When you think of live streaming in the arts you might think of the pioneering work of Pilot Theatre or the live events in cinemas* from NT Live and the Royal Opera House. But the technology has come a long way in a short space of time and you can do much more with it than broadcast a performing arts event.

You don’t have to be tethered to a physical internet connection anymore. Streaming video has gone mobile, just like everything else in the digital world. Now it is a viable marketing option for businesses of all sizes.

Live streaming is a new a tool in the communications kit. Is it the right tool for the job you need to do? Here’s a laundry list of the kinds of jobs that it’s good at. Arts marketers might want to consider using live streamed video when:

• You’ve got something really significant with a broad general interest or an enthusiastic niche interest – like a celebrity appearance. It is no accident that Facebook launched Live to celebrities first, before they opened up to people and brands.
• You’ve got something important and time limited – such as a festival or a launch. For instance the Spotify House was live streamed at South By Southwest on Meerkat. The Met has been using Facebook live to build buzz and launch new exhibitions.
• You can create drama around something that has the potential to go viral. The best example so far is surely Buzzfeed using rubber bands to make a watermelon explode. Yes that happened.
• There’s something special that you can share from behind the scenes. The British Museum have given pre-launch exhibition tours via Periscope.
• It widens access. Culture Republic has been using Periscope to make our monthly First Wednesday available to people who can’t travel to the live event. We’re getting good feedback from this effort.

Just like an in-person performance, live events add a sense of urgency and risk because anything can happen. This allows your audience to enjoy the feeling of being part of something as it unfolds. They can participate from a distance, watching from anywhere and on the device that they choose.

The technology had been trickling out into the marketplace. Now the trickle has become a torrent. A benefit is that marketers don’t need to go outside of the social networks they’ve worked so hard to nurture. Let’s look at some of the newer and more mobile friendly players to the live streaming game. The leaders  are (mostly) the main players online:

• YouTube: All you need is an active YouTube channel. Because it’s a Google product, the analytics are especially strong.
• Periscope: The live streaming app from the good people who brought you Twitter. User numbers are high for Periscope. Its integration with the social network will be the biggest benefit to organisations that have built up a significant Twitter following.
• Meerkat: It was the first to launch. Meerkat is an independent live streaming app and as a result has a smaller community.
• Facebook Live: It is the newest kid on the block in the live video game. Because of the enormous number of active users it commands, organisations willing to give it a go could see real impact. Plus, Facebook help you to pre-schedule and promote streams in advance to build awareness.
• Livestream: We need to mention it because it was the pioneer in this space. It is an embeddable player that can be used on your webpage. It is not primarily a mobile to mobile tool like some of the other players above.
• Not to fall behind, Vimeo is planning its own live streaming product later this year.

Make your decision based on where your community is, or where the community you want to serve is. Each channel offers different features and benefits, but it’s all a bit of an arms race. Expect constant change and innovation around these services. It’s likely  that even if the channel you’ve chosen doesn’t offer specific functionality this may be only temporary.

To get started you don’t need much in the way of special experience or equipment. A phone or tablet with the app installed for Facebook, Meerkat or Periscope. YouTube takes a bit more effort but they explain it all. You absolutely need a reliable, strong wifi or phone signal. For novice broadcasters, Poynter has a top ten list with great advice on the basics.

Streaming is a playful new tool that’s still developing, which means there’s lots of room for low risk trial and error. Arts marketers that know their audience will have an advantage deciding whether to, when to and how to use live streaming video. If you want to learn more about your on and offline audiences we can help. Just get in touch.

*If you are interested in the wider impact on audiences from live streaming into cinemas, try the Arts Council England review Understanding Event Cinema and watch for the upcoming research report on the live-to-digital market for theatre.

If you’re a user of Survey Monkey or Mail Chimp you might have noticed these services flagging a change to their terms and conditions recently. It all has to do with the legal frameworks for data transfer when the data is travelling outside of Europe. You should take a look at the small print to ensure your data is compliant.

This has everything to do with the 8^th principle of data protection. Here’s a refresher if it has slipped your mind –

Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

For instance, if you are using a tool that stores data in the cloud (like Dropbox or Google Drive but also cloud-based CRM systems and cloud-based marketing tools like Mail Chimp) the data you use on these systems should either:

1. Stay in the EEA, or
2. Go outside the EEA as long as where it is stored lives up to European standards of data protection and human rights.

Companies that store data in the cloud have server farms all over the world. Is the data you’re holding better travelled than you are? Very possibly. But to be fair, the cold clean rooms that house server farms aren’t the best tourist destinations anyway.

What happened that kicked off this chain of events? Travel back in time to October 2015. The scene: a European court. The judgement: no more Safe Harbor.

So what was Safe Harbor? It was an agreement that allowed European data to be held on servers in the United States (that’s why it’s spelled the American way with no ‘u’) and was nothing at all maritime, despite the name. It was a system that businesses opted into assuring the privacy of data storage met the standard required by the 8^th principle of data protection. Meaning, people like you working in European businesses that use these cloud-based tools to store and transfer personal data weren’t in breach of the Data Protection Act.

Why was it overturned? This is where Edward Snowden comes in. Remember all those stories about how US government agencies were using digital data to snoop on private correspondence like emails and texts? The court overturned Safe Harbor because:

• US intelligence can currently access the data, in the opinion of the court, beyond what is required for national security.
• People outside the USA should be (but currently aren’t) able to seek legal remedy if their personal data has been misused or not protected.

What should you do? In the immortal words of Douglas Adams – Don’t Panic. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) have published some official guidance along with a couple of blog posts – one when the initial ruling took place and the second on the developing EU-US Privacy Shield – to give you the official word on what you need to know. The new privacy shield is still in negotiation, but eventually it is supposed to take the place of Safe Harbor.

In the interim, the ICO say we should all keep an eye on the ruling and be vigilant to the changes that could put your data at risk . The ICO have info on using contracts and corporate rules, in place of international agreements. However, ultimately the onus is on you to check the security of how and where your data is stored.

Which takes us back to where we started. While this is all happening, companies – like Survey Monkey and Mail Chimp – have taken the situation into their own hands. In the absence of the Safe Harbor agreement they’ve updated their Ts&Cs to fill the gap until the new Privacy Shield is agreed. Europe’s data protection regulators and the European Commission expect to make progress on this in the next few months. If you want to keep up with these changes as they happen, you can subscribe to the ICO‘s monthly newsletter.

The good people at Experian have published their annual Marketing Insights Calendar and it’s free for you and me (after you share a few personal details – they are marketers after all) to download and use.

What we like about it is, it’s focused on the UK market rather than the USA (setting it apart from many other planners you find floating around the internet). Plus, in addition to major holidays and nationally significant events, each month features useful reminders drawn from Hitwise: an Experian  data product that measures online trends and provides data on visitor and search behaviour. Lateral thinking arts marketers can put their creativity to work on the more obscure titbits – April’s upturn in searches for ISAs, anyone? But you don’t have to contort your brain very much to see the relevance of May 23rd’s note that there’s an uptick in searches for travel planning or June 6th’s that “online research for music festivals begins”.

People will be travelling to your town and may be looking for your event – make sure your website and search optimisation are ready! Help those early bookers by making sure your tickets are available to buy online, and in a perfect world you’ll make sure your payment interface doesn’t create barriers for international bookers. Make sure your location and phone number are tickety boo on Google Maps and that you’ve provided great driving, parking and public transport information.

Don’t forget to plan for local audiences and events too. If you make family friendly work or have courses for young people, you’ll want look out the school holidays calendar and make sure you’ve got something on for those families searching for something fun to fill the afternoons. As it’s almost Valentines Day and because we love you here are links to Scotland’s six city’s school holidays: Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Stirling. You’re welcome.

Other marketing planners are out there, and you might want to mix and match. The team at Cognique have a nice mix of cultural and sporting events in their 2016 planner and the Creative Composite include a helpful mix of multicultural holiday dates in their calendar, which you won’t want to forget.

We don’t yet know when the European referendum will be but it’ll likely come to us in either June or September so don’t forget to plan for that one once it’s set. And, none of these planners include the Scottish Parliamentary Elections on 6 May either – so don’t forget to pencil that one in.

Holidays and polling days like these as well as international sporting events like this summer’s Olympics and Paralympic Games in Rio will provide major media (social and the normal kind) flashpoints. The savvy content marketers amongst you can start thinking now if there are any creative content tie ins or promotional opportunities to be had from these. Perhaps one or more of this summer’s athletes are from your town? Or maybe you can offer a killer dinner-and-a-show package for Mother’s Day? Now’s the time to plan to make the most of these opportunities.

You can get more ideas by poking around Google Trends. It’ll tell you what the biggest stories were from 2015 and give you insights into the key search terms in your area of work. Our favourite is the graph for festivals. The seasonal zig zag chart tells you everything you need to know about when festivals are at peak relevance – and when they’re not.

Happy planning!

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:

#1 Collaborative marketing

For marketers who need to squeeze the last ounce from a stretched budget; to reach new communities; diversify audiences or amplify their brand, collaboration is the watchword. Collaboration can drive innovation; inspire fresh thinking and provide a platform for large-scale initiatives with national or international reach. Here are four notable examples of collaborations from 2015:

• ATTENDANCE was a collaborative marketing initiative to build and diversify audiences for dance in Northern Ireland. Arts Council Northern Ireland describes the project, in which Dance Resource Base partnered with dance companies, venues and festivals in a campaign to encourage audiences to try new forms of dance or experience dance for the first time.
• World Ballet Day Live saw five leading dance companies from around the world join forces to create a 23-hour live stream of content, designed to build global buzz around the artform – details via The Stage.
• Corners Live, described as a traditional gallery space, radio broadcaster and television channel rolled into one, this new digital extension of the existing Corners project was created by ISIS Arts in Newcastle to promote engagement with contemporary art on a Europe-wide scale. The collaboration involves over 30 different arts organisations and 55 artists from across Europe – A-N explains how it all works.
• Visual Arts Glasgow Culture Republic were involved in this collaborative marketing initiative between 30 museums and galleries, designed to build and mobilise audiences for Glasgow’s rich visual arts scene around the time of the Turner Prize.

For further ideas, inspiration and an overview of the power and impact of cultural collaboration in Scotland, Creative Scotland’s impact evaluations from the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games were published in 2015 and provide an excellent reference resource.

#2 Communities and wellbeing

In 2015 cultural engagement professionals focused on building social engagement, showcasing the importance and relevance of culture in people’s lives. This is part of the wider trend of art works themselves being grounded in participation from communities, as in Assemble’s 2015 Turner Prize win.

Marketers have needed to draw attention to their organisations’ contributions to building robust and healthy communities. Lots of research is happening in this space, including: the Cultural Value Project,  Alliance for Arts, Health and Wellbeing or Arts Health and Wellbeing programme. Examples from 2015 include:

• Devron Arts saw a sharp rise in visitor numbers and a much wider group of participants after employing a Cultural Health Worker. Her prescription for the community of Huntly was to increase their participation in culture to increase community members’ overall wellbeing.
• The Whitworth Gallery has focused on removing barriers to access and building strong connections between its art and Manchester’s people.  In her talk at our 2015 conference, Access All Areas, Gallery Director Maria Balshaw described the Whitworth’s relationships with Manchester’s young people, Indian community and Iranian community amongst others. Maintaining and building these ties played a significant role in the Whitworth being named the Art Fund’s 2015’s Museum of the Year.

In the wider world, consumers are beginning to look to commercial brands to help increase their wellbeing, according to a new study from Edelman – and this growing pursuit of ‘wellbeing’ presents a clear opportunity for the arts and culture to play a role.

#3 Accessing hard to reach groups

A key goal for marketers in 2015 was connecting with and serving those members of their communities who are hardest to reach, breaking down barriers to accessing arts and culture. You can see examples of this trend at work in these initiatives:

• Edinburgh’s Festival and Kings Theatres launched an action research project for audiences with dementia. Profiled in The Stage, it reaches across the whole organisation and includes changes to infrastructure, offering new types of programming and calls for new communication strategies and tactics. This project will roll out over 3 years and Culture Republic is looking forward to working with Festival City’s Theatre Trust to measure its ongoing impact.
• Edinburgh International Festival worked hard to build stronger connections with family audiences in 2015. The Scotsman reported on their campaign, which included targeted programming such as the family concert and the NTS production of Dragon, as well as putting young people’s work at the forefront of EIF’s communications activity by running a competition for 5 -12 year olds to design the fireworks advertisement.

Culture Republic’s Access All Areas conference in October 2015 brought together a whole host of rich examples of arts and cultural organisations in Scotland and beyond that are making a real difference through their work with hard-to-reach groups. Check out the range of resources (including interactive maps, videos, podcasts and population profiles) we’ve created to help you improve your equalities and diversity practice and build engagement in the communities that matter to you.

#4 Blurring the line between creative content and marketing content

In the world of content marketing, the lines between communications campaigns and creative work are often blurry. 2015 brought some ambitious initiatives from organisations whose experiential approach to communications stretched the boundaries of traditional marketing to become cultural experiences in their own right:

• V&A Dundee began connecting with their audience long before the opening of their new venue. The team have made Dundee’s waterfront their canvas, with a giant comic strip that is an artwork in its own right and brings the V&A story out of the gallery setting and into the heart of the city. Their touring mobile exhibition has meanwhile travelled the whole of Scotland in partnership with the Travelling Gallery. Culture Republic are working with the V&A Dundee on a market segmentation project to support its activity prior to launch.
• Harper Collins drew prospective readers into the world of Harper Lee’s much-anticipated Go Set a Watchman with a sample audiobook chapter in the Guardian that was enriched with animated visuals and narration from Reece Witherspoon.
• Paris Opera Ballet launched a digital Third Stage for bespoke dance film productions that go far beyond the usual ‘making-of’ or ‘trailer’ style video marketing content. Featuring bespoke choreography and high production values, each is a piece of art in its own right, as Vulture reports. Our favourite film blends animation and behind the scenes footage and was created in partnership with former Disney animator Glen Keane.

Get inspired for 2016

If you’re hungry for more stories of real-life marketing campaigns that work, look out for Culture Republic’s  Brains Behind the Campaigns event, coming up in March 2016. This half day session will connect you with some of the most innovative and effective marketers working in our sector today, each of whom will give you a behind-the-scenes insight into their very campaigns – warts and all. To get a flavour of what’s to come check out our 2015 Brains Behind the Campaigns event and get in touch for your personal invitation to the next one.

#1 Automation

As anyone using email marketing or remarketing tools will have noticed, automation tools are getting cleverer and more precise every day, and smart marketers will be exploiting this to the full in 2016.

• Be targeted – but don’t be creepy! You are likely already using marketing automation but, as always, with great power comes great responsibility. Econsultancy’s summary is a good reminder of places you can use it and how to make sure that you’re giving customers the information and messages that they can really use. Their best advice is to take care not to be creepy about it despite the temptations, flagged here by Social Media Week, of new opportunities for personalisation and targeting.
• Will a robot take your job? Robotics doesn’t stop at driverless cars: according to Econsultancy, robots can now write marketing copy, although they still need humans to add nuance. And it doesn’t stop there: the Stage recently profiled a new West End musical whose plot and musical themes were created by an algorithm that distilled a “recipe for success”. And lest you think that live performance is safe, the Guardian reported on the first robot opera performer. Worried now? Check out Nesta’s handy quiz to find out whether a robot will take YOUR job!

#2 Influencer marketing

Content marketing isn’t going away … but 2016 is set to be the year of influencer marketing. This is all about getting maximum impact from the content you produce, by exploiting your networks to the full. How to do it? You need to make sure your best content reaches the tastemakers in your social networks, to transform them into your advocates.

• Get started The big idea is to find those bloggers and online personalities that are trusted on a particular topic as their endorsement won’t be ad blocked and has greater authenticity than your own marketing messages. Relevance is the watchword says Social Bro when it comes to influencer marketing. Tumblr, in Social Media Week, predicts the marrying of influence + content so that your best material can be better disseminated from peer to peer.
• Use video Making the right kind of content has never been more crucial. More than 55% of people watch videos everyday according to Charity Digital News.  The Guardian predicts a consistent and rapid growth in the relevance of video for content marketers and small businesses. And Social Media Week points out that people consume video differently on Facebook and YouTube,  whilst Union Metrics Insights show the significance of Instagram video … you may need to use all three. If you’re not yet a master of Instagram video, check out these top tips from Charity Digital News and examples of how brands are using them for engagement from Econsultancy.

#3 Your data in the spotlight

According to Nesta’s report on Making Digital Work, we have turned the corner from big data (remember that?) – in 2016 it’s all about putting the focus on our own data. This is about concentrating on internally held data to get to know your audiences in order to serve them better – and what better way to kick-start your Influencer Marketing?! Use your internal data:

• For decision making Social Media Week have a four point plan for building data- driven decision making culture in your organisation.
• For great UX Data can give insight into what your audiences want from you – but when you have too much data, it can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. Econsultancy offer their top tips on creating data driven experiences for all  your users, and making sure that you’re picking out the really useful data from all the noise.
• For your own protection According to Charity Digital News, 2016 is going to bring changes to Data Protection legislation. Read Econsultancy’s guide to the new EU data framework and keep your eye on your data protection policies – these might need to change.

Ready to get started? Take Econsultancy’s advice and create a data strategy for your organisation, that will help you figure out what changes are needed to make the best of the data systems that you’ve got. Need a case study? The AMT Lab offer this data love story from the Dallas Theatre Centre which brought two internal departments – marketing and fundraising – into harmony.

#4 Focus on access

With Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at the heart of the agenda for cultural organisations everywhere, digital innovation has a clear role to play as you work to expand your audiences and serve them better. Here are a few top examples of how digital developments are already advancing the EDI agenda for arts organisations around the world:

• Subtitling on smart glasses can be personalised to help audiences who speak a range of languages as well as users who are hard of hearing – read more in this piece from Classical Music Magazine.
• Induction loops for outdoor events are becoming a reality for hearing impaired audiences at Hogmanay – read more from The Scotsman.
• Support to audiences on the autistic spectrum – Arts Professional highlighted this Nesta R&D funded project that helps to prepare young audience members on the Autistic spectrum for what they can expect during a performance.
• Virtual experiences for physical disabilities – VR developments, according to NPR, now offer the potential for immersive experiences for people who are physically unable to participate in real life experiences.

#5 The year of virtual and augmented reality?

There’s been talk about virtual and augmented reality for engagement and for creative practice for years now, but we’ve yet to see that killer app that draws everyone in. Still, 2015 brought us some pretty exciting projects – 2016 could be the year it hits big.

• AR for marketing According to Social Bro, augmented reality can be used for a range of branding and customer engagement campaigns by using mobile technology to interact with an object or image. It’s one to watch.
• AR for sales Art Retail Network launched a tool to engage potential art buyers in a more interactive experience. Culture Republic helped Glasgow venues use Active Canvas (explained here by Colin Ruffell) to drive interest and awareness of the city’s contemporary art scene, at the time of the Turner exhibition. Five Glasgow museums and galleries hosted artworks that were ‘activated’ with a series of short films about the exhibition or the venue.
• AR comes to life in pictures Last summer, painter Trevor Jones used the Edinburgh festival season to launch his guerrilla one-man show #edinburghhacked which layered digital versions of his work into locations all over the city.

Get started

If you’re ready to up your game in the digital arena in 2016,  get in touch. We can help you make a coherent communications strategy that maximises your mission and business goals; make sense of your audience data for segmentation and reach your audiences with better tactical delivery. If you are a Culture Republic Partner, you can take advantage of February’s First Wednesday. Digital marketing expert Brian Tait will help you make sure your website is working hard enough.

 Twitter

Livestreaming is the new black.

Twitter’s most significant launch was early in the year. Periscope – a mobile livestreaming app allows any Twitter user to broadcast a live event to other users. Like Skype, but one to many, the platform has built a significant user-base in its nine-month life according to Omnicore and this is set to grow significantly now that Twitter users can watch Periscope videos without leaving the Twitter app. Social Media Week’s piece on its launch advocates enthusiastically for Periscope’s potential applications for creative marketers.

UX changes

The look and feel of Twitter’s user interface – both within the web browser and in Tweetdeck – has been changing this year. Brand managers will have noticed that this summer account pages were stripped of wallpaper (which previously allowed you to fill the whole page – including the space at either side of the central tweet column – with an image) resulting in the loss of full-page, coherent branding. Check out Econsultancy’s summary of the best user responses to the change.

Late in the year the company changed their star shaped ‘favourite’ button to a love heart that indicates ‘like’. Twitter’s rationale for this change was that ‘not everything can be your favorite.’ It also brought their three major brands – Vine, Periscope and Twitter – into alignment. Although commentators like The Atlantic queried whether the change would do much to generate new users or improve Twitter’s sagging bottom line.

Hot now

Twitter’s new Moments feature helps people find important content, even if it is happening outside their core networks. Currently curated by Twitter and key corporate partners, the new service has potential for marketers. As Social Media Week’s guide points out, it’s a great place to link into external trends.

Live voting

People have opinions and Twitter’s new polls feature lets you tap into them. Polls stay live for 24 hours and offer a simple either/or choice. For now, it only works on the mobile app and in the web browser, so the Guardian is reluctant to embrace it fully but there’s a lot of potential there for content managers to get instant input into audience preferences in real time.

#GlobalEvents

Twitter is the best place for things that are of the moment – think live events, breaking news or political movements. See this at work in Twitter’s short film presenting the biggest hashtags of 2015, providing a  flavour of Twitter at its most relevant. Capitalising on this strength, the company launched event targeting, accessed through the Twitter Ad portal. Marketers can browse a list of holidays and events by date, category or country and even give basic stats for the reach and demographics of each one. It’s good for forward planning, and Econsultancy’s got ideas for how agile marketers can put it to work.

Facebook

Donate Now

The new fundraising button is big news for charities. Charity Digital News offers tips on how to use the ‘Donate Now’ button; introduces some early improvements to its functionality, and explains why Facebook is an increasingly important channel for nonprofits.

Ticket sales

Facebook’s ‘buy’ buttons are powered by Shopify, and this could be the year they make a real difference to your bottom line. Ad Week gives the lowdown on the pros and cons of Facebook’s e-commerce solution, comparing it with equivalent features from Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.

Video

Daily video views on Facebook passed the four billion mark last year and 75% of those were on mobile devices. With rich content opportunities all around us, that’s big news for arts marketers everywhere. An especially snazzy new development is the 360 degree video option, introduced in September. Check out the Royal Opera House’s Nutcracker video for a nice example from the arts.

Multicultural affinity targeting for marketers

If you’re targeting specific ethnic groups through your programming and comms this year, then Facebook’s new multicultural affinity targeting solution might help. Nanigans explains how Facebook now looks across a mix of inputs and preferences to help brands reach people of a specific ethnicity, based on users’ known content preferences.

Facebook Live

The Facebook response to Periscope and Meerkat is coming soon to a smartphone near you! Social Media Week introduced Facebook’s first steps into livestreaming.

… and finally …

Check out this handy infographic from Charity Digital News for a quick round-up of other key Facebook trends of 2015. All the changes seem to be working! According to Ad Week, Facebook’s ad revenue is up by 45%.

 Google

Most of us are grateful for Google’s constant algorithm tinkering when it means we get relevant results faster. For website managers looking to maximise their search results, though, it’s more of a love/hate relationship as Google’s changes often require a quick and appropriate response.

Twitter + Google = BFF

Early in 2015 Google partnered with Twitter to show tweets as results in our Google searches. The idea was to give up-to-date results for real-time events. Social Bro covered the initial roll out with a series of useful prompts for marketers to consider in the newly linked world. The feature subsequently expanded to include desktop and mobile results and, as the change bedded in, Social Media Week advised on how to optimise across the two channels.

Mobile optimisation is no longer optional

This year, Google rolled out a significant change to prioritise websites optimised for mobile browsing and the marketing world went crazy for Mobilegeddon as in this blog from Michelle Bassett. It happened because, as OfCom research showed, there was a significant growth in tablet and smartphone use – summarised in this  visualisation from Charity Digital News. Although this was the most hyped update in recent memory, algorithm updates are Google’s bread and butter. It remains important to keep your eye on things.

More arts content

Near the end of last year, Google moved strongly into providing arts content by vastly expanding access to museum and performing arts materials via the established Google Cultural Institute. It  has been highlighting artworks, world heritage sites and cultural figures since 2011. In 2015 the Institute launched significant partnerships with UK arts organisations:

Visual Arts and heritage: Google partnered with The British Museum to digitise the museum’s collection and allow you to tour the museum via Street View.

Performing arts: the Stage reported Google’s launch of over 150 interactive stories from drama, dance, music and opera that saw the platform working with the likes of like of the RSC, the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Sadler’s Wells and Battersea Arts Centre. As with the Facebook videos above, the newest technology allows for an immersive 360 degree view of the performance taken from the perspective of the stage.

Arts organisations can partner with Google to digitise their collections and share an archive of their content. Arts marketers may find that audiences become more and more comfortable with (even growing to expect) high-quality online access to arts products.

Keep learning in 2016

If you want to improve your online marketing practice and learn how to create better online content, be on the lookout for our Know How workshop series launching in February 2016 with hands-on sessions including how to get the best from Twitter; creating great podcasts and more. Culture Republic Partners should also check out February’s First Wednesday where expert trainer Brian Tait will explore the perennial question, ‘Is my website working hard enough?’

Want to know more? Drop us a line to make sure that you get the word early.

1. This will be the year of Twitter Zero: whilst organic reach remains a useful tool to test best practice and approaches, it’s no longer enough to make your message heard. Twitter will soon be making a huge push towards paid advertising;
2. Just like Facebook before it, in 2015 ‘Twitter is bound to embrace algorithmic content sharing and move away from its traditional reverse chronological order format’, say Social Ogilvy;
3. ‘The number of people on Twitter has hit a plateau yet the volume of content published to twitter continues to accelerate’, Social Ogilvy suggest;
4. Twitter is seeking fresh ways to attract new users and to provide new experiences for these users;
5. Twitter has a suite of paid products with around 400 targeting options, including post code targeting. ‘Delivering editorial content via sophisticated targeting can deliver massive performance benefits’, say Social Ogilvy
6. Twitter have produced a series of ‘Twitter cards’ – these can drive engagement from your tweets & measure the impact, and are broken down into three categories:
   1. Products: sell products for retail
   2. Leads: generate more leads for email marketing and boost your CRM
   3. App downloads.
7. The highest engagement seen so far on a Twitter ad in the USA was the Super Bowl. In the UK, the John Lewis Christmas advert took the top spot.
8. Twitter e-commerce is being beta-tested in the US: we’ll soon be seeing BUY buttons in our newsfeeds.
9. Video ads rule – and Facebook is where it’s happening! Facebook is seeing a steady growth in video uploads, whilst YouTube video posts are diminishing.  Facebook finally outdid YouTube on the video front, in December 2014 – good news for audience interaction, as nearly 80% of all video interaction is now happening on Facebook.
10. Watch out: times they are a-changing, and a‘Youth Internet’ is coming  …
11. According to the Global Web Index, Snapchat was the fastest growing social network of 2014.
12. Most popular videos (measured in terms of highest engagement) are between 30 seconds and 2 minutes long. The rule of thumb is to keep it short, but remember: content is king! (So long as the content is good …)

Here at Culture Republic, we’ve seen that more and more cultural organisations are trialling online advertising. Here’s a great example from our friends down at The Audience Agency, who are using a Twitter Advert with a link to ‘sign up’ to their newsletter by clicking the button. Click, and Twitter will kindly fill the necessary fields automatically for you:

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— The Audience Agency (@audienceagents) August 26, 2014

If you’re feeling inspired to rise to the challenge and take your social media to the next level in 2015, get in touch: we’d be delighted to work with you!

Social Platform Cheat Sheet from 360i

Why we like it

This super handy sheet pulls together the top eight social media platforms and lines them up side by side so you can keep yourself straight on what they are, what they do and who uses them. All on a single page!

Created by Orli LeWinter at 360i, the Cheat Sheet is a grid that lines up the key differences between platforms: who’s on it; MAU (millions of active users); how people use it; how brands use it; most impactful content types; what are the paid media options; what to use it for and major KPIs (key performance indicators). This means at a glance you can make a decision on key channels based on key points of difference.

Ready reckoner

• Cross channel – useful for organisations who are active on multiple channels to think through where to place key content.
• Segmentation – useful for marketers working on specific campaigns to quickly spot the most appropriate channels for target audiences.
• Getting beyond Facebook and Twitter – a great reminder about those channels that you might not be using every day but that you shouldn’t forget about. It’s a good summary of what they do and how they stack up.
• Advertisers – quickly outlines which platforms have robust paid media options and which are  unsuitable for advertising.
• The line up – with channels compared side by side according to consistent criteria, it tames the bewildering flood of information around digital marketing, making everything more coherent and digestible.
• Impacts – if you’re not sure what to measure, the final line gives a quick and dirty summary of the major KPIs.

Users will notice that almost all of the channels are most successful when they’re sharing strong visual (photo or video) content. It’s a good reminder to make sure that your materials are looking beautiful, whether you view them as a poster or a thumbnail.

Another consistent theme is that branding and awareness looms largest as a consistent strength across all the channels with direct traffic and sales lagging far behind. It’s a good reminder of what social media is great at doing and helps set clear expectations.

The most reliable predictions are made from understanding what’s gone before. 2014 was certainly the year that sales and engagement on mobile came into its own. A look at the statistics around holiday sales is a clear indicator. According to Econsultancy: “Mobile commerce accounted for over a fifth (21.9%) of online shopping on Cyber Monday 2014, up 15.9% year-on-year.”  That means if you’re not already optimised for mobile sales you should get on that. Your customers will start to expect it.

Once you’re optimised for mobile sales, you can start thinking about mobile payment. With developments in NFC  and new apps like Zapp  or Ping It, 2015 could be year that the mobile wallet becomes a reality.

The massive uptake in mobile usage has made possible new peer-to-peer business models that will continue to change the market in 2015. Exemplified by apps for ride sharing Uber, flat sharing Airbnb and the meal sharing Eat With are seriously disrupting the hospitality industry. It’s worth keep your eye on. Many of your visitors will likely be starting to use these services – they might need different kinds of customer service if they’re coming to you from outside the formal tourist economy. A savvy marketer might even find opportunities for new partnerships with local peer-to-peer marketplaces.

In 2015 content marketing will maintain its relevance but, since the cat is all the way out of the bag, the competition for attention will be fiercer. The answer, as in this Slideshare by Rand Fishkin, won’t be more content it will be better, smarter content and a consistent presence. The question isn’t what the content does for you but, what can your users use the content to do for them? Gregory Pouy’s slideshow is full of good advice to this end.  Will it make them look smarter or help them make an emotional connection? Will it solve a practical problem or give them an insider’s advantage? Whatever it is, you’ll know it’s the right content when you make sure that you know who you’re talking to and what they care about, so you can give them what they need.

And because no future-gazing article is complete without highlighting the wackiest technologies in the pipeline, 2015 is going to be the year of digital olfactory engagement. That’s right, scratch and sniff comes to your mobile. According to Nesta this will be the year that ‘Smellovision loses its stink.”  If you need a proof of concept, just look at Adweek’s round up of 2014’s best  and you’ll see in pride of place Oscar Meyer’s Wake Up and Smell the Bacon.  You know you want one.

Visit England’s report ‘Visitor Attraction Trends in England 2013’ revealed, perhaps unsurprisingly, that Facebook (43%) and Twitter (31%) are the most popular channels  used by organisations in England’s heritage and tourism sector, with usage reported even within small attractions. Mobile apps experienced the strongest year on year growth, with 18% of attractions now developing these and a particular proliferation within heritage venues.  21% of venues now offer online ticket and event booking facilities; enewsletter usage came in at 17%, and YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, online blogs and mobile sites all racked up usage levels between 6% and 11%.

Attractions offering digital communications enjoyed higher revenues and admission figures, particularly among child visitors, highlighting the crucial importance of digital communications for family audiences. So which channels should you focus  your efforts on – and how can you make them work for you?

As with every marketing riddle, there is no one-size-fits-all solution – but there are plenty of inspiring examples out there. Success in content-driven marketing comes to organisations whose communications campaigns concentrate on the channels where they know their customers are active, and make the very most of those channels through the creation or curation of content that’s developed with the channel in mind. It’s as simple as that …

Let’s start with one of the largest digital experiments ever attempted by a UK cultural icon, for a taste of the reach that cross-channel communications can offer. Between June 21-23, 2013 The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) partnered with Google’s Creative Lab for a digital production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dreaming” to be viewed by an as-yet-to-be-determined global Internet audience, and supported by communications across all of the RSC’s social media channels.

The RSC’s Digital Producer Sarah Ellis is quoted in Native, the magazine from the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, saying:

“The project reached 30 million people on social media through all channels: Facebook, Twitter and Google +. We had a core community of 1,000 people over six weeks. We uploaded 3,000 pieces of content, of which 1,000 were audience members uploading their own and 2,000 were RSC commissions.”

Interesting to note that fully one-third of content was generated by audience members, with the remainder emanating from the RSC team. RSC Executive Director Catherine Mallyon added:

“If we’re dealing with a sell-out house it’s 1,000 people, if we’ve got three sell-out theatres, we’ve got 1,700 people. But if we’ve reached 30 million people, what does that mean for us as an organisation?”

Stepping away from the cultural sector for a moment, WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) is, literally, on top of their social media game with over 172 million users across a range of platforms and accounts. At first glance, wrestling might seem worlds away from art and culture – but as a performance-based ‘product’ looking for audiences, it’s perhaps not so dissimilar after all. WWE receives less TV time than other sports yet more than makes up for this through its smart communications channel choice. Their communications strategy focuses on regularly sharing exclusive behind-the-scenes images and footage across multiple social channels, encouraging interaction with their already heavily-invested fan base. A prime example includes the September 2014 tongue-in-cheek “between bouts” “#Rockpaperscissors exchange between WWE South African superstar Adam Rose and The Bunny, his lifesize furry-costumed competitor – one of many such incidents involving these two popular performers.

WWE integrates all aspects of online and offline marketing, and every team member is actively involved. Twitter handles are displayed when wrestlers enter the ring; every live show has a hashtag and commentators plug the social channels, with everyone encouraged to tweet at major competitions such as their “Night of Champions”.

Back to the world of arts and culture, the 2014 Edinburgh International Festival scored a huge hit by teaming up with Virgin Money, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and East Lothian developer Hippotrix to create a free “Curate your own fireworks festival” app for the iPhone. The app comes complete with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture as soundtrack, and allows visitors to choreograph then run their own fireworks finale in tribute to the famous fireworks which annually close the Festival.

Digital content that encourages engagement and participation is the holy grail for many marketers, and in social media there’s no substitute for ‘real-time’ reactivity: when customers feel that you’re living the moment beside them, that’s half the battle won.

Smartcar USA did it brilliantly in June 2012 when they picked up a cheeky Tweet from ad agency creative director Clayton Hove, who quipped: “Saw a bird had crapped on a Smart Car. Totaled it.” The Smartcar team rose to the occasion and whipped up a light-hearted Infographic comparing weights of “Pigeon, turkey and emu craps” before tweeting back “Couldn’t have been one bird, @adtothebone. Sounds more like 4.5 million. (Seriously, we did the math.)”

Pantene, meanwhile, scored their own Oscar night success by having an artist on hand to sketch the stars in real time as they stepped onto the red carpet, then tweeted out the glamorous drawings complete with #WantThatHair directions on how to achieve the same look using Pantene products.

Elsewhere, clever use of Vines is on the increase, including online behemoths such as AOL which opted for a simple talking heads piece from musical duo Husband and Wife which had racked up over 120,000 loops at last count. Closer to home, Dundee United FC nailed the Vine approach by featuring six seconds of adrenalin-fuelled crowd action that has already scored around 6,500 loops. Simple stuff and easily created – check out The Drum’s weekly Brand Vine Chart for regular inspiration.

Common to each of these examples are some fundamental principles. They are the work of marketers who have harnessed every nugget of available data governing the tastes and behaviours of their target audiences, before serving them up with a piece of killer content. So, how many channels should you use? How should you use them? There may be no magic solution, but if you know your brand and you know your audience, there’s nothing stopping you from using the channels that you’re already communicating on right now to become content marketing’s next runaway success.