proudly presents
Media Guidebook the
made especially for
Table of Contents Brand Advocacy................................. 1 Facebook........................................... 2 Twitter............................................. 4 Constant Contact............................. 6 Event Calendar................................. 8 media schedule................................. 9
Introduction
VINE Advertising’s Media Guide is the all-encompassing resource companion to VINE’s Creative Plan pitch for the Santa Barbara Blues Society. The content within this guide outlines media do’s and don’ts as well as a suggested schedule for an active and engaging online presence.
Brand Advocacy The SBBS Brand Advocacy Program (BAP) will focus on turning current SBBS members, e-mail recipients, and social media followers into SBBS brand advocates. Potential advocates can be enticed with behindthe-scenes, exclusive performing artist content prior to the event. This insider’s peek will give these individuals the same content they will “leak” to their friends and social networks, creating a preliminary buzz of excitement before the event is even officially announced. Brand Advocates can also act as an informal focus group, offering feedback such as what preferences they’ve noticed among your followers. Once SBBS has gained a better understanding of their following, SBBS can tailor their messages and advertising and then inform their advocates as to what they can do so that the revised program will incite engagement and activity on any of SBBS’s social media pages.
Brand Advocates can spend their online activity:
• Encouraging dialog between SBBS and other advocates and followers • Looking for followers’ feedback and comments • Asking followers for feedback regarding events or communication channels (i.e. e-mails, radio spots, etc.) • Reminding followers that their honest opinion is valued insight • Rewarding followers for sharing with a thank you or personalized comment • Building long-term relationships with identified advocates and followers
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Facebook Facebook is a massive advertising tool and it’s important that none of its amazing features go unutilized. Through Facebook, followers are able to comment, like and share anything posted by SBBS including text updates, photos, and entire events! The more followers that interact with the SBBS page, the more attention it will receive. The biggest mistake organizations make in creating a Facebook account is not following up and keeping the page active, but don’t worry - we have plenty of ways to keep your page busy with activity.
what should i be posting?
Generally, all posts should be fresh content - what’s current for SBBS, who’s playing at the local venue, which band just reunited for a reunion tour?!? These are the things your followers are interested in and it’s what you need to deliver! Facebook posts are also a great way to announce new events. Followers can share the post with their friend along with the event page. CLOSING. Truly going above and beyond as an organization is when you can personalize your brand by directly interacting with your followers. Any opportunity to answer a question or thank a follower for a positive comment should be seized with enthusiasm! Ask followers for their input on what type of blues they’d like to see next! Create relationships with regular commenters and encourage them to do the same! There are many ways to connect with your Facebook fanbase who in turn will connect you with potential SBBS attendees. check-in Facebook has a new feature that allows anyone within a certain distance of your event “check-in”. This means that everyone on their page, their friends’ pages, the SBBS page, and the event’s page will see that that person attended your event. That’s 4x the advertising than one post on SBBS’s page would ever receive! During events be sure to make a Facebook status asking attendees to check-in on their Facebook pages. If you’d like to create an incentive for your attendees, you could ask them to get creative with their statuses and photo posts and hold a contest to end the show! 2
This is what a facebook check-in looks like to your followers with smart phones.
to encourage check-ins, offer deals that can only be claimed after checking in
attendees can tag their friends, which means their friends’ friends will see their check-in!
Quick Tips • Post on the weekends • Ask questions using “should” or “would” to motivate followers to comment with their input and opinions • Post photos of all SBBS events (especially any food or drink)! Ask followers to tag themselves and and their friends will see what a good time they had • Keep things aesthetically pleasing with a link shortener like Bitly, TinyURL, or goo.gl • Ask for the “like” • Make your posts short and sweet or lengthy and informational. One or the other!
Hold on, Facebook still has one up its sleeve! Having an active Facebook page full of posts, comments, likes and shares will allow you to track real-time data through the analytics on your Facebook account. This information includes the demographics of your frequent commenters and active followers, how many people are being reached on a daily basis, and what content is the most popular on your page. This data is great for understanding your followers and can inform decisions on what might be most successful for the society.
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Despite the diverse variety of social media available, Twitter remains the most popular amongst the Santa Barbara Blues Society’s primary target of 28 to 66 year-olds. This social media has proven itself to be an effective and efficient way to instantly reach followers and easily build the SBBS brand. The 140 character limit forces users to create concise messages that should act as a taste of what is being announced, whether it be a local blues event or the latest news from a blues performer’s latest tour. Twitter demands constant attention in order to keep your followers excited and engaged and these simple guidelines will help you do just that without even breaking a sweat.
what should i be “tweeting”?
If you were dining at a restaurant with friends and were interested in someone else’s dessert, a tweet would be the small spoonful of delicious brownie sundae your friend so graciously let you taste. Tweets aren’t meant to be the entire course, but just a little taste of what’s in store. A tweet’s objective is to grab the interest of the reader and make them want to find out more. It’s also essential that the same tweet provides enough information that if a reader were interested they could find out more. The Santa Barbara Blues Society should focus on tweeting about local blues shows, any and all SBBS events, any major news relevant to blues music (i.e. tour annoucements, album releases, etc.), and engaging in conversations - referred to as “mentions” and “retweets” - with SBBS followers and blues performers.
an example of the twixclusive, #mondayblues
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how do i engage my followers? Twitter is an amazing social media tool because of how easy it is to attract attention. Once a fanbase of followers has been gathered, every tweet has the potential to go viral because of the snowball effect built into Twitter’s hastags, retweets, and networking environment. Whenever activity happens on a specific tweet - say someone retweets it or responds to it - not only do SBBS followers see that activity, but so do the followers of anyone involved in that tweet’s activity. SBBS can do a number of things to keep their followers interested and active on their Twitter feed. It is important that in addition to the staples - such as a tweet to announce a new event or a reminder of ticket prices - SBBS focuses less on themselves and more on the interests of their followers. “Twixclusives”, similar to the recurring columns in a magazine, act as a regular tweet followers can expect and hopefully begin to excitedly anticipate. Twixclusives are marked with hashtags (#) that lets followers identify the tweet as something special. For example, SBBS could start the #MondayBlues Twixclusive where SBBS asks followers to name a hit blues song. This type of interaction with your followers creates loyal fans and an exciting Twitter feed! However, engaging your followers needn’t be so involved. Simply asking for the retweet has been proven to result in more retweets and therefore, more views overall. Since Twitter isn’t bound by any geographical limitations, SBBS can also engage blues performers around the world by mentioning them in their tweets. SBBS members would see these interactions with past and present headliners and might recognize them when they came back to Santa Barbara for another performance (meaning, more ticket sales!).
Quick Tips • Keep tweets lengthy! Write tweets between 120 and 130 characters • For the best click rate, use links and place them 25% into your tweet • For a higher click rate: mention someone with an @ (ex. @SBBS), retweet someone’s tweet, or include the words “please” and “check” • Use more action verbs and less nouns • Tweet on the weekends (Fri-Sun) and in the afternoons and evenings, around 4 P.M. • Use a link shortener like Bitly, TinyURL, goo.gl to get the most out of your characters 5
Constant Contact Unlike social media, Constant Contact is an e-mail marketing service that allows you to set up your messages beforehand and schedule when they’re delivered. Under the Email tab, you can choose an email template that best suits your needs for the BluesLover email or the upcoming event’s price sale announcements. Once you’ve chosen a template, fill it with relevant information, links and photos and keep the colors consistent with the SBBS brand (i.e. blue, yellow, black, and white - same as the sbblues.org website).
How to Insert Pictures, Links, Surveys, PayPal Buttons...
Constant Contact offers a variety of actions and media that can be directly inserted into your e-mail message. To do this, click on any existing block and the toolbar on the left will change to offer Insert, Images, and Social tabs. Click on the Insert tab to see all the things that can be inserted into your e-mail. If you want to create a new block, unclick any blocks that are highlighted then click the Block tab on the left toolbar. You’ll have a variety of blocks to choose from including Top Content, Header, Spacer, etc.
when The header box is highlighted, the toolbar on the left changes to the one displayed here.
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the same toolbar hosts buttons for your social media pages. click the “social” tab to access these buttons
...and Social Media Buttons!
Be sure to take advantage of Constant Contact’s ability to sync with your social media. Once a block is highlighted, click on the left toolbar’s Social tab and you’ll see all the social media that can be inserted into your e-mail. Drop in a “Like on Facebook” button after a blurb about an upcoming event. Make it easy for your readers to engage with your online profiles! Once your e-mail has been edited and designed to look amazing, it’s time to schedule it’s distribution! Click the Continue button on the right above your email and fill out the necessary information in the Email Settings form. Once your mailing addresses have been selected as recipients of the e-mail, you can schedule the day and even time that it’s sent! Make sure to check the boxes for Google Analytics and an early results report to get the most out of your e-mail marketing service.
Quick Tips • Click Help in the top right toolbar to be redirected to Constant Contact’s Resource Center where you’ll find Chat and Email Support, FAQs, and a community forum • To save time, create all your pricing announcement e-mails in advance! Create a new e-mail for every announcement and schedule when each one should be sent (see our Media Schedule on the back page) • Check reports on how many times your e-mail was opened, clicked, or forwarded by clicking the Email tab in the grey toolbar and then the Reports sub-tab in the yellow toolbar 7
Event Calendars SantaBarbara.com The Santa Barbara Blues Society is currently represented on SantaBarbara.com’s Community Guide Calendar page. On this page, there is a link for the Blues Society although it currently is linked to an inactive website (please contact the website moderator to change this). On SantaBarbara.com’s Calendar page there is a General Calendar where anyone can post an upcoming event. To do so: 1. Click “Add your events” 2. Select the event date and write both a short and full description. 3. Upload an image that brands the event. 4. Click “Submit Event”
The Santa Barbara Independent The Santa Barbara Independent has not only a print calendar, but also an online calendar featured on their website. Submitting an event to their calendar is very simple and has been proven to be an effective advertising channel. On their Events page, click the red button on the right that says Submit An Event. In order to submit an event, you must have an account with the Independent (it’s very easy to set one up). After logging in, provide the relevant information in the event form and click submit! After the event is approved by their monitors, it will be live on the online calendar.
quick tips • Link back to your website or the Facebook event page whenever possible • Keep the messages consistent between all event calendars • On the SB Independent calendar, ask readers to remind themselves of the event via email or text using the website’s Event Tools
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Good Luck
!
Conclusion
You now have all the tools necessary to create a successful media campaign for a Santa Barbara Blues Society event! If you have any questions that cannot be answered by this guide, feel free to scour the Internet for new tips and tricks! Social and online media are new to advertising and continue to grow in new ways every day. Flip to the back cover of this guide to see the timing of each message fully outlined in a weekly schedule.
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4 WEEKS UNTIL EVENT
SUN
TUES
#Monday Blues Announce Early Bird Tickets are available
3 WEEKS UNTIL EVENT 2 WEEKS UNTIL EVENT
MON
Announce Presale Tickets are available
WED THURS
FRI
SAT Early Bird Tickets reminder
“Lyric of the Week”
Announce Early Bird Tickets are available
#Monday Blues
“Lyric of the Week”
#Monday Blues
“Lyric of the Week”
Last Chance for Early Bird Tickets reminer
Last Chance for Early Bird Tickets reminder
Announce the event
Announce Presale Tickets are available
WEEK OF THE EVENT
#Monday Blues
KTYD spot Independent print ad runs
Event is this weekend!
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“Lyric of the Week”
KCSB spot
Announce today is SHOW DAY
KEY Facebook
BluesLover Newsletter
Price E-mailings
Event Calendar
Radio spots