All posts by Ashley Smith-Hammond
Culture Republic Podcasts
The Culture Republic podcast brings you the voices of the learning and engagement professionals, marketers and artistic directors who are building meaningful connections with audiences across the country.
Racial and ethnic diversity in Scotland’s arts audiences
March’s Culture Republic podcast looks at how the arts are connecting with Scotland’s racially and ethnically diverse communities. In this episode we speak with Barrowland Ballet, Glasgow Women’s Library and Bemis.
Are you a safe harbor on these data shores?
The Safe Harbor agreement has been over turned. What should you do? Don’t panic, says the ICO.
Podcast – Building Youth Participation in Scotland’s Arts
This month the Culture Republic podcast is looking at how Scotland’s arts organisations are connecting with young people. Ageing is something we all do, so it cuts right across other kinds of categories like race or ethnicity, income levels or geography. Working with young people means reaching out to people who are growing up and becoming more independent along with their family, teachers and carers.
What’s the plan Stan? 2016 marketing calendars to plan your work
At the start of the year, tactical marketers will be looking for opportunities and inspiration to liven up the year’s marketing plan. Look no further as these resources will bring you a bit of both.
Podcast – Reaching Out to Scottish Audiences with Disabilities
January’s podcast looks at how Scottish arts organisations are serving audiences with disabilities and what you can learn from some of the great practice that’s taking place across the country.
Cultural Marketing in 2015: four trends from around the world
We highlight four big themes that influenced arts marketing practice across Scotland and beyond in 2015, together with examples of the inspired and inspiring campaigns that emerged in response to them – at home and further afield.
Horizon 2016 – five digital marketing trends to watch
As audiences become more digitally dependent audience engagement practice will need to keep evolving in order to stay relevant. Read our top five digital trends for 2016.
Google, Facebook and Twitter 2015 roundup for marketers
The big three digital companies have been busy innovating, so don’t get too comfortable. Even if you think you know what you’re doing on Facebook, Twitter and Google make sure you keep up to date.
Podcast – increasing access for socially excluded audiences
The December Culture Republic podcast looks at audiences who are experiencing social exclusion in Scotland and the arts organisations that are working to serve them. This episode features interviews with Rob Gallagher of Impact Arts and Kate Wimpress of North Edinburgh Arts.
Podcast – Scotland’s Ageing Audiences
In November, Culture Republic looks at how Scotland’s artists and arts organisations are engaging with older audiences in Scotland. This episode features interviews with Martha Pollard from the Scottish Poetry Library on the Living Voices project and Emma Young from Dance House on the Still Dancing performance group.
Transcript – Access All Areas
Electronic notes taken at the Access All Areas conference 29 October 2015 – this transcript is an encapsulation of the day but not a verbatim transcript.
New Partnership for Wider Engagement – Access All Areas
This video features the first Access All Areas breakout session, New Partnerships for Wider Engagement. Chaired by Culture Republic Board member Sue Crossman and featured short talks from: Kevin Harrison of Artlink Central, Jackie Shearer of Platform and Dr. Rami Ousta of BEMIS Scotland.
Access All Areas Videos
Video from the Access All Areas conference is now available for delegates to revisit and for those who weren’t able to attend to benefit from the archived content.
New Approaches to Community Engagement – Access All Areas
This video features the second Access All Areas breakout session, New Approaches to Community Engagement. Chaired by Culture Republic Board member Nick Parr and featured short talks from: Sarah Drummond of Snook, Amanda Brown of Glasgow Life, Jan-Bert van den Berg of Artlink Edinburgh.
How digitally capable are Scotland’s arts?
Culture Republic is undertaking an ambitious piece of research looking at public facing operational functions carried out by arts organisations – things like whether or not an arts organisations’ website is optimised for mobile browsing, if they offer online ticket sales or if they are doing online fundraising.
Podcast – Reaching Family Audiences in Scotland
This episode looks at families across Scotland and explores the value, which is not simply monetary, of engaging widely with families as arts participants and attendees.
Introducing the Culture Republic Podcast
An introduction to Culture Republic’s podcast, all about how the arts community in Scotland is reaching out to different sections of the population.
Making a Splash with online sales
Using targeted social media Pauline exceeded her sales targets and built a loyal social media fan base that has put her freelance artist’s enterprise on firm financial footing. Here’s how she did it.
Efficient target marketing
Asking the right questions and gathering useful information is key to creating efficient market segmentation. PatronBase were our Future of CRM & Ticketing event sharing their knowledge and experiences of audience segmentation for target marketing and getting the best use out of CRM systems.
Data Protection – what you need to know
Data protection is an ongoing responsibility that arts and cultural organisations need to keep on top of. The Information Commissioner’s Office were at our CRM event discussing the eight principles of the Data Protection Act 1998, and how you can put them into practice to keep both the regulator and audiences happy.
Access advice for arts organisations from Euan’s Guide
According to Euan’s Guide, many arts and cultural organisations are already doing a good job of making their spaces accessible to a range of audiences. Unfortunately, in many cases, arts organisations are doing a poor job of letting these audiences know about the resources that are in place to serve them.
Disability in Scotland
Based on data from the last Scottish census, 20% of people living in Scotland have a long-term activity-limiting health issue or disability. This equals about 1.04 million people.
VIDEO Intro to CRM (Thinking Out of the Box 2 of 5)
This video summarises Thinking Out of the Box’s first session of the day. It introduces and demystifies data collection techniques.
VIDEO Realistic Data Collection (Thinking Out of the Box 5 of 5)
The Realistic Data Collection video includes a workshop session on data collection techniques and highlights some of the pitfalls that can result from poor data collection or flawed assumptions.
VIDEO Data Utopia (Thinking Out of the Box 4 of 5)
The key issues in Data Utopia were how arts organisations could put the data they are holding to work, how and why to join up data.
VIDEO Dispelling Myths and Defining CRM (Thinking Out of the Box 3 of 5)
This video highlights that CRM is really about the audiences that arts organisations are serving. It is about people not about systems or technology.
Thinking Out of the Box event videos
Five videos summarising the content from Thinking Out of the Box, Culture Republic’s CRM and ticketing masterclass with Andrew Thomas of The Ticketing Institute.
VIDEO Thinking Out of the Box Trailer (Thinking Out of the Box 1 of 5)
A three minute video that summarises the key issues and learnings from Culture Republic’s Thinking Out of the Box event. It includes perspectives from the participants and highlights from the day’s events.
Marketing that Works – the brains behind the campaigns
On 12 May 2015 Scotland’s marketers heard from six leading practitioners who shared the stories of their success, provided behind-the-scenes insights into the campaigns they ran and the tactics they used to achieve the right results.
Arts & Business Development Forum (Edinburgh)
Culture Republic is pleased to be speaking at the upcoming Arts & Business Scotland Development Forum in Edinburgh. Join us Thursday 11 June 2015 at Dovecot Studios, 10 Infirmary Street, Edinburgh.
Creative Lives Briefing Paper
The Creative Lives Briefing Paper gives an overview of the nature, provision and value of creative learning and participation activity in Edinburgh, and the people who benefitted from it.
Arts & Business Scotland Development Forum (Borders)
Culture Republic is pleased to be speaking at the upcoming Arts & Business Scotland Development Forum in the Borders. Join us Thursday 21 May 2015 at Volunteer Hall, St John Street, Galashiels TD1 3JX.
Family Friendly Arts in Focus
Culture Republic recently partnered with the Family Arts Campaign, hosting two briefing sessions in Glasgow and Edinburgh on what we know about family arts engagement in Scotland and to gauge the appetite for the Campaign in Scotland. Culture Republic set the context for the conversation by giving an in-depth look at the arts attendance patterns for […]
Thinking Out of the Box
Our recent CRM and ticketing event was to convened a full day event to look practically at customer relationship management systems use to find ways for organisations to use the systems and information that they already have better.
Unexpected bedfellows – how 80s hair metal and a Scottish library twitter account are the perfect combination
When we look at the Orkney Library’s Twitter statistics in context its clear that what they are doing is working. The Orkney Library account is significantly out performing the average Scottish arts or cultural Twitter account.
Six questions for the man behind Orkney Library’s Twitter success
After looking into Orkney Library’s phenomenal performance on Twitter we wanted to know more. We reached out to the library’s Tweeter-In-Chief Stewart Bain to understand the library’s motivation as well as learn more about what Twitter success means for the library.
Staying ahead of the social media curve
Social Ogilvy were the company that correctly predicted Facebook Zero in 2014. So when they shared their 2015 predictions, top tips and insights, we tuned right in …
This Cheat is a Winner
If you’re a marketer or an audience engagement professional who uses social media to connect with your community you should check out the Social Media Cheat Sheet.
Family Arts Network Briefing Events
We’re partnering with the Family Arts Campaign to bring two briefing sessions on family engagement to Scotland.
Location, Location, Location
The Collective Gallery’s move has transformed their audience profile, drawing in brand new audience segments and driving a vast increase in the overall visitor numbers.
Top trends in digital engagement for 2015
Audience engagement professionals have seen a range of new tools and techniques come into their field over the past several years. 2015 will be the year to consolidate skills and start implementing new practice to get better results for your efforts.
Widening Audiences and Deepening Relationships
Armed with the right market intelligence, every cultural organisation in Scotland has the potential to understand and engage with the public more widely and more deeply in ways that get results.
The Centre for the Moving Image’s Understanding Cinema Programme
Understanding Cinema is a creative learning project from the Centre for the Moving Image in Edinburgh. The project worked with almost 500 young people between the ages of 9 – 19 in eight Scottish local authorities.
National Theatre of Scotland’s Tin Forest Digital Engagement
The Tin Forest was one of the National Theatre of Scotland’s (NTS) most ambitious projects to date. Part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, it invited the people of Glasgow to retell the city’s story and to reimagine its future.
Festivals In Fife Economic Impact Research
Festivals in Fife’s research project is mapping the economic and social impact of ten festivals and demonstrating the range of impacts the festivals have in the community and local economy.
Glasgow Life’s Festivals 2014 Digital Marketing Case Study
In summer 2014 Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth Games. In parallel with the Games an ambitious line up of cultural events and activities was programmed, supported by creative digital communications from the team behind the scenes.
Video Content Creation Resources
All of AmbITion Scotland’s video creation resources gathered in one handy place, to support you in getting started with video production.
No box office? No problem.
Catherine Wheels is a great example of a touring company that have found effective ways of getting to know their audiences without having their own box office.
Cross Channel Communications – September’s First Wednesday
Julie McGarvey of 3×1 Public Relations on effective cross channel communications and the importance of message consistency.
Fresh Thinking from #FreshCreations
The West Dunbartonshire Youth Arts Hub, #FreshCreations, is getting young people intimately involved in the devising and delivering of their own youth arts activities from the project’s outset.
If data is currency, how much have you got in the bank?
Data is currency. Handled with purpose and a little creativity, it can help you tell stories, solve problems and make new connections.
The missing millions: breaking down barriers to access
We’ve taken a closer look at some of the practical tools and creative solutions that organisations are using to understand and connect with groups that have historically been absent or under-represented in their audience profiles.
Festival facts: spotlight on East Neuk Festival
We talk to Svend Brown, Artistic Director of the East Neuk Festival, about audience data and what it means for him.
Digital strategy tools – planning for better online communication
If you want to get started right away on building an effective digital strategy here are three top online tools to start with.
Starting Up a Twitter Strategy – how the Tate did it
The Tate are often used as a best practice case study in how to connect a communications strategy to digital practice and effective analytics . But even the best practitioners still have to get started somewhere.
Timespan – Digital Engagement in Sutherland
Sutherland’s Timespan Museum and Arts Centre is leading the way in digital audience engagement practice. Learn about two inspiring recent projects.
More than 1000 words – visual engagement on social channels
MoMA PS1’s communications director tell arts organisations how to use visual materials on social channels make connections with their audiences online.
Not just bums on seats – CRM & Ticketing masterclass
Everything you always wanted to know about the power and potential for customer relationship management tools from the experts at the Ticketing Institute.
What’s the chemical formula for clever?
The Periodic Table of Content Marketing resource breaks down the basic components of Content Marketing into seven categories – mix and match elements from the table to create the perfect marketing plan for you.
Singing makes people feel good
The Big Big Sing’s big idea was to have a positive impact on participants’ well being and the results from Culture Republic research are cause for optimism.
Widening access to the youth market
Interested in connecting with young people? The findings from Culture Republic’s research with Scottish Ballet tell a story relevant to all art forms.
Arts Engagement Thrives in Edinburgh Schools
Research from Culture Republic shows that every City of Edinburgh Council-funded primary and secondary school took part in some form of arts engagement activity in the academic year 2013-14.