Success in using social networking tools
Posted by Lorin May | Posted in Chapters, Media, Membership growth, Quartetting, Run your chapter, Uncategorized | Posted on October 28, 2009, 8:44 AM
8
In an upcoming issue of the magazine, we’re going to be running an article on how some chapters and quartets are using Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc. to get new fans, new members, new audiences and build new relationships. I know of a few examples of barbershoppers who are using Facebook to sell more tickets and locate potential members. I would sure like to know some more.
- Do you know any success stories? (Yours or another group?)
- Do you you have any expertise on how to use social networking effectively in a barbershop or other singing environment?
- Do you have any questions that you want answered in an article like this?
Please share what you know or what you want to know right here!
(Note: Feel free to provide links in your response (if you know they’re clean), but know that comments that contain multiple links will usually go into moderation before they can be posted. If you comment doesn’t show up immediately, that’s probably why.)
The MVE is just starting to use SocM tools – we have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. We will be experimenting with Facebook ads for our upcoming holiday show. We have a decent number of fans on FB but are looking to expand. Since we’re just in the infancy of using these tools, not a ton of success yet, but we’re trying.
Bob, I would say it’s pretty successful in the sense that many of us who would be out of the loop are kept in the loop by MVE’s tweets.
I wouldn’t have seen the video of Westminster at the Llangollen festival without that tweet.
A SUCCESS STORY – The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Nashville Singers, Inc.
BACKGROUND: I’m the director of a new choral ensemble started here in Music City 11 months ago called Nashville Singers. The mission of Nashville Singers is to entertain, educate, unite and uplift our audiences and members through music that is distinguished for its innovation, diversity and artistic excellence. We’re an auditioned group with high standards and expectations. We started with four singers. We know exactly who we are, where we want to go, and how we’re going to get there. We hope to charter with the Barbershop Harmony Society very soon. Our website is http://www.nashvillesingers.org
THE CORE: The four founding members included me, (Todd Wilson) my dad and Suntones baritone, (Harlan Wilson), my teenage son (Taylor Wilson), and Chorus President Bruce Cokeroft, son of Barbershop Harmony Society Hall of Fame member, and Suntones tenor singer, Gene Cokeroft.
THE GROWTH: Our 11th member passed his audition this month.
THE TIME COMMITMENT: We rehearsed twice a month for the first nine months and bumped it to three times a month starting in September of this year.
GUEST ACTIVITY: Including the four founding members, in our first 11 months, 40 of the 56 people expressing interest in Nashville Singers attended one or more of our meetings.
THE MUSIC PROGRAM: I keep the guys challenged musically. In our first 25 rehearsals (a six month span for most choruses) we’ve introduced 17 songs. The guys are expected to be off the music within three weeks.
OUR SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERIENCE: We’ve been utilizing a potent combination of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to attract members, celebrate new members, promote appearances, promote our website, and more recently invite friends and followers to the informal “afterglows” we have at a local restaurant after our meetings.
FREE PROMOTION: I promote us through updates to my 1600+ Facebook friends. The chorus has a Facebook group page with 278 members, a band page with 175 fans, and a regular page with 34 friends, 69 Twitter followers, and 10 members of our LinkedIn group. I regularly post news about our chorus through these social media channels.
WHAT WORKS BEST FOR US: We get more ROI with Facebook advertising than anything else we do. In the first 11 months we accumulated 2,545,844 ad impressions in Middle Tennessee, which have driven 1,313 people to our website. The total cost to our group has been just $538.72. This equates to $49 per month, or .41 per click.
OUR TARGET: males living in Middle Tennessee who like acapella, audition, barbershop, a cappella, chamber choir, choir, choral, choral music, choreography, chorus, church choir, composing, composition, concert choir, creativity, fun, gospel choir, karaoke, music in general, music music music, music teacher, musician, performing, show choir, sing, singing, singing dancing, singing in car, singing in shower, songwriting, vocals, voice, voice lessons, writing music or writing songs;
SOURCES OF PROSPECTS: Of the 56 people that have expressed interest in Nashville Singers, 31 (55%) came from our Facebook ad.
SOURCES OF GUESTS: Of the 40 guests that have attended a meeting, 14 (35%) of the guests came from Facebook. 10 (25%) guests were invited by a member. 6 guests (15%) came from PR stories in the local paper, 4 (10%) were founding members, 3 guests (7.5%) were invited by another guest, one (2.5%) came from a referral from a friend of a member, and one (2.5%) was a walk-in. 16 (40%) of these 40 guests auditioned. 12 (75%) of the 16 that auditioned passed the audition. 11 (92%) of the 12 that passed the audition joined.
SOURCES OF NEW MEMBERS: Of the seven new members that were not founders of the chorus, three (43%) came from Facebook, three (43%) were invited by another member, and one (14%) came from public relations efforts.
PARTICIPATION LEVELS: 100% of our members are actively involved and attend meetings regularly.
ROI: The dues revenue generated from our three new Facebook members generated $720.00. The money spent on Facebook ads to attract those three members was $538.72.
MISSION CRITICAL ELEMENT: One important key here is to have a good website that makes a great first impression and does a good job of “selling” your group.
MARKETING IS A MUST: As we were a start-up group with no awareness, no following, and no reputation, in a town filled with musical groups, it was mission critical for us to make marketing a priority. Our chorus budget for the first year is under $3600, but 20% of this budget is allocated to marketing.
PR IS IMPORTANT TOO: We’ve generated a decent amount of “free” ink in a local community newspaper from a few releases to the media. This brought us one (14%) of our seven new members.
SOCIETY USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: As far as concert tickets go, when I promoted the 2009 Midwinter Convention using a Facebook ad, that ad yielded $25 in ticket sales for every dollar spent on advertising.
CLOSING QUESTIONS TO ANYONE READING THIS ARTICLE: Does your chapter track these kinds of stats? If not, why not? How do these states compare to your chapter?
Todd,
How did you track Facebook ad dollars against ticket sales? When we did Facebook ads for American Harmony in Indianapolis and Columbus, there didn’t seem to be any way to determine who actually went to see the movie as a result of the ad.
All you get are clickthrough stats, which doesn’t tell you much. Or did you survey on the MidWinter site and ask people who bought tickets how they found out about the event?
With the budget so tight, all our advertising eggs went into the social media marketing basket for the Pasadena evening concerts. We were able to segregate ticket sales by the host chapter from the total mix.
I have started a Facebook group page and a Twitter page for the Davenport, Iowa Chordbusters in the Central States District.
We are 3 months into the Facebook page and just started the Twitter page. The main purpose was to get our events out to our members, but hoped with making it public that it would draw others to the page by getting the word out through Facebook advertising.
We have 36 members on Facebook and hope for it to grow more with the advertising. But we are still in our infant stage of using the Social Network.
We have a pretty good website which we refer potential new members to. We also have a social networking website for our members. The idea is to share thoughts and ideas with each other. We can post pictures, the minutes of the last board meeting, start blogs to discuss important concepts, even post video. We have engaged with a coach who puts video of our coaching sessions on the site. When a controversial subject comes up in the chapter, we try to discuss it on the site. For example; we talked about the Chuck Green seminar before it happened. See RVHarmonizers.org and click on the icon which takes you to RVHarmonizers.com.ning
Update – on the date of the original post, the MVE had ~290 fans on FB. We’re now at 567 and growing in leaps and bounds.
We’ve started linking to the pages of our guest artists, other quartets and choruses, the venues at which we perform, etc. They link back. We are establishing ties to other performing groups in our area. Cross-promoting shows, even if we are not performing. You have to give to get.
We promote our FB page and Twitter accounts in our programs and have received comments from patrons on our pages.
We bought ads for our last show targeting by geography and age. Got a few sales, many more inquiries and generated traffic to FB and our web site.
In short, WOM (word of mouth) works!! Next stage involves adding more content – photos, video, etc. to bring the page to life. Stay tuned.