Theatre Bay Area, the nation’s largest regional theatre services organization, today released “The Tangled Web: Social Media in the Arts,” a monograph by Devon V. Smith examining the social media practices of 207 nonprofit arts and cultural organizations across the country. This research, one of the most comprehensive surveys of social media use in arts organizations ever conducted, provides a valuable snapshot of how the arts and cultural center is using social media to engage artsgoing audiences across the country. The full research report is available at http://www.theatrebayarea.org/tangledweb.
Top-level findings from the research include:
• All told, the 207 arts organizations in the study utilize over twenty other social networking platforms.
• The average arts organization is active on three social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and uploads 66 new pieces of content each month.
• Facebook Pages that are updated multiple times per day, use a customized URL and feature a custom Welcome tab have more fans, who interact with the page more often, than those who do not.
• Arts and cultural organizations that tweet more than four times per day and do not replicate Facebook content on their Twitter feed have more followers and a higher rate of engagement than others.
• Venue pages on Yelp and Foursquare that have been claimed by an organization have more user engagement than those that have not.
• Arts organizations who use a custom URL and a custom template for their blog have more engagement than those who do not, but overall blogs offer a very low rate of engagement regardless of format, structure or frequency.
Good Stuff Happens in 1:1 Meetings: Why you need them and how to do them well
The Tangled Web: Social Media and the Arts by Devon Smith, commissioned by Theatre Bay Area
1. The Tangled Web: Social Media in the Arts
by Devon V. Smith
June 2011
2. As a sector t
As a sector that has historically been both underfunded and
under-resourced when it comes to any sort of technological shift, arts and
cultural organizations have struggled with how to effectively adopt and utilize
the vast (and ever increasing) expanse of social media tools on the internet.
In 2011, Theatre Bay Area commissioned this wide-ranging study looking at the
social media habits of 207 diverse nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in
order to understand how arts and cultural institutions were tackling the problem
and opportunity of social media. This work was done in conjunction with our
Leveraging Social Media workshops and granting program, which helps Bay Area
nonprofits integrate social media into the work of their entire staff.
The comprehensiveness of this report owes much to the researcher, Devon
Smith, who spent hours combing the social media space to take accurate tallies
of the metrics she discusses here. As one of the largest studies of the social
media habits of nonprofit arts and cultural institutions ever undertaken, this
report paints a picture of a sector grappling with how best to use all of the new
tools at its disposal. It shows that we are a sector unafraid of substantial
experimentation, and that that experimentation has begun to lay a groundwork
of best practices that stretch across disciplines and geographies.
Theatre Bay Area is pleased to offer this study to the arts and cultural sector in
hopes that the benchmarks it provides will be useful in helping individual
organizations and community-level partners to understand where on the social
media spectrum they sit and what best practices (and technologies) will be most
useful and actionable in the years to come.
Best of luck in this brave new media world.
Clayton Lord
Director of Communications and Audience Development, Theatre Bay Area
This report was commissioned as part of Leveraging Social Media, a program generously supported by The
Wallace Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Grants for the Arts/SF Hotel Tax Fund, The San
Francisco Foundation, The Koret Foundation, and the members of Theatre Bay Area.
You can find more research and reports at the DataPoint Research Program page on Theatre Bay Area’s website,
http://www.theatrebayarea.org/datapoint.
Cover Photo: “Wet Spider Web” by Brad Smith from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.
2
3. Summary of Findings
The vast majority of arts organizations around the country are using at least one
social network to connect with their audience and other constituents, but most
continue to struggle with how to do so authentically, towards a useful purpose,
and with satisfactory results. Especially in times when spare hands and budgets
don’t lay idle, it’s important to carefully consider how much time and effort
should be put into everything we do, from long-held traditions to new
experiments.
This study measured the social media activity of 207 nonprofit organizations
across a wide variety of artistic disciplines, budget sizes, geography, and
experience with social media. This report focuses on aspects of social media that
are easy to measure such as frequency and volume of activity, but, like
cultivating a donor, maintaining an ensemble or courting a guest artist, the best
results from using social media come from building relationships over time, for
which there is no cookie-cutter blueprint.
• The average arts organization studied is active on 3 social networks
(Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube), uploads 66 pieces of content each
month to a social network (status update, link, Flickr photo, YouTube
video, etc.), and receives 162 user responses in return 1 (Facebook likes,
Twitter @mentions, Blog comments, Flickr & YouTube views, Yelp
reviews, Foursquare check-ins).
• Facebook is by far most popular social network, but arts organizations are
spending considerable effort tweeting as well.
• Facebook Pages that update multiple times a day, use a custom URL, and
feature a Welcome tab have more fans and a higher rate of engagement
than those who do not.
• Twitter accounts that tweet more than 4x per day, and do not link to
their Facebook feed, have more followers and a higher rate of
engagement than those who tweet less often, or sync their Facebook
posts to Twitter.
• YouTube channel owners that upload new video more than 1x per week
have more subscribers and views per video than those who upload less
frequently.
• Yelp and Foursquare venues that have been claimed by their owner have
more user engagement than those that have not been claimed.
• Most arts organizations using Flickr do so as an archival tool rather than a
place for engagement.
1
Assuming linear user response rate over 2 years on Flickr and YouTube, 1 year on Yelp and Foursquare.
3
4. • Arts organizations blogging on a self-hosted platform, at least twice per
week, have more subscribers and comments per post than those who
post less frequently, or on a non-branded URL, but overall there is very
little engagement.
• Twenty other social networks were mentioned on arts organization’s
websites, though none by more than 12% of study participants.
4
5. Study Parameters
Theatre Bay Area commissioned the study of all social media activity from 207
diverse nonprofit arts organizations from January to April of 2011. Sectors
covered in the study include film and music festivals, museums, chorus
organizations, dance companies, theatres, cultural centers, and arts service
organizations. Full list included in the Appendix.
It should be noted that the selection of arts organizations included in this study
wasn’t random, and thus can’t be considered a representative sample of all arts
organizations. 39% are located in the Bay Area, 54% from elsewhere in the US,
and 7% international. While the operating budgets of these arts organizations
range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to tens of millions, it’s estimated
the average budget is around $1 million. All raw data included in this study can
be downloaded free from http://bit.ly/ArtsBenchmark.
Extraordinary effort went into trying to find all 207 of these arts organizations on
each social network, however it’s possible a small number of accounts were
missed, and thus this study should be considered the minimum level of social
activity. Because the usage rate of social media activity varies across the
different platforms, data was captured over varying lengths of time: Twitter data
from the previous 10 days, Facebook 30 days, blogs 90 days, YouTube and Flickr
one year, Yelp and Foursquare from the lifetime of the venue, with all time
periods ending in April 2011.
5
6. Social Media
Social media is no longer the purview of rich, white, college kids. Recent
estimates from the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggest at least 150
million, 2 or nearly 50% of US residents were active social media users in January
2011. The same study shows
Number of Social Networks people of color have equal
Used by an Arts Organization or greater usage of social
platforms. And in an August
2010 Pew study 40% of
internet users age 50+ used
social media. 3
If arts organizations want to
reach their traditional
audience, they can find a
substantial portion of them
on social networks. If they
want to build new
audiences, it’s nearly certain
they must connect with
them online. But on which of
the many social networks
should arts organizations
focus their efforts? What are
the most effective best
practices on each of these social networks? How does an individual arts
organization’s use of social media compare to the rest of the field? This study
attempts to answer those questions.
96% of these arts organizations were active on at
least one social network in April 2011. While a small
If arts organizations want handful of arts organizations were active on up to
to reach their traditional nine different social networks, a plurality engaged in
the three most active social networks—Facebook,
audience, they can find a Twitter, and YouTube.
substantial portion of them
on social networks.
2
http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2011/Jan/Social-Media-Trends-Among-Communities-of-Color.aspx
3
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Older-Adults-and-Social-Media.aspx
6
7. % of Organizations Active
Within Time Period Studied
Active is defined as an arts organization posting at least one piece of content to
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Flickr, and having claimed at least one of their
venues on Yelp or Foursquare. Facebook is by far the most popular social
network used by [these] arts organizations. Only three social networks are used
by a majority of arts organizations.
Median Monthly Activity Per Arts Organization
7
8. Arts organizations were more active on Twitter than any other social network,
averaging one tweet per weekday. They updated Facebook every other day, and
their blog once per week. However Flickr and YouTube uploads tended to be
unevenly distributed throughout the year, in batches of many pieces of content
at one time rather than on a regularly scheduled basis.
Median Network Size
Arts organizations have on average more than twice as many Facebook fans
(“likes”) as Twitter followers, but no other social network community comes
within 1/20th the size of those two. However, it is important to note that the
community of users interacts quite differently on each of the social networks.
The number of subscribers a YouTube channel has isn’t a good predictor of its
most viewed video. Similarly, the number of users reviewing a Yelp venue will
always be a fraction of those that check-in to that same venue, but unfortunately
the number of Yelp check ins at a venue isn’t public data.
8
9. Community members
Median User Activity
were eight times more
active commenting on
the Facebook posts made
by arts organizations
than mentioning those
same organizations on
Twitter. On average,
there was virtually no
user activity happening
on the blogs of arts
organizations.
Median User Activity (continued) The average YouTube
video is viewed 17-times
more often than the
average Flickr photo.
9
10. Facebook
It’s estimated Facebook will reach 700 million users 4 in May 2011. According to
Facebook, the average user logs in daily for 55 minutes, likes two new Pages per
month, and has 130 friends.
The average arts organization also
updates their Facebook page
daily, while the most active
Facebook page was updated more
than sixtimes per day. The size of
an arts organizations page in this
study ranged from 16 to nearly
900,000 fans.
4
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/04/21/facebook-climbs-toward-700-million-users-worldwide-with-steady-growth-in-
the-us/
10
11. Arts organizations that updated
their Page multiple times per
day have 5 more fans and more
engagements per post. And
remember these are
multiplicative relationships;
imagine one month of activity
on a hypothetical
organization’s page, as
illustrated on the next page.
5
While we can’t establish a causal relationship between frequency of posting and page size or rate of engagement, the positive
linear relationship holds true across all four frequency categories and implies frequency is at least a significant factor in
determining page size and rate of engagement.
11
12. Page A is updated 2x per day 286,800 touch points
Page B is updated 1x per month 890 touch points
12
13. Type of Facebook Accounts 88% of arts organizations
studied were using a Facebook
Page rather than a Group or
Profile. Facebook recently
declared 6 their intention to
“archive” all Groups created
prior to October 2010
meaning that Groups will lose
all of their current Group
members. Additionally, any
business using a Profile is in
violation of Facebook’s terms
of service, and could face
account termination.
Since June 2009, Facebook has
encouraged 7 the use of
custom, or vanity, URLs that
appear as
facebook.com/yourname. Even though any Page with more than 30 fans can
create a custom URL, this study shows that most, but far from all, arts
organizations have taken advantage of this. Those who do tend to have more
fans, and a higher rate of engagement 8.
Median “Likes” Based on Type of Page A significant factor in why arts
organizations with a Profile
have so many fans is likely
because these organizations
have been using Facebook
since before 2007 when Pages
were first launched.
6
http://www.allfacebook.com/news-flash-the-end-is-near-for-old-facebook-group-2011-05
7
http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=90316352130
8
Though again this isn’t necessarily a causal relationship. Arts organization aware of this best practice are likely to be using
other best practices as well.
13
14. By default, Facebook users who
Median Comments/Posts Based on haven’t yet “liked” a Page land on its
Type of Page Wall, however Page administrators
have the ability to change that first
page a new user sees to any of the
Page’s tabs, including a custom built
“Welcome” tab (aka Landing Page).
Results from this study show that
there is no difference in median
“likes” for pages that default to tabs
other than the wall, except in cases
where they’ve created a Landing Page,
where those Pages tend to have twice
as many fans 9.
Median “Likes” Based on Landing Site
An example of an outstanding Landing
Page is the Yerba Buena Center for the
Arts on the next page.
9
Yet again, this doesn’t imply causation, and that’s the last time I’ll remind you that no finding in this study does.
14
16. Twitter
An accurate count of active Twitter users is hard to come by, but recent reports
show anywhere from 20 million to 200 million worldwide, 1/3 of that in the US. 10
Twitter claims it has over 200 million registered accounts 11 as of April 2011, but
Twitter tracking service Twopcharts speculates only half of those users have ever
sent a tweet. 12
From April 2011 Business Insider, Josh Elman,
Twitter’s product lead in charge of user retention
Many arts organizations told AllThingsD, “his team has identified an ‘aha
value Twitter for being moment’ when a casual user turns into an ‘active
user.’ That moment happens when users follow 30
able to reach an audience accounts, and when 1/3 of the people they follow
beyond typical ticket also follow them back.” Our sources show that there
buyers. are 21 million accounts on Twitter following more
than 32 accounts. Some subset of these accounts are
also being followed by 10+ accounts.”
At nearly five years old, and a potentially active user base of under ten million
stateside, it’s important to understand who is using Twitter, and why. A
December 2010 Pew Internet study found 13 that Hispanic and African American
internet users were twice as likely as their white peers to use Twitter, 14 and one
in three Twitter users in the study checked Twitter at least daily to read tweets.
However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many arts organizations value
Twitter for being able to reach an audience beyond typical ticket buyers. From
developing relationships with local journalists, to networking with colleagues
from across the country, to staying in touch with grant-makers, to reaching new
audiences, Twitter has become the place to find, and get found by, important
constituents.
Unlike Facebook, successfully utilizing Twitter requires learning:
• A new language of nonsense-sounding words (see: retweet, hashtags
shortlinks).
• A confusing set of technical protocols (where does the hashtag go? What
happens when you begin a tweet with an ‘@’? How do I tweet a photo?
What’s an auto-DM? Why would I follow a list instead of a user?).
10
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=78597
11
http://business.twitter.com/basics/what-is-twitter
12
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/active-twitter-users_b9205
13
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Twitter-Update-2010/Findings.aspx
14
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2011/05/twitter-african-americans-hargittai.html is a fascinating study
about why that might be.
16
17. • How to find, and be found by, the connections you want to make (from
third party tools like Listorious, to joining hashtag chats, to the
importance of keywords in your bio, to #FollowFriday, to an @mention in
your email signature).
• How to think in 140 characters, how to respond to in real time, and what
exactly to do with what you learn in the stream.
The average arts organization is tweeting once per day and has 726 followers,
though around one in five haven’t tweeted in months, and have fewer than 100
followers.
The arts organization in this study with the largest Twitter following had less
than 200,000 followers, and were tweeting more than 20x per day.
17
18. As with nearly all social
media activity, posting
more often is highly
correlated with having a
larger and more engaged
online audience. It
appears that there’s very
little difference between
tweeting once per week,
and once per day.
There is however an
incredible change in the
number of followers, and
their engagement rate,
between an arts
organization that tweets
three times per day, and
one that tweets five times
per day. Arts organizations
tweeting that often are
likely to be responding to
their followers, taking part
in industry-wide
conversations online,
sharing links to websites
other than their own, and
reserving very few of their
tweets for self-promotion.
Measuring one’s influence
on Twitter is a bit of a
rabbit hole. Many begin
with simply counting the
number of followers one
has—the more the better.
Klout 15 gets more scientific, attempting to measure true reach, amplification
probability, and network influence. PeerIndex 16 gets complex with authority,
topic resonance, audience, activity, and realness.
15
http://klout.com/kscore
16
http://www.peerindex.net/help/scores
18
19. This study looks at a one-dimensional metric—the number
of “lists” that followers have added an arts organization to,
as a percentage of those followers. This metric was chosen
because there’s very little an arts organization can do to
game the system of lists, and it’s a simple relationship to
understand.
In the graph above, this ratio holds steady at seven
percent, a number remarkably similar to previous studies
by the author. A green dot falling far above the line shows
that an arts organization has been added to more lists than
their like-size peers, implying a measure of influence. What
those lists are named, the other Twitter users on that list,
and who follows the list, provide a more granular and rich
insight into the idea of influence.
One of the cardinal sins of social media is “faking it.” As the
previous sections of this report have hopefully made clear,
Facebook and Twitter are two quite different social media
platforms—different kinds of interactions, different audiences, different
vocabulary, and different user expectations. Nonetheless, one in three arts
organizations studied has linked their Facebook page to their Twitter account.
These organizations tend to have few followers, and less engagement than their
peers who are more authentically tweeting.
19
20. YouTube
In May 2011, YouTube turned six years old, and released the following
statistics: 17
• More than 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
• YouTube users watch more than 3 billion videos per day
In February 2011, it was estimated YouTube had 490
million unique users per month worldwide, the average
In February 2011, user visits the site 14x per month, and spends an average
YouTube had 490 million of 25 minutes per visit. 18
unique users per month Owned by Google, YouTube videos have many of the
worldwide. same search ranking challenges as webpages, though a
significant minority of arts organizations do not use video
descriptions, keyword tags, or categories. While some
YouTube users subscribe to channels, previous research by the author suggests
the vast majority of views of arts organizations’ videos come from related videos,
keyword searches, or from links/embeds on other sites.
38% of arts organizations using
YouTube uploaded a new video
at least monthly, while the
most active uploaded 1.5 new
videos per day. The average
arts organization had fewer
than 50 subscribers, while the
most popular had over 209,000
subscribers, and more than 63
million collective views.
17
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2011/05/thanks-youtube-community-for-two-big.html
18
http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/02/04/facebook-youtube-our-collective-time-sinks-stats/
20
21. The frequency with
which an arts
organization uploaded
new videos to YouTube
has a distinctly non-
linear relationship to
how popular those
videos are on YouTube.
Based on the above
data, it seems as if arts
organizations would do
well to pursue one of
two strategies to
maximize their
efficiency: post just a
few videos each year
(with the assumption
that the few videos
they do post are of
high quality), or create
enough new content to
be able to post several
videos each week. If an
arts organization is seeking a committed YouTube user base (those willing to
subscribe to their channel), they must pursue the latter strategy.
21
22. Yelp
Location-based social networks are those where users engage because of a
physical location. Most include the option to “check in” to a venue, and share
that information with friends using the same network,
or to share the check in out to Facebook and Twitter,
The average arts and many include the opportunity to review the merits
of that venue. According to a November 2010 study by
organization has eight 4.5-
Pew Internet, four percent of online American’s use
star reviews on Yelp. Only location based services. 19
5% of venues have less
than a 4-star average. At nearly seven years old, Yelp is by far the oldest of
the location based social networks, although it exists in
just 8 countries. In February 2011, Yelp CFO Vlado
Herman discussed Yelp’s recent user statistics: 20
• 45 million unique visitors in January 2011
• 35% of user activity is from a mobile device
• 16 million total reviews
• Local entertainment constitutes 10% of reviews
The average arts organization has
eight 4.5-star reviews. While venues
with more reviews had on average
fewer stars, only five percent of
venues had less than a 4-star average,
implying that this quality ranking isn’t
a differentiating factor from
competitors. Yelp search rankings
seem to prioritize number of reviews
over quality of reviews, and this study
shows that arts organizations with
venues that have been claimed by
their owner have 4x more reviews
than their peers.
19
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Location-based-services.aspx
20
http://mashable.com/2011/02/16/yelp-growth/
22
23. Flickr
By September 2010, Flickr users had
uploaded a total of five billion photos to
the site (compared to six billion photos
uploaded to Facebook every month 21).
More than 20 million visitors 22 go to
Flickr.com every month, and many
consider themselves “photographers.”
Flickr faces stiff competition in the
photo-based social network space in
2011—Instagram is barely 1 year old and
already has over four million users, 23
Color is two months old and quickly
raised $41 million in venture capital
based on its innovative location-based
social graph.
Arts organizations are by and large using
Flickr as a repository for archival photos.
On average, they upload less than 100
photos per year, often in just one or two
batches (rather than spread out evenly
every month). The most active Flickr
user among arts organizations studied
uploaded 3,500 photos in the past year,
and had a single photo that had been
viewed more than 4,000 times.
Most arts organizations have zero Flickr
contacts, and belong to zero Flickr
groups. A small handful of arts
organizations are hosting Flickr groups
for fan photos, curating digital
photographs from recognized (and
unrecognized) artists, or digitizing their
collections.
21
http://mashable.com/2011/02/14/facebook-photo-infographic/
22
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/flickr.com/
23
http://mashable.com/2011/05/26/instagram-likes-comments/
23
24. Blogging
Blogging is often considered the oldest form of social
media, yet there are estimated to be just 152 million
Blogging provides frequent, active blogs across the web. 24 Though with the blurring
keyword-rich content to an of lines between traditional media moving online, and
bloggers becoming more mainstream, it’s nearly
arts organization’s website, impossible to count how many people read or write
and can provide an archive “blogs.”
of information and news.
Wordpress, the second largest blogging platform
behind Google’s Blogger, powers about 13% of all
websites, and shows stats for the week of May 15, 2011 of: three million blog
posts had a total of 650 million pageviews. 25 A February 2011 article from
AllThingsD mentioned Wordpress domains have 517 million unique visitors per
month. 26
Micro-blogging platforms such as Tumblr and
Blogging Frequency Posterous continue to gain popularity, often
centered around viral internet memes like “texts
from last night,” “awkward family photos,” and
“stuff hipsters hate.” Press darling Tumblr hosts 20
million blogs receiving seven billion combined
global monthly pageviews as of May 2011. 27
The reason an organization chooses to blog can
extend beyond generating pageviews or comments.
Blogging’s role in Search Engine Optimization
provides frequent, keyword-rich content to an arts
organization’s website. It can provide a historical
archive of information and a place for permanent
links to important news or documents. It is also an
opportunity for staff members to express themselves. None of those reasons are
captured in the following data.
Just over one in four arts organizations studied actively blogged in the past three
months. The average arts blog posted an update one time per week, has seven
Google Reader subscribers, and received zero comments per post. The most
active posted more than one time per day, averaged two comments per post,
and had nearly 350 Google Reader subscribers.
24
http://mashable.com/2011/01/25/internet-size-infographic/
25
http://en.wordpress.com/stats/
26
http://allthingsd.com/20110216/posterous-goes-bare-shows-us-all-its-stats/
27
http://www.tumblr.com/about
24
25. A relatively small percentage of
the internet population uses RSS
(real simple syndication) to
subscribe to a blog. Of those, it’s
estimated that Google Reader has
approximately 50% market share
of RSS readers. 28 Blog readership
statistics are one of the few non-
public metrics of social media, but
Google Reader provides the
number of Google Reader RSS
subscribers to any blog.
While this graph represents are
only a small percentage of the true
readership of arts organizations’
blogs, it’s clear that most arts
blogs have very low engagement,
and very low regular readership.
28
Based on author’s personal knowledge of Feedburner statistics across a small but wide variety of blogs
25
26. Frequency of blogging had a small but positive correlation with the number of
Google Reader subscribers. Blogs with over 50 subscribers posted no less than
twice a week.
Arts organizations have a choice whether to host their blog on their own website
(often choosing URLs such as blog.yourwebsite.com or yourwebsite.com/blog) or
on a blog hosting service such as yourwebsite.wordpress.com. Those with a self-
hosted blog tend to post more often, have more subscribers, and receive more
comments per post.
26
27. Foursquare
Foursquare is the smallest of the four big location-based services (including Yelp,
Facebook Places, and Google Places), but has the most opportunities for arts
organizations to engage with users. It’s two years old, has nine million users, 29
who are active in 200 countries, with
90% of activity happening on a mobile
device.
Seventeen percent of arts organizations
studied had claimed their venue on
Foursquare, meaning they formally
notified Foursquare that they owned
that particular location, and thus had
the opportunity to collect analytics
about their users and offer special
discounts to those users.
On average, 31 people had checked-in
to an arts organization’s venue, two
times each. The most active venue had
almost 29,000 check-ins, and users left
more than 100 tips about the venue.
Popular tips included recommendations
about specific exhibits, special
discounts, tasty concessions items, and
the best times of the week to beat the
crowds.
Sixteen percent of claimed venues were
offering a special to their users at the
time of the study. There was no
statistically significant difference in the
number of check-ins or unique visitors
for those venues offering a special, but
there was for those venues that had
been claimed. A claimed venue had
three times more activity than an
unclaimed venue.
29
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/12/foursquare-sf-hires-hr-manager-morgan-missen-is-closing-in-on-a-new-soma-office/
27
28. Other Social Networks
Many other social networks were mentioned on arts organizations websites.
MySpace icons were linked to on twelve percent of arts organization
homepages, even though Compete puts the site’s traffic at just 30 million visitors
per month, and based on current trends will have zero visitors by the end of
2011. Other social networks of note include professional networking service
LinkedIn, book marking tool Delicious, information service Wikipedia, and several
different fundraising platforms.
Noticeably absent from this list of other social networks were currently popular
platforms such as Q&A site Quora, photography network Instagram,
microblogging platform Tumblr, presentation service SlideShare, or artist social
networks like ArtLog.
28
29. Appendix
Companies Reviewed
18th Street Art Center Creative Clay
A.R.T./New York Creative Growth
Adventure Theatre CreativeTime
African American Arts & Culture Complex Creativity Explored
Alliance for Arts Cultural Development Corporation of DC
Alonzo King Lines Ballet Dallas Children's Theatre
Americans for the Arts Dancers' Group
Anna Crucis Women's Choir Dancing Wheels
Arthouse at the Jones Center David Dorfman Dance
Arts and Services for Disabled Inc DC Short Film Festival
Arts Boston Destiny Arts
Arts Council Silicon Valley di Rosa
Arts Orange County Diablo Ballet
Arts Project Australia Diavolo
AS220 Discovery Theater
Asian Improv Arts DiverseWorks
Atlanta Jewish Film Festival Djerassi Resident Artists Program
Austin Creative Alliance Electric Works
Australian Dance Theatre Emerald City Theatre
AXIS Dance Evidence Dance Company
Barrel of Monkeys First Stage
Bay Area Children's Theatre Folsom Street Fair
Bay Area Men's Symphony Fountain Gallery
Bay Area Video Coalition Fractured Atlas
Berkeley Art Center Frameline
Bill T Jones Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Boston Gay Men's Chorus Full Radius Dance
Bric Arts Gallery 16
Bumbershoot Gay Men's Chorus Los Angeles
Candoco Gay Men's Chorus of Washington DC
Center for Asian American Media Golden Gate Men's Chorus
Center for Dance in the West Grand Performances
Chanticleer Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
Children's Theatre Hawaii Theatre for Youth
Children's Theatre of Charlotte Headlands
Children's Theatre of San Francisco Heartland Men's Chorus
Childs Play HERE Arts Center
Chitresh Das Dance Company Hewbrew University of Jerusalem
Choral Arts Hyde Park Arts Center
Chorus America Imagination Stage
City Parks Summer Stage Indefinite Arts Society
Company Ballet Intermedia Arts
Coterie Theatre Intersection for the Arts
CounterPulse Intuit: Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art
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30. Israel Film Center Real Art Ways
ITVS Redlands Bowl
Janet Pomeroy Center Repertory Dance Theatre
Japanese Cultural Community Center Resounding Harmony
Jewcy Richmond Art Center
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco Ritual Project
Jewish Music Festival Robert Moses Kin
Joe Goode Performance Group Root Division
Kala Art Institute Roundhouse
Kearny Street Workshop Rude Mechanicals
La Pena San Francisco AIDS Foundation
LA Stage Alliance San Francisco Center for the Book
League of Chicago Theatres San Francisco Film Society
Lesbian & Gay Chorus of San Francisco San Francisco International Arts Festival
Levitt Pavilion Pasadena San Francisco Jazz
lincoln center San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
Liss Fain Dance San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
london gay men's chorus San Jose Jazz
Luminato Sean Curran
Luna Dance Institute Seattle Children's Theatre
Malonga Center Seattle Men's Chorus
manilatown Heritage Foundation SF CameraWork
Margaret Jenkins Dance Center SFCAT Carnaval
Marie Chouinard Shen Wei Dance
Mark Morris Dance Group Showup.com
Mattress Factory Sojourn Theatre
Mill Valley Film Festival SOM Arts
Mission Cultural Center Southern Exposure
Missoula Children's Theatre Spielberg Jewish Film Archive
Montalvo Arts Center St Ann's Warehouse
Monterey Jazz Festival Stage One
Museum of Craft and Folk Art Stephen Petronio
Nashville Children's Theatre Stern Grove Festival
National Endowment for the Arts Stop Gap
Needles and Pens Straight No Chaser
New York City Gay Men's Chorus STREB
Niad Art Center Susan Marshall
Other Israel Film Festival SXSW
Outfest TED
Outside Lands The Black Rep
Parsons Dance The Children's Theatre
Philadelphia Cultural Alliance The Crucible
Pittsburgh Arts Council The Jewish Theatre
Power to the Peaceful Festival The Lab
PS 122 The Paper Bag Players
Pure Vision Arts The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus
Ravinia Festival Theatre Bay Area
Rayko Photo Center Theatre Communications Group
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31. Theatre Development Fund Vocal Essence
Theatre Puget Sound VSA Hawaii
Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts VSA North Fourth
Toronto Jewish Film Festival Winnipeg Folk Festival
Treasure Island Festival Wolf Trap Foundation
Trisha Brown Company World Arts West
Turtle Creek Chorale Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
UC Berkeley Art Museum Youngstown Cultural Arts Center
UK Jewish Film Festival
Urban Bush Women
Visionaries and Voices
About Devon V. Smith
Devon Smith is currently the Director of Social Media for Threespot, a digital
engagement agency in Washington, DC primarily working with nonprofit and
governmental clients. Prior to this, she worked for nonprofit organizations across
the country including Actors Theatre of Louisville, Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, Mary Gates Foundation, Peter Kyle Dance, Roundabout Theatre
Company, World Science Festival, and Yale Repertory Theatre. She holds an MBA
and an MFA from Yale University, and a BBA and a BA from the University of
Washington. More social media research and reports can be found on her blog,
www.24UsableHours.com.
About Theatre Bay Area
As the largest regional arts service organization in the country, Theatre Bay Area
works to unite, strengthen, promote and advance the theatre community in the
San Francisco Bay Area, working on behalf of our conviction that the performing
arts are an essential public good, critical to a healthy and truly democratic
society, and invaluable as a source of personal enrichment and growth. Through
education, research, audience development, support and advocacy programs,
Theatre Bay Area strives to make the Bay Area’s theatre and dance communities
as strong and sustainable as possible. More information at
www.theatrebayarea.org.
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