How Arts

Organizations
Can Thrive
in the
Digital Age
by Brian Solis, FutureWorks and PR2.0
www.future-works.com, www.briansolis.com
Web 2.0 Introduced a
More Social Web
Social Media - Short Version
• Anything that uses the internet to facilitate conversations

Social Media - Longer Version

• Social Media is the democratization of information,
transforming people from content readers into content
publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to
a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between
authors, people, and peers.
Markets are
Conversations –
Participation is
Marketing

the cluetrain manifesto

If a Conversation
Takes Place
Online & You’re
Not There to Hear
It, Did It Really
Happen?
Controlling the Message is No
Longer Our Primary Goal.
Every Conversation is an
Opportunity Shape Perception.
Your Influencers
are Already
Driving Markets
Online

Not engaging with customers

directly removes you from their
radar screen
The Web 1.0 Chain of Influence

One to Many
The Social Media Chain of Influence

One to One – Many to Many

Markets are Now Conversations

Brand

It’s a cycle driven by the voices and

connections of people and their networks
 The Groundswell of Influence

Psychographics

Influence travels from the

edge to the center

Viewers
Connectors
Researchers
Producers
Tastemakers
Influencers
You
Brand
Demographics
Social Media creates
- Groundswell of influence
- Trust
- Unity
- Community of stakeholders
- A new generation of participants

People, Power, Perception

How do You
Define
Influence?

It’s the Ability to Inspire

Action and Measure It
YouTube = 10 percent of all internet traffic
(source: Ellacoya Networks)

YouTube & Wikipedia among top brands

(source: brandchannel.com)

Five of the top 10 websites are social

(source: Alexa)

Over 100 million blogs exist

(source: Technorati)

120,000 new blogs launched every day

(source: Technorati)

1.5 million posts per day (17 per second)

(source: Technorati)

New Metrics for a New Era of PR

Social Media is Not
Blogger Relations
 Socialized Media =
The New Marketing/PR Landscape
Relations Traditional SMO
Media
Events
Curation Online/Offline

Content New
Creation Your Brand Influencers

Portable Soc Networks

Media + Apps Forums

Blogs /
SEO Comments Mobile
Roadblocks for PR in a Web 2.0 World

• Perceived as not getting it

• Rely on hype and spin - disingenuous
• “Sell” stories instead of story telling
• No more than mere handlers
• Use stunts or events to generate excitement
• Spammers
• Invest in tools and databases instead of relationships
• No idea who they’re talking to and why they should listen
• Think of people as an audience and stories as
messages
• Old metrics no longer apply in the new Web
Challenges Specific to Art Orgs

• Baby Boomer vs. Gen X and Gen Y

– Fundraising
• Creative Commons vs. Stealing
• Control
• Playing vs. ROI
– Trix is for kids!
• Budget and resources are limited as it is
• The state of the economy

“A social media strategy could be the perfect way to address

the graying of audiences - once the product is right.”
- Beth Kanter
Most Common Questions…
• How much time does it take to get an organization involved in social media?
• How can I utilize social media to increase our org's web presence?
• How to promote our message and encourage participate?
• How do I maximize social media usage with minimal time and money?
• What are the metrics to measure success for social media?
• With a graying membership, how to use social media for fundraising?
• How do you use social media to attract a younger audience?
• How to choose the right mix of tools?
• Is it better to use one voice on social media sites or more voices?
• How to integrate user generated content on your site?
• How does social media change the nature of relationships?
• What social media is appropriate for accomplishing what tasks?

Source: Beth Kanter LINK

Who’s Experimenting Today?
Who’s Experimenting Today?
Are you an evangelist or a
consultant?

Are you an extension of your

company brand or are you an
employee?

Are you a leader, follower, or are

you meandering through your
profession?

Are you confined to the role of a

social marketer or do you represent
something with longer-term value?
Everyone is a Social Media Expert
What are the
Qualifications to
Participate?
•This is about “Public” Relations
•Empathy
•Market expertise
•Understanding of competitive landscape
•Relevant stories, benefits
•True intentions
•A customer approach
•Observance of online cultures
•Experience with social tools
The New World of “Public” Relations
• Contribute valuable user generated content - participation
• Become sociologists and market and niche strategists
• We become influencers
• Become resources and influencers in our own right
• Creates a new hybrid of PR professionals
– Social Media
– Market analyst/expert
– Web marketer
– Customer Service
– Relationship marketers
– Viral marketer
– Conversationalist/listener
Connect people through
emotions and personality

Engage people on their terms, through

their passions and interests
We are both architects and
builders who are creating the
blueprints for and
constructing the bridge that
connects customers and the
people who represent the
companies they believe in.

Immersion = incontestable experience,

perspective, and knowledge.
Social Media, Social Media + Marketing,

WOMM
• Social Media facilitates conversations online
• Conversational Marketing is the use of Social tools to
interact with people
• WOMM is campaign-focused, may or may not be
transparent
• None are rooted in broadcast, one-way streams or blasts
• People = viral
Who’s Responsible for Participating?
• It requires a champion but, it’s everyone’s responsibility
• Conversations occur everywhere, across a variety of
topics that usually correlate to specific marketing
disciplines and customer services
• Everyone is in some way responsible for PR
• Community managers
• You
It Takes a
Community
Effort
It Starts with Listening
and Observation

• It's the listening that separates Social

Media experts from Social Media
theorists
• The best conversationalists are the
best listeners
• There are always three sides to every
story
• Listening and observation paves the
way for everything
Social Media is
About Sociology
Not Technology
• Social Media marketing starts with
the observations of human behavior
and interaction within online
communities
• It’s not about technology or the tools
– Technology simply provides the
tools to facilitate conversations
online
• Humanize your story by matching it Anthropology
to the culture and the people driving
the communities you’re trying to Sociology
reach
– What matters to them? Ethnography
– How do they talk to each other?
The
Conversation

Prism
Charting a Social Map
What to do…

• ID ways to deliver value

• Participate as a person and
not a marketer
• It’s about conversations, not
messages "You no longer market a performance
that you sit and look at. What you offer
• Cultivate relationships is a complete experience that begins
• You’re speaking with people before the performance even starts
not audiences and may continue afterward.”
- John Munger, Dance/USA
• Humanize the story
• Be a resource, not a sales
person
• Go “native” - become part of
the community
What Not To Do

• Create profiles and expect

a friending frenzy
• Start a blog and hope for
incredible traffic and links
• Participate with irrelevant
updates
• Jump in and start pushing
messages or schilling
• SPAM
• Fake it
• Outsource it overseas
Conversational Marketing is Not
Campaign-Driven
• It requires daily participation
• It’s much more than “viral videos” or blog strategies
– There is no Viral Marketing
• Campaigns complement day-to-day conversations
PR is no
Longer
Defined
by Hits

The Social Web Creates

New Opportunities for
Influence and
Engagement
Conversations/Keywords
Traffic
Leads/Sales
Calls to Action
Engagement
Relationships
Authority
Education & Participation
Perception
Community Activity
Fund Raising/Donations
New elements are introduced into PR
for measuring ROI and success
 • Conversations serve as the
The foundation
Conversation – Videos
Index – Podcasts
– Bookmarks
– blog posts and comments
– Tweets
– Pictures
– Reviews
– Meetups and events
– News or story aggregation
• Conversations are trackable
• A conversation index indicates
your placement, status, ranking,
perception, and participation in
the SocialMediaSphere
 • A story on an A-list blog can generate
anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 unique visits in 1
Traffic month
• Making the front page of Digg can refer more
than 10,000 unique visits in 24 to 48 hours
• Gaining momentum on StumbleUpon can yield
20,000 to 30,000 unique views in 30 days
• Hosting an event on Upcoming or Facebook
can reach and secure hundreds and even
thousands of attendees
• Videos on YouTube, Viddler, et al, can generate
hundreds of thousands or even millions of
unique visitors
• This all equates to $
 • Tying marketing activity to sales is every
executive’s favorite way to evaluate PR
Leads/
effectiveness
$ • We can tie new PR strategies to lead generation
or sales in a number of ways
• Listening to conversations reveals opportunities
to engage with decision makers
– Customer development and loyalty building
– Sales
– Events/attendance
– Contributions
Social Media
is not the
Final Frontier

This is Only The Beginning

Social Media is a lesson.

Social Media delivers new

communications tools.

Social Media is a distribution channel.

Social Media is a means, not an end.

Social Media is a revelation that we the

people have a voice and through the
democratization of content and ideas,
we can once again unite people around
common passions, inspire movement,
and ignite change.

This is About Human Beings

Being Human vs.
Humanizing Your
Story
Feel it.

Live it.

Breathe it.

Love It.

Be it.
What doesn’t kill you, only makes
you harder, better, faster, stronger
You are th e
Br and
You R epresent.

It's the poetry of relationship building.

You get out of
Soci al Me di a
What yo u invest
into it

Trust. Relationships. Community.

Respect the
communities
and they will
respect you.

Companies will earn the

relationships they deserve
Resources to Help You
FutureWorks PR - www.future-works.com

SocialMediaClub.com

AllTop - http://socialmedia.alltop.com/

Social Media Today - www.socialmediatoday.com

Society for New Comm Research – www.sncr.org

PR2.0 – www.briansolis.com

Now is Gone – www.nowisgone.com

Beth Kanter - http://tinyurl.com/55lc32