THE PR SHOP

WITH DAVE BULLARD

THIS YEAR, TAKE BACK (SOME OF) YOUR VOICE

For the last decade or so, we’ve been building up our social media presence. First, we set up shop on Facebook. Then Twitter and Instagram. Pinterest, SnapChat, LinkedIn and TikTok followed. WhatsApp, Twitch, YouTube, Tumblr and more – so many more. Somewhere out there are abandoned MySpace pages.

Social media is headed towards maturity but isn’t there yet. These are its teenage years. And like teenagers, social sites are occasionally surly, needy and withdrawn. Facebook is the teen hiding in his room, showing himself (and your content) less and less often in public and demanding more money from Mom and Dad. Twitter is the teen that wants you to call them by a new name (“Just call me ‘X’, okay?”) and is developing antisocial tendencies. TikTok can’t grow an attention span, and so on.

They all have one thing in common, though. Like teenagers without a driver’s license, they still need us, though they hate to admit it. These sites make money from us because we voluntarily give our content to them. Not only that, we spend money to hire additional staff to create content to help Facebook and X and TikTok make more money. (If your local newspaper said they’d give you more free publicity if you would pay for a reporter for them, you’d think that was nuts.)

And yet, some key social sites have been making it harder for us to reach the audiences we’ve built. Facebook keeps changing its algorithm to limit how many of your subscribers see your posts –currently it’s 10% or less – and X’s many changes have made it a more toxic swamp than ever. National Public Radio walked away from X after a dispute with the social media company and saw only a 1% drop in traffic to its website. NPR had more than 50 X accounts for its various content areas.

Beyond that, some are beginning to question the use of social media for business marketing in general. Drew Curtis is a pioneer of the early ‘net’. His website, Fark.com, has been around since 1999, before social media. He said recently, “We’ve been reviewing social media effectiveness for the past several months and have pretty much concluded what NPR did recently - social media is great if you want to cultivate an audience on someone else’s platform, not so great if you want to cross-pollinate an audience onto your own platform. There was a time where that wasn’t the case, but so it goes. We won’t be shutting down Fark’s social accounts completely, but we won’t be regularly posting there going forward. The {Fark site newsletter} will continue however…”

So, here’s a thought exercise: What if, in 2024, you spent more money and effort on media that you control and maybe a little less on media you don’t?

You control your website, your phone app and your email newsletter. I’m willing to bet that your newsletter is an underused asset. Newsletters aren’t flashy or trendy and they get taken for granted as a result. But think about this: You can spend an hour cutting together a quick video and writing a solid script for a social post that will be seen by less than one in every 10 subscribers to your Facebook page, or you can use the same content in your newsletter that will be sent to every single subscriber. (And why not both?)

Social sites make it harder than they should to provide you with proof that posting with them helps you sell tickets and merch. They want you to focus on other metrics like “engagement” and you’ll need to jump through additional hoops to get real proof of effectiveness. Your newsletter and website can be set up to give you all the proof you need.

Here’s how to get started: First, commit to making your newsletter a real priority this year. I know everyone’s absurdly busy, and time doesn’t expand just because you need it to. So, think hard about where you will take time from. My suggestion: Pull a little time from social media. Or rank your priorities and assign times and values to them. Next, commit to a schedule of publication. Monthly in the offseason, perhaps, and ramping up as the event gets closer. Regardless of schedule, use the newsletter to make your major announcements directly to your audience, at the same time as you hold a press event or send out a news release or make a social post.

Finally, track your results. Set up mirrored pages on your website so that you can know exactly how many visits to your sales page and how many sales were created from a newsletter link, social post or website story.

I’m not advocating getting rid of your social media efforts. I’m saying that in the rush to give someone else our content with often little in return, there remain tools that can provide you solid benefit and proof of effectiveness.

Dave Bullard, CFEE is owner of FanFirst Events and Influence, consulting on production, public relations and marketing for events and festivals. He served for 10 years as PR and Marketing Manager of the Great New York State Fair, directing a $1 million marketing budget for the 1.3 million-attendance festival. Dave is available anytime to IFEA members to kick around ideas and brainstorm solutions. He also moderates the IFEA PR & Marketing Affinity Group. He’s at debullard@gmail.com and 315-575-6320.