1. Engaging an Art Center’s Constituencies-Online
A Professional Decision Report for the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center
by Chelsea Romero

2. The Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center (BBAC) is
“a tax-exempt regional art center, focused on connecting
people of all ages and abilities with visual arts education,
exhibitions & other creative experiences.”

6. PROBLEM STATEMENT /
RESEARCH QUESTION
How can the BBAC make use of online
communications in order to better
engage target audiences and increase
revenue?

7. OBJECTIVES
• A basic understanding of current effectiveness of their of online
communications
• Findings about the various tactics peer organizations are using
to engage target audiences online
• Best practices for utilizing online communications to increase
revenue
• Information that can used as foundational benchmarks from
which to build strategies for better use of email, social media,
and a new website.
• Recommendations for next steps

8. METHODOLOGY
• Interviews and information gathered
from peer organizations
• Interviews with key BBAC staff
• Survey sent to BBAC’s email list
• Literature, e.g. “The Nonprofit Social
Media Decision Guide.” (July 2010)
Idealware
• Analytics

9. PEER ORGANIZATIONS
Southwest School of
BBAC Morean Arts Center Gage Academy of Art Baum School of Art
Art & Craft
Birmingham, MI St. Petersburg, FL Seattle, WA Allentown, PA
San Antonio, TX
$6M, previous year 2008, $+$5M,
Total Revenue $1.6M $1.5M $1.3M
$2.5M 2009, $3.2M
Members 2,130 1,600 n/a
100/term + 12,000
Courses/Yr 525 525 450 346
students offsite
Facebook Likes n/a 2,200 460 1,687 27

10. LIMITATIONS
• Limitations of survey due to
characteristics of email respondents
• Amount of interviews with peer
organizations (2)

11. FINDINGS: EMAIL
CONSTANT CONTACT ANALYSIS
• Open rate indicates a core group of approximately 1,200 of people who
are staying up to date with BBAC and read e-blasts regularly
• Open rates are at industry average, but trending down
• Emails do not have strong call to action
PEER ORGANIZATIONS’ BEST PRACTICES
• Segmenting may increase open rates and click throughs
• Use content to drive people to website
BEST PRACTICES FROM THE FIELD
• Compel with subject lines and test effectiveness
• Leverage social media through email communications, as a way to
encourage participation and open dialogue

12. FINDINGS: EMAIL SURVEY
FEELINGS ABOUT E-BLASTS
• 87.5% felt e-blasts contain “just the right amount” of information
• 57% found information relevant, followed by 23% neutral about this question
• The largest percentage of respondents (26%) were not interested in family activities at all
ONLINE BEHAVIORS
• 60% watch videos
• 43.5% on Facebook
• Half (47%) of internet users ages 50-64 and one-in-four (26%) users ages 65 and older
now use social networking sites (Pew 2010)
DEMOGRAPHICS
• Over 33 percent were 55-64 and over 23 percent older
• Takeaway about who of their target audiences they are reaching via email
• Provide offers and incentives

13. FINDINGS: SOCIAL MEDIA
“My fear with social media is to not look lame”
BBAC Director of Communications
ADDRESSING FEAR & UNCERTAINTY
• Strategize and communicate in-house first
(Yammer)
• Look for partnerships
• Empower other staff

14. Social media is just information until you
encourage people to comment on it, link
to it and it begins to travel on its own.
Idealware NP Social Media Decision Guide 2010

15. FINDINGS: SOCIAL MEDIA part 2
PEER ORGANIZATIONS’ BEST PRACTICES
• Strategize first
• Cross-promote on different channels
• Encourage participation “We need volunteers tonight!”
• Promote constituents’ events, not just your own
BEST PRACTICES FROM THE FIELD
Case study of nonprofit organizations found more than half of those
investing in social media tools saw real results beyond number of
followers, such as increase in website traffic, substantive feedback
and new visitors and volunteers.

16. EDELMAN TRUST BAROMETER
http://www.edelman.com/trust/2009/

17. RESEARCH: WEBSITE
TIPS FROM PEER ORGANIZATIONS
• Importance of course pages
• Content features that keep visitors coming back

18. RESEARCH: WEBSITE
A HIGHLY SATISFIED VISITOR IS 49% MORE
LIKELY TO DONATE
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
• Browsers usage shows strong skew towards
Mac users versus the internet average (and
Mac users tend to be younger)

19. MAJOR TAKEAWAYS
• The BBAC has a lot of catching up to do
GOOD NEWS!
• Audience is eager for more engagement
• Social media not best for fundraising, but audience is
participatory and may be willing to help
STRATEGY
• Finding a way to become comfortable
• Build a strategic framework
• Connect all marketing output
• Developing measurable goals for using social media - Facebook
can help you keep track of views, followers, and comments
• Using Google Analytics