Using Facebook in marketing

As manager of the Facebook page, I had full control of the content that was available to the public on that page. I consulted the group with regards to the profile picture and the cover photo and we had already had some logo design ideas. I felt that it was important to settle on a logo for our company before making the page live so that there was no confusion about the branding of the company and that there was a consistent image behind our production. Once we had settled on the image, which was an alarm clock reflecting the Wake Up brand. I created the page, added a short bio about our company and a shortened manifesto to give the public a clear and concise understanding about the project. Once the page had gone live, I began to invite friends to ‘like’ the page enabling any content published to appear on their walls and giving them the permission to react and interact with that content. The company each liked the page and began inviting their friends as well so we were able to reach more people quickly. I began to upload relevant content to the page, including news stories involving knife crime, murders and other shocking stories involving crime and injustice. This content set the tone for the performance and whilst was not all directly about our production, did offer an insight into the sort of information Wake Up was interested in and taking influence from. The company was interested in getting to know the audience in order to best suit their performance and so I set up a vote post on the site which asked the audience whether they had been a victim of knife crime, also offering the options of ‘no’ and ‘I know someone that has’. This gave the company information about the relevance of the subject to our target audience, which were students of the university and adults. As it happened, none of the voters said that they had personally been involved in knife crime but many know someone who has which then made us confident that we could present our performance that would inform and stimulate concern for the topic without upsetting those that have been affected. With the case of Stephen Lawrence causing such a long lasting effect on the legal landscape of Britain, there are still stories emerging relating to the case and its effects thereafter throughout our rehearsal process, we were able to post about the case, and on-going developments to keep our audience up to date with the story that was so central to the influence of our performance.

The Facebook site also acted as part of our publicity and marketing program. We were able to advertise our performance, make our audience aware of where and when the performance was going to take place and offer links to the LPAC website where they could purchase tickets and read further information. By creating an event on Facebook, we were also able to get an idea of how many people were planning to attend, as we knew that ticket sales were likely to occur much later in the process. Having that information enabled us to consider how we wanted to interact with the audience based on the potential size of it. Uploading pictures to the site was another way in which the audience could get an insight into what we were doing, get a feel for the tone of the piece using costume, location and light. Pictures were much more interactive than text based posts because people could see the actors that they knew personally and this caused some discussion and excitement for the performance.

Reflection on Marketing

Reflecting upon the marketing we implemented during this process we also thought about what else we could have done to effectively market 130,000.

Social Media Profiles for the characters
We could have possibly made more use of the social media available to us, and made profiles for the characters involved in the play, particularly the teenagers. Social media is a big part of life of teenagers today and we could have used this to our advantage. This would not just create an awareness of our show but it would give the audience an idea of what to expect from our performance and help them to possibly create emotional connections with the character prior to the performance.
By having the actors post in character it would also play them create a sense of who their character is and play them develop their character for the performance.

Like and Share
Again making more use of our Facebook page we could have ran a ‘Like and share’ event. A photo, possibly one of our promotional photos which if people like and share one person will be picked at random to win 2 free tickets to our performance. By doing this my photo is being shared to people who we may have not reached and therefore creates more of an awareness of our theatre company and of 130,000.

Tagging
In the months prior to the performance, we could have created stickers or small posters of the show’s title ‘130,000’ with maybe the tagline of the Facebook or twitter page. We believe that doing this could help to create an interest and a buzz about our performance with potential audiences and could possibly be an effective way to increase the number of people viewing our social media pages and thus becoming aware of our theatre company and our current production.

Fundraising
At the end of our performance where was a collection for the Stephen Lawrence Trust and Damilola Taylor Trust. We could have possibly done fundraisers for these charities prior to the performance, for example a quiz night or cake sale, etc. This would not only help us to raise money for causes which are very true to our piece but would also help to promote us as a theatre company and give the public an idea of what kind of work we aim to create and also give us a chance to promote our current show to people who show an interest at the fundraisers.

Education Outreach
Our production centres of 130,000 centres around teenagers and the issues young people currently face. In the months prior to our performance, we could have possibly set up a workshop to get into schools to children aged 16+ due to the strong themes of the play and worked with the children on the issues surrounding the play, helping them become aware of the dangers and the issue that surround a young person in the U.K today.

Flyers

The flyers used were simplistic but affective and did represent what we wanted, however on reflection I think printing them on card would have potentially made them look more professional whilst at the same time maintain the simplicity of our company. The flyers would have been the first element seen by potential audience members and would give them a prejudgement of what to expect from our theatre company, therefore, ideally we would have printed them professionally to give a better impression, however, as mention in a previous post it was due to economical reasons and time restraints. Nevertheless we did not give false impressions through promoting our performance with the misuse of marketing materials or advertising linguistic.  The flyers were sufficient in that they supplied the information needed to potential audiences and gave a true representation to our performance and to our theatre company as a whole.

Posters

Again the posters provided an insight to our performance without giving too much away. On reflection I think the picture on the programme looked more effective, therefore it should have been on the poster as well. The attitude which conveyed off the programme picture encapsulated the whole feel of the play. The feedback received from people was that they had not heard much about what we were doing, they knew the information we had provided through advertisement but apart from that we seemed to gain a reputation of being the ‘secret group’. I think this assisted the interest surrounding our play and the excitement people had to come and watch.

 

@WAKEUPtheatre

Online marketing is a current and instant way to help build a business. ‘Technologies such as Twitter have the potential to give us more than just an opportunity to tell others what happened in our day. If we understand and appreciate what Twitter is capable of, we can use it to instantly share our lives with others, and we can use it to reach more people in a meaningful way’(Comm, 2012, p. x). You can share news within the comfort of your own home or wherever you are via a mobile phone. Having only 140 characters to write a message a person only gets a snip-it of what you want to say.

Twitter is a mobile social network which allows you to keep in touch with friends, family, businesses and companies that you may want to keep in touch with or are interested in. Twitter enables you to share what you are doing with the world, it gives small businesses and entrepreneurs the edge that they can’t necessarily get. ‘Every day, we see dozens of new ideas and ways to use twitter’ (Fitton, 2012, p. 6) as a brand new theatre company we had to incorporate these new ideas and use Twitter to its full capability to ensure that as a company we are creating a broad database of potential audience members. Through Twitter as a company we are able to promote 130,000 for free, without spending hundreds of pounds on promotional material.

When first creating the Twitter the design was a pivotal part.

Twitter

 

When a potential follower first accesses our sight we want them to get a good first impression. The design is essential as that first impression could decide weather they follow the company or judge them and move on. With a little touch of creativity and a clever design, by Tweeting the right thing a company may catch the eye of a potential follower. A potential follower leads to word of mouth witch could then possibly increase ticket sales. Having a professional logo as our profile picture and a professional promotional picture as our header instantly we create a professional first impression. Potential customers and followers get to know the face behind the company, which can help building Wakeup Theatre.

When writing tweets the art was keeping it simple, ‘Twitter geniuses sprung form the idea of serving as a status update tool, and at its most basic level, that’s what it is’ ( Thomases, 2012, p. 20). Having only 140 characters, tweets are meant to be kept at a basic level. Twitters ‘clean interface and easy to understand’ (Thomases, 2010, p. 25) layout makes is accessible to anyone. The biggest mistake criticues see companies do on Twitter is when they first hit Twitter they think of it as a ‘channel to push out information’ (O’Reilly and Milstein, 2012, p. 201) , by adding complicated Tweets with hyperlinks to other more complicated means of advertisement there is a potential fear that we may be turning away audience members. In The Twitter Book, Tom O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein say that ‘the average number of tweets per day amongst all users [is] ‘4.22’ (O’Reilly and Milston, 2012, p. 129).Tweeting on average 3 to 4 times a day it appeared that @WAKEUPtheatre kept our followers engaged. We were lucky enough to have several Reweets and Tweets’by companies such as @WhatsOnLincol, @unilincol, @MyUniLincoln, @UBTLincoln and @LPAC_Lincoln witch lead to a dramatic increase in our followers.

After every post we would always try and hashtag. Hashtagging by adding a the simple # symbol before writing a word or phrase enables another person who is specifically researching something to type in said word or phrase and the message will appear. For example on the 28th February we wrote this Tweet:

Twitter Picture 6

Here we hashtagged ‘#realwords’ ‘#realworlds’ and ‘#realpeople’ (WAKEUP Theatre, 2013, Online). If a person was researching something about real words then our tweet would come up, hopefully once they take a look round our page they will follow the company and take an interest in what we do.

On the 9th May we uploaded our first promotional shot, shown here:

Twitter Picture 5

This was the first time that our followers had seen us as a cast and were able to get a slight insight into what 130.00 may be. When tweeting the picture we asked the question ‘what do you think?'(WAKEUP Theatre, 2013, Online) by addressing our followers directing it enabled them to feel personally engaged.

Occasionally we would upload pictures from our rehearsals, shown here:

Twitter Picture 2

This was to ensure our followers that the work we were creating was developing ready for the performance. People generally enjoy pictures so by posting a tweet that is a picture followers are more likely to have a look, by incorporating ticket information underneath the picture we are constantly reminding followers the information they need to know.

On the 13th May we uploaded a ‘sneak preview of part of our set’ (WAKEUP Theatre, 2013, Online).

Twitter Picture 3

This picture gathered a lot of interest. Potential audience members asked questions and people were intrigued to as what the box was, this picture was a effective marketing tool.

 

Works Cited

Comm, Joel (2010) Twitter Power 2.0: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time, New Jersey: John Wiley & Son

Fitton, Laura (2012) Twitter For Dummies, New Jersey: John Wiley & Son

O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein (2012) The Twitter Book, Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media

Thomases, Hollis (2010) Twitter Marketing: An Hour a Day, Indiana: Wiley Publishing

WAKEUP Theatre (2013) 130,000 an adaptation of Fallout by Roy Williams, Lincoln: Lincoln School of Performing Arts.

WAKEUPtheatre (2013) Twitter, 23 May. Available at: https://twitter.com/WAKEUPtheatre (accessed: 24th May 2013)

130,000’s Programme

Marketing is a massive element when creating a performance so our company must ensure we attract audiences, provide background information which appears interesting and appealing and therefore, increase ticket sales. In order to promote 130,000, WAKEUP Theatre’s marketing team created posters and flyers which were taken around the streets of Lincoln promoting our upcoming show. These types of advertisement should appear eye catching and informative, appealing to a potential audience member. “Competition is becoming much more intense for most businesses. It is more difficult to make marketing decisions that will ensure customers will prefer one company’s product to those of competitors” (Burrow, 2009, p. 123). As the competition to attract audiences is often difficult, WAKEUP Theatre had to ensure they advertised 130,000’s strengths. As Roy Williams’ play Fallout is based on the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence, our adapted version also highlights this event and the frustrating journey in order to convict his murderers. Along with this strength of basing our performance on real events, our unique selling point is our inclusion of verbatim theatre, including actual speeches from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry from his mum Doreen Lawrence, his best friend Dwayne Brooks and an eye-witness Connor Taaffe.

As Producer I created our productions programmes which would be handed to audiences members on their entry to the theatre. It is extremely important within theatre that an audience member is given some context before watching a performance. This is not only important for audience members to find out about the productions cast and synopsis, it also ensures the audience have something to read whilst they wait for the show to begin, building their excitement.

photophoto (1)

When designing the programme, I felt that this was the picture that best described our performance, as it highlights the main characters, its black and white colour symbolise the dark themes that the play is based on and finally, the clothes and overall picture represents the ‘gang related culture’ we wish to address. The information on the front of the programme is simple but informative, displaying the date, time and name of the performance with an inclusion of the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre logo.

photo (2)

On the back of the programme, I wrote the list of actors and roles within the Company as a whole and for the performance of 130,000, and a synopsis was also included written by WAKEUP Theatre’s Dramaturge Kelly Bramall. This synopsis provides the audience with an instant context about the production, proving to be an exciting, unique and intriguing show to watch. It is very important that a warming was written on the programme, to ensure no audience members would be offended by the strong language and violent themes throughout. As the themes within 130,000 are very sensitive due to the fact the story is based on true events, as a company we felt that anonymously donating any money we were kindly given from our exiting audience to the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust would be a thoughtful gesture. Charity boxes were placed at the exit of the theatre so audience members if they wish could donate to this trust created by Stephen’s mother Doreen Lawrence.

Work Cited
Burrow, James (2009) Marketing. South-Western Cengage Learning. United States of America.

WAKEUP Theatre’s 130,000 Trailer

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are excellent ways to promote our performance, and creating a trailer would increase our advertisement even further. A trailer needs to attract an audience’s attention and appeal to the performances target audience, whilst communicating information about the upcoming production. “Advertising is the means by which goods or services are promoted to the public. The advertiser’s goal is to increase sales of these goods or services by drawing people’s attention to them and showing them in a favourable light” (Petley, 2002, p. 4). Early on in the process of creating 130,000 as a group myself, Kelly Bramall, Julia Curry, Chelsey Loveday and the marketing team, Jessica Crosby and Leanne McKettrick, as a team effort helped create an original trailer for our production. At this stage of the module the performance had not yet been scripted and completely decided so our chosen images were not original, and the information had elements missing such as the time and date of our performance. Elements of the trailer suited the themes within 130,000 such as the music from a British film Kidaulthood, but we felt that a new trailer with primary images, accurate information and current music would be beneficial.

Our original trailer represented our Theatre Company more than it did our upcoming performance and generally didn’t feel personal enough.

 

Aspects such as music, content and style will reflect on our company’s forthcoming performance, so it is important that the trailer is correctly advertised matching the themes within 130,000 as these elements set an expectation. The new trailer that I created for 130,000 displays only dark colours such as black, grey and white which represent the dark themes of knife crime, murder and ‘gang related culture’ that 130,000 is based on. The trailer presents specific information to our targeted audience which is important to advertise. This information included the name of our company and forthcoming production, the date and time of the performance, the fact that 130,000 is based on Roy Williams’ Fallout, and our unique selling point that we are using real words from real people. This information is used to attract audiences and aims to provide an insight into our upcoming performance. “Today we live in an image-saturated society, and advertisements account for a significant proportion of this media barrage” (Petley, 2002, p. 5). By including pictures within the trailer, the audience can get a better understanding of the type of theatre WAKEUP produce. As these pictures are of adolescents dressed in branded wear standing in a gang, they represent the culture and themes we wish to address within 130,000. As music is also a major element to a trailer, the music that I choose reflected the gang related themes within the play by including a song by a current rapper and musician called Macklemore. The combination between the music, pictures and information within the trailer ensure that the production is being advertised properly and appropriately setting a high-quality expectation to audiences. My aim was to create a simple but informative trailer, which would leave an audience feeling, intrigued about the content of the performance without ruining the impact and emotion the audience will gain.

Work Cited

Petley, Julian (2002) Advertising. Hodder Wayland. London.