Once you’ve got the basics of your marketing kit organised you should consider how you can enhance your marketing package with snappy digital content.

We continue to see Facebook ranking highly on how people find out about live performance and there is a great opportunity for producers and presenters to further leverage the platform and beef up their digital content offering.

More content on Facebook will help potential audiences understand the work they are going to see and allow people, groups and organisations to share the content with their networks to build awareness about your show.

Not sure where to start? Think about what you know about your show that would help audiences get excited about it! Content doesn’t necessarily mean highly produced video or photo shoots you could use a program like Canva to bring media quotes or text from the script to life. You could include links to previous TV appearances or radio interviews. Then put together a simple plan to guide presenters through sharing your content on their social media channels.

Ideally you should make your content plan easy to understand and make sure presenters know it is flexible; they can post your content exactly as you’ve supplied it or they may want to rewrite for their own house style.

Here’s some neat content from producers that have recently toured with arTour provided as part of their marketing package.

Spoilt

Liz Skitch from Debase Productions went the extra mile when developing content for her show Spoilt which toured Queensland in October and November 2015. For the tour Liz built a micro site and created a series of entertaining webisodes to introduce the characters in Spoilt. Liz also put together a comprehensive Facebook Pack, which included a section for people who are new to the platform, info on the Spoilt target market their Facebook habits and an eight week campaign for releasing content on Facebook. 

Liz has kindly allowed us to share her Facebook Pack resource. 

Liz said "I see Youtube and Facebook as a performance platforms just as important as the stage.  And you can have just as much fun on them!  I think it is a really exciting time to be a performer because it is so easy to write, produce, film and edit your own content and get it up on the small screen.  Next thing you know people on the other side of the world are watching you.  Not only can you access a totally new, targeted and geographically diverse audience through producing content for the web… but I have found it really handy in promoting my live shows.  Whether it is a small gig or a big tour, people these days want to google you to ‘try before they buy’.  And if they like you… they’ll share it with their friends and next thing you know you turn up in a country town and half of them feel like they already know you.  It works well to combat being an ‘unknown’.  Developing the ‘Facebook Campaign’ / 'How To’ guide for venues was designed not only to introduce them to the world of Facebook and Youtube work…. but also to combat the difficulty they have in marketing a name that people may not know.  Keep in mind content doesn’t always need to be a fully produced web series.  It can be as simple as a picture and a caption that reveals something from behind the scenes… or helps to promote a special ticket offer….  The biggest tip for any content is make sure it is entertaining…. not advertising.  THAT is the way to get people to engage on Facebook."

Wuthering Heights

shake & stir theatre co used engaging social media content to introduce the characters in Wuthering Heights. For their 2016 national tour shake & stir released six short clips designed for instagram, one per character/actor. View clips for Edgar Linton and Isabella.

Artistic Director, Ross Balbuziente said “We encouraged venues to release these videos via their social media channels as way of "counting down" to our visit. We often hear that venues are challenged with not having enough content to maintain fresh appeal within their campaigns, especially in the few weeks/days prior to their season - this was our attempt to assist with this. In maintaining consistency (with the tone of each vid) - they obviously serve as a gentle reminder/connection to the key marketing pieces that have driven the campaign - the hero image, full promotional online vid and/or TVC.”

Cypher

The Cypher team worked with arTour to put together six Facebook posts along with a graphic for each to make promoting the show on Facebook super simple for the presenting partners. The graphics tied in with the marketing collateral and highlighted fun info about the show, key pieces of existing content like TV appearance and radio interviews and explained some of the hip hop language in the show. Take a look at the Facebook posts we provided to presenters.

One presenter on the tour said “the Facebook posts that were provided for the Cypher show were great. I was able to schedule the posts one afternoon and let them roll out over 3 weeks this meant I wasn’t scrambling for new things to say about the show every time I wanted to promote it on Facebook.”