at the Custard Factory (just down the road from my office) and blogging about it (via @getgood)
In other Custard Factory news, Rooty’s is being refitted and there’s been mention of ‘fine dining’ (via @stevegerrard)
I could, if I wanted, watch a live stream of today’s AmbITion event in Bristol (via @hadleypaul)
Karl Binder is developing a website for enabling collaborative writing projects. The working title is Screenbound (via @karlbinder)
The RSC have a photography-related event with Ellie Kurttz at their open day on Sunday 19 July (via @amyclarke_uk)
Birmingham Royal Ballet’s press officer now has a Twitter profile (via @tmstvns)
I saw a frankly hilarious video of Sepp Blatter falling over (via @lovelychaos)
There’s a bloggers/tweeters/whateverers meet-up in Birmingham on Monday. Birmingam Chamber folk welcome, I’m sure (via @peteashton)
Following a visit to Birmingham the other week, Citilab Barcelona are arranging their first social media clinic for Sept/Oct (via @cataspanglish)
The Art of With asks and answers the question – “what do the advent of the web, collaborative practice and open source ways of working mean for the arts and art organisations?” (via @clarered)
I got some nice responses to my message that I’m off teaching in Guyana this summer
Tonight’s episode of The Home Show features a guy who looks a bit like me. Only chunkier (via @editorialgirl)
Actually, I’ve only gone back five hours but I reckon that’s plenty.
Of course, I’m not saying everything in that list would be of interest to everyone, just me – but then I follow people who interest me. Seeing as how all social media does is help people to communicate, perhaps John Lamb’s real problem is his network.
I’m often on the look-out for ways of presenting the concept of what social media ‘is’, especially animated ones (I’m an absolute sucker for animation in its many guises). Here are a few easily-digestable faves:
I only came across this one the other day. It was produced by Michael Reissinger for Scholz & Friends which is a PR agency, hence the slant towards the challenge traditional marketing faces.
Rather more straight-laced and slightly more corporate, again with a PR edge to it. ‘The Online Media’ has been put out by RealWire, a company specialising in online PR, based in Lincoln.
Commoncraft are pretty much the masters of clear, simple visualisations. This isn’t quite their finest but it’s still pretty good and captures something the first two don’t.
I’ll give a nod to Michael Wesch’s ‘The Machine is Us/ing Us too, which sketches the evolution of the web to what is often known as Web 2.0.
If there are any others worthy of a mention please drop a link in the comments.
