Promoter Handbook Test

APPENDIX 8: SOCIAL MEDIA - WHY USE IT? SOCIAL MEDIA FOR TOTAL BEGINNERS What’s all the fuss about?

Social Media is the collective term for the various sites that allow users to build social networks, and share information with their network. Two of the most popular sites are Twitter and Facebook.

Social media is an incredibly useful and FREE tool for publicity, marketing and customer service.

We use Twitter and Facebook to promote your Arts Alive events, to connect with companies and performers touring with us, to talk to audiences and potential audiences, to raise the profile of Arts Alive, and of rural arts as a whole.

Here is some very basic information about both.

TWITTER ➢ Twitter enables users to send and read 140 character messages called tweets ➢ You can include links and photos in these tweets to pack more information in ➢ There are two main displays on Twitter: profile page, where you will see the user’s information and the tweets they have written or retweeted - Your twitter newsfeed, where you will see all the tweets posted by your followers ➢ The main terminology you need to get to grips with is: RETWEET – retweeting a tweet posted by another Twitter user means that it will show on your profile and your followers will be able to see it (when people write “Please RT” they are asking for retweets!

FAVORITE – They use the American spelling, sorry! Favoriting a tweet will put it into your ‘favorites’ list, so that others can see what tweets you have favorited HANDLE – your twitter name. Ours is @ArtsAliveEvents. It always starts with an @ symbol, and if you include somebody’s handle in your tweet, they will be notified of it and can retweet you /reply HASHTAG – putting a # before a word or phrase to turn it into a search term, so that you can search for other tweets about the same subject FACEBOOK ➢ Facebook enables users to add other users as friends, exchange messages, post status updates, share content like photos and videos on their own page and on others’ pages, and to like fan pages (like ours!) ➢ You will need to set up a Facebook Fan Page to act as your venue (or just for your AA events), so that the public can like the page and see the information you post. To create a fan page you need to already have a Facebook account from which to run it. ➢ Main Facebook terminology: LIKE – if a member of the public “likes” your page the things you post will appear on their Facebook home page. You can also “like” individual posts, i.e. demonstrating your approval!

COMMENT – Self-explanatory! A comment on a post on your FB page SHARE – If somebody shares your post, it will appear on their profile so that their friends/page fans can see it. You can also share others’ posts.

This may look confusing written down, but once you’ve grasped the basics it becomes much easier!

As with everything, the best way to improve your social media know how is through practice. It will become much clearer once you start tweeting/Facebooking, and the more you use it the easier it will become.

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