Excuses for arts audience development?

Excuses, excuses. We may want to accomplish something, however, as humans, we also tend to make excuses.  We want to grow as individuals and artists, to better our art and organizations, yet we ourselves build road blocks to our success.  Silly humans!  So, I wanted to talk about two of the biggest excuses for why people do not start audience development planning and programs.  For my email subscribers, you will need to click on the web link to take you to the page to listen.

 

Any comments and feedback are appreciated.  Happy Monday to you too!

PS We are getting very close to announcing all of the 2013 offerings – stay tuned!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Please consider supporting ADS so we can continue our work.  Donate here! 

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Focus is key for arts audience development

I have been thinking a great deal about focus.  In a conversation, I mentioned that what you focus on is what will come to life.  I also expressed how many non-profit executives are scattered when it comes to what is on their plate.

In my humble opinion, I feel that a majority of organizations and some artists have too much on their plates.  They feel everything is important, but what tends to happen with this mentality of spreading yourself thin?  You tend to do everything half-assed (excuse my crudeness).  Certain tasks end up falling through the cracks, and you can end up damaging important relationships, in addition to not seeing very good results overall.  Furthermore, if you have capacity issues, this will only add to the burden and staggering weight on the people involved and burn everyone to a crisp.

This spreading yourself thin can apply to the overall strategic planning for the year, how your staff and board functions, your programming in attempts to please everyone, etc., etc.  Spreading yourself thin is only going to deliver “thin” results.  Don’t you want fat, gargantuan, successful outcomes?

In order to get away from this mentality, some very difficult decisions need to happen.  You need to evaluate and prioritize and ultimately let some things go.  If you keep attempting to focus on everything, nothing big will really happen.  If you allow yourself to go through this, albeit difficult process, you will reap the benefits.

Here is a point by point example of what you will want to do:

• Start with your mission – remind yourself who you are
• Take a look at all that you have on your plate and get rid of the programs/projects that are not in alignment
• Think about what you want to ultimately achieve – dream big – and pick one or two objectives for the year
• Choose your audience development goals using this big picture
• Plan out your audience development programs, in alignment with your mission and audiences, and implement over the year
• Track and evaluate throughout the year and decide to change, carry over to next year, or replace with a different program if necessary

If you really want to develop a quality audience, figure out what is important to you, make sure it is aligned with your mission, who you are, and who your audiences are, and plan on focusing on a little at a time to get bigger results.  I am seeing that when artists and organizations use this laser like focus, amazing results are happening!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Please consider supporting ADS so we can continue our work.  Donate here! 

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Night pondering of the many personalities of Twitter for audience development

I was looking at the profiles of some new followers, and I realize there are some concrete personalities I am seeing.  Here are a few to get you thinking:

• The Chatty Cathy or the Rampant Reply Robert: This Twitter personality is all about the conversation only.  You look at their stream and you see a sea of tweets starting with the @symbol.  There is no posting single thoughts or information.  Their profiles are more like chat rooms than anything else.
• The Schizophrenic Sampler or the Nowhere Man: If you see an account that has tweets posted by many different people, meaning they hit the retweet button more than they post their own thought, you have come across the schizophrenic sampler.  I understand that these people are enthusiastic about sharing what they see, however, I often wonder if they have their own personality and opinions to share.
• The Marketing Fool on the Hill: If all you see are post about them and what they are doing and selling, then you have come across this type of personality on Twitter.  Like the Fool on the Hill, they don’t realize that people don’t like them since they don’t like to be sold to 100% of the time.  This profile usually includes all the “I posted a photo on Facebook” or “I liked a YouTube” in which the YouTube is their latest and greatest.  They always are posting about their upcoming show, the music they are selling, etc, etc.  There’s a place for marketing on Twitter, but it should be a rare part of your tweeting experience.
• The Quite the Quoter: These accounts are still hanging in there, but not as popular as they used to be.  This profile has tweets of inspirational quotes from famous people aimed to lift your day and thoughts.  The occasional lift is helpful, however the constant quotes gets a little boring.
• The Social Media “Master”: These are the people that are pretending to be the masters of social media and are “proving” it by the number of people that they are following and who are following them.  When you take a closer look, they are more the Marketing Fool on the Hill personality and their following doesn’t represent meaningful relationships.  I follow a few real Social Media Masters and many of them converse with their followers instead of simply spouting their “wisdom” and puffing up their numbers with empty accounts.
• The Negative Nellies: A very easy personality to spot and easy to stay away from, unless they are sarcastically funny and make you laugh, then by all means, follow them!
• The Informative Informer: This is all that you see on these accounts.  Tweet after tweet of an article with a link.  There is no personality behind the tweets, no interaction.  Maybe they are bots in disguise?  What is funny is the fact people will follow these accounts for the information, and that generally gives them high numbers. The people behind these profiels are losing out on the full experience of Twitter which is the opportunity to build relationships with others.And my favorite personality, the one I always recommend:
• The All Around Star: This profile will show a good mix of conversation, information, retweets, quotes, with a little bit of marketing.  In other words, they are showing their full personalities, helping others, and sharing good information for their followers.

There may be more personalities to define.  What personalities do you see on Twitter?  Which ones give you the pet peeve heebie-jeebies and which ones do you like to tweet with?  Let us know!

-Shoshana
Buildmyaudience.com

Random thoughts from fiscal cliffs and landfills to donation asks for arts audience development

What do fiscal cliffs and landfills have to do with audience development for the arts?  Quite a lot actually.  Allow me to explain.

The priorities in America and possibly the world are all mixed up these days.  When countries are being run by greed for power and money, what is really important in life is not being funded.  The arts, in my opinion, are important to our lives.  We would be living life in the dark without the arts.  There would be no color in our world, no design,creative sciences or inventiveness, no music, no plays, movies and television shows, no historical reference, no spark to our lives.  How am I certain that the arts are one of the vital ingredients for humanity?  Because of the Landfill Harmonic:

Landfill Harmonic film teaser from Landfill Harmonic on Vimeo.

A country that has no means, but has the human spirit to create is making instruments out of remnants from the landfill.  The arts are a basic need, a basic desire that has to be filled.  This video showcases that the arts are a priority in our lives.

If the arts were to be a part of the fall off due to the fiscal cliff, we would still find a way to create and perform.  However, think about what we could do if we finally got our priorities in life straight.  What would the world look like if the greed for power and money were gone?  There wouldn’t be a fiscal cliff and there probably would be the means for funding of the arts more fully.  We as a human race tend to take the arts for granted.  It’s only when the arts are gone from our lives that we find that we need to sift through the rubble, the garbage, to find a way to express ourselves again.

This taking the arts for granted can be flipped on its head too.  We as artists tend to take our audiences for granted.  I hope non-profits of all kinds will take a moment to ponder this point too.

We are taking our audiences for granted.  We assume that if we create, the audiences will be there.  You can call this the Field of Dreams Syndrome.  We take it for granted that the right people will show up and start to support us, and then we fall flat with doing the work to build the relationships to create the support that we need.

For example, I receive donation asks from a variety of organizations.  I might have given in the past, I might not have.  The organizations that are targeting me based on who I have given to in the past have not started a relationship with me.  They are asking without knowing who I really am as a person.  I rarely give to these random asks.  The ones I have given to the past are organizations that caught my attention through a variety of avenues, such as tabling at an outreach event.  I have at least spoken to a representative, gone to a show, or volunteered for their cause.  I gave to these organizations since a relation has been established.

I only choose to continue to give if the relationship continues.  Many organizations at this point will take me for granted and continue to ask without any personal contact with me.  The only organizations I continue to give to at this point are the ones that treat me like an individual person and not just a number on their mailing list.  They make sure to thank me and contact me to keep me in the loop before asking for another donation.  They send me updates on how my money is being used.  They may call me to thank me personally.  I did receive a call from a board member on one of these organizations.  I only gave $25 that year too. Wow!

To tie this random post up into a nice gift with a big red bow for the holidays, you can trace back to the initial thought.  We have our priorities mixed up.  Instead of taking the road of hard work and thoughtfulness for others, we are taking the path of laziness and greed for money and power.  People will not see the value of our art and organizations until we start valuing people as individuals.  The world will not see the arts as a priority until they see the arts become more a part of the world in ways that are helpful and supportive to their communities.  Perhaps if we started acting as individuals and support the people in our lives through solid two-way relationships, we can start adding a positive voice to the collective for a better, common sensed, prioritized world.

If you ever wondered why getting the arts funded has been so darn challenging, now you know.

PS  These thoughts are my own humble opinion.  Feel free to challenge, add, and consider your own thoughts and post as a reply!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

A sick cat and audience development for the arts

Some of you may know that one of my cats is very ill.  I have been back and forth to the vet many times in the past two weeks.  Both me and my cat are tired of the whole thing.  During the process, I realized that I am incorporating much of the advice I give to my clients for the 4th C of audience development, or the Care element of their plans.

• I want to make my cat as comfortable as possible during this time.  I put an extra special soft blanket in her carrier to make the travels a little bit better for her.
  What are you doing to make your patrons more comfortable during their experience with you?
• Her problem right now is not being able to keep food down. I am buying medicines and foods to help calm her stomach.
  What changes are you making to solve any problems your patrons are “ailing” from?
• At the vet she sat in the corner, tired from the entire ordeal.  Today, I am “hearing” that she needs a little bit of time before another round of medications begin.
  Are you listening to what your audiences prefer?  What are you doing to accommodate their schedule, their needs? 
• I was rewarded this morning when she began to eat a good breakfast.  After weeks of not being able to keep her food down, she seems to be doing a little better.  She purred when I pet her too.
  Caring for your audiences will have their rewards.  They will want to give back if you cater and care for them. 
• I know that I will have to make decisions that will benefit her even if she doesn’t take to it from the start.  What makes this easier is her trust in me.
  If you care for your audiences, over time, they will start to trust your judgement even if they don’t completely agree with you. 
• My cat has been with me for 14 years.  I couldn’t imagine my life without her.
  Just like a relationship with a pet, your relationships with your audiences can be loyal and long lasting if you keep caring for them throughout the relationship. 

Which brings me to the moral of this little cat tale (and tail).  If you care for your audiences through every experience with them, they will become happy and loyal audience members.  They will want to support you since they now know that you care for them too.  In the end, you can’t imagine your life without an audience, and when you care enough, they will not be able to imagine a life without you and your art.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Quick post – more random thoughts for audience development for the arts

I am off to Austin, TX for a family wedding.  I wanted to post a little something before I leave.  Today I have been thinking a variety of random thoughts due to interactions with people:

• Are we getting caught up on the words?  I had someone ask about whether I thought “Community Engagement” was overused.  This phrase may be overused, but maybe we need to focus less on the words and more on the actual action of building relationships within our community.  After hearing some other typical phrases over and over, eye rolling can happen.  We need to remember that it is the actual action we take, the people we meet, the people we invite and form friendships with, that is what really matters!
• Be careful of founder’s syndrome.  Some of us get caught up in a job being ours that when it comes to getting the help we need, sometimes we do not ask for help.  Instead, our thoughts are along the lines that no one else can do it better, so we better keep the job to ourselves.  There are two reasons why it is best to push through founder’s syndrome.  Number one, you will burn yourself out quickly.  Number two, you are missing out on an opportunity to let others get involved, lend their energy, and share a passion for your mission.  Start asking for help and let yourself work with the amazing people that come across your path.
• Volunteers are special people, so treat them well.  There is an #artsmgtchat happening on Friday that I will have to miss.  The topic is Volunteerism in the Arts.  The best way to find and keep volunteers is to set up a volunteer management program.  Find out how people want to volunteer and contribute and then help them become successful.  Also, it is a good idea to have an incentive thank you program, and to be sure to communicate with them and get their feedback on their preferences for volunteering and benefits.  Happy volunteers are more likely to become loyal volunteers.
• Big Bird and Binders – The debates have been a little comical, however, we can turn this dramady into action.  Now is the time to start heavily promoting the arts and helping to further the cause of equality for women by serving as good examples (the arts have a little ways to go on this matter).
• WOM, a friend, an email…I surveyed one of my client’s events that happened last weekend. Again, the majority of people were there because they heard it from someone they knew or from a personal email we sent out.  Audience development works!
• Time with people is time well spent.  I saw a picture on FB of a group of friends that stack their cell phones on the table so everyone enjoys the time they have with each other, and not with their cell phones.  When is the last time you gave someone your full attention?  Audience development is about connecting with people, and we certainly will not be able to connect fully if we can’t give another person our time.
• Have a great rest of your week and a fantastic weekend.  I will see you on the flip-side!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Audience Development for the Arts Songs!

It’s Friday!  Yesterday as you know, we had an #auddev chat.  During the chat, one of our chatters, Becky Peters a.k.a. @bpeters99 tweeted a song title that stuck in my head: Love the One You’re With by Crosby, Stills and Nash.  Of course this was in reference to loving your current audience.

It had me thinking what other songs could be good for arts audience development.  Here’s a few I came up with:

Thank You – Natalie Merchant – Thank your supporters often!

Being for the Benefit of Mr.Kite – The Beatles  – Tell your story effectively so your audience can picture the show and get interested.

True Colors – Cyndi Lauper – Be yourself and show your true colors to attract the right audience.

Give Me One Reason – Tracy Chapman – Give your audience reasons to stay!

I Gotta Feeling – The Black Eyed Peas – Make your event special in every way so your audience will have a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night!

Do you have a song for arts audience development?  Feel free to reply. Happy weekend to you!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

#Auddev chat, Thursday, October 11 at Noon ET on Twitter for arts audience development

I wanted to make sure you were all invited to the #auddev chat we will be having this Thursday:

Audiences’ Preferred Connections
Co-host Cindy Marie Jenkins, L.A.’s own Storyteller/Outreach Nerd, and I will be conducting a chat about audiences and how they prefer to connect with us. So dig up your latest surveys and let’s chat about our findings!

We mainly will be discussing the various questions we tend to ask on surveys, and what information are we finding out about our audiences.  Are these the right questions to ask?  What do we need to know?

I feel many of our surveys do not find the answers we are most in need of, which is knowing how our audiences want to connect with us.  How are they finding their information now?  What drives them to buy a ticket?  How do they want to participate?  What makes them feel engaged?  What makes them want to come back?  What are the main reasons they may not come back?

It’s time to go beyond the general demographics and get to know our audiences’ preferences.  So, join us as we discuss these questions!  You’re invited!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

 

My apologies to my email subscribers – #Auddev chat 9/27, Noon ET – Arts, Change & Audiences

I was using the Storify export function, and it wigged out. I apologize for the repeated bogus posts. Here is the actual chat transcript I was attempting to post:

[View the story "#Auddev chat, 9/27, Noon ET - Arts, Change & Audiences" on Storify]

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Why am I doing this? Arts Audience Development

This morning I am literally in tears over an article I just read,  I took my 9-year-old to the opera, and she loved it,  although it may be due to the combination of articles this morning.  The articles this morning ranged from arts education, let’s do this – to talks about better Boards – to arts cuts – to why the arts should not be funded publicly.

We live in a strange world.  Despite the arts being front and center for making all our lives better, the arts and artists are struggling to be funded.  The argument that arts will go on despite funding, this may be true since artists need to create, or we die inside, however, the reach that the arts would have if funding were to disappear would shrink.  Without public funding, the biggest arts offerings would start to collapse.  There would be less grand opera, less orchestras, less art on a bigger scale.

People may say that the reason the collapse would happen is because people do not desire these art forms any more.  Well, this 9-year old proves to me that this isn’t the case.  The arts are relevant today and these bigger art forms that are in question for funding are appealing today, if we let them be seen and heard, which means continuing to fund the arts.

There seems to be such a weird disconnect.  There are opera and symphonies blaring in the background of our commercials.  We have classical music in our movie soundtracks.  There is public art beautifying our neighborhoods.  What we buy in the form of design are created by creative people that were inspired by art.  The television and radio would not be what it is today without the arts.  Why is there such a disconnect between the arts being funded publicly if we use the arts everyday in almost every aspect of our lives?

And, why am I in tears?  It is the last statement in the article.  The 9-year old looks up at her mom and says: “Mommy, why aren’t there more people here?” she asked. “If I could, I would come every night.”

Aside from letting this opera company know that they should have a special subscription for this little girl and her mother due to the heart of this posting, I am in tears because this is exactly the reason why I started my business.  I look around and see low attendance at events that should be packed to the gills.  More people could be enjoying the arts if they only knew they exist for them.

It’s not a matter of not being relevant.  It’s a matter of doing the work necessary to becoming connected with our communities again.  I see the turnarounds, and most of them are due to building relationships and becoming a part of their communities again – audience development.  I know what true audience development can do for an arts business.   I think the main reason I ended up crying over the little girl’s statement is because I want to help, yet I know that it will take time for artists and arts organizations to decide to make the changes toward audience development.

I have to admit that one of the statements in the Forbes article, smacking with elitism, may be a little correct.

The health of art organizations are too important to depend on government. Politics kills goodwill and development skills atrophy. Art thrives on delighting its audiences and developing a loyal fan base. Ensuring that should not be outsourced to government coercion. An identifiable pool of patrons is far superior to a vague cloud of resentful taxpayers.

Are we so used to relying on public funding that we ourselves have created the atrophy of private support?

I know that in order to have a healthier more peaceful world, we need to start with ourselves.  We need to be strong as individuals to add to the collective of a better world.  I still feel strongly that the arts should be funded publicly since the arts contribute to all of us in one way or another, however, if we want to keep the arts on a grand scale, we ourselves need to create stronger, healthier arts businesses.  In my opinion, the best way to do this is to roll up our sleeves and get to work on audience development.

If you can’t bring yourself to feel worthy of working for a better audience, at least, do it for the little girl and for all the children with hopes for a future that embraces the arts.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***