Tumblr Is Headed For The Creative Community, Should Arts Organizations Follow?

A vast repository of pop culture memes & internet humor, the blogging service Tumblr has grown significantly since its launch in 2007. With over 12 million blogs and with the recent raising of $30 million in funding, some see Tumblr's future as taking on blogging services like WordPress and Blogger. The site’s hallmarks are its streamlined posting dashboard and reblogging feature. Add on likes and short replies, and this gives the site a familiar feel to social networks like Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

So this is all well and good, but how does Tumblr relate to the arts? As mentioned on mashable.com recently, Tumblr is going to focus more on developing the growing creative communities on the site.  As Tumblr’s founder David Karp stated:

“You look in fashion, creative writing, photography, music, so many of these creative circles,” said Karp, “and we have these really substantial communities that now live on Tumblr.”

Should arts organizations take advantage of Tumblr’s new direction and add it to their group of social networks? Before getting into that, take a look at Tumblr’s differences when compared to blogging platforms like WordPress or Blogger. I’ve used tumblr myself for a personal blog and here are a few of the features that stood out to me and made it feel more like a social media site:

The posting dashboard. Image via tumblr.com

• The Dashboard Streamlined for different types of media, the dashboard contains buttons that takes bloggers to posting forms customized for the content. This speeds up the posting process and makes posting media content such as audio, video and photos, a lot faster than traditional blog platforms.

A typical submission form on tumblr. Image via tumblr.com

• The Submission Feature: This feature is especially driven towards community-oriented blogs, where the author can invite his community to write and contribute their own content. Posts can be submitted by followers to their favorite blog through a built-in form and since the posts are automatically formatted, all the author of has to do is hit publish. This is probably the feature I feel would be most attractive to arts organizations, since it asks the constituents to not only read and comment on the organization's blog, but be a driver of content as well. x
• Reblogging: Probably my favorite feature of Tumblr. This works almost the exact same way that a re-tweet does on Twitter. Pressing the reblog button will instantly re-post someone’s post onto your blog. The feature is impulsive and probably the number one reason content spreads so quickly through the site.x

An example of the tumblr dashboard and update feed. Image via tumblr.com

• The Update Feed Imagine the feed of updates on Facebook or Blogger, Tumblr operates in the same way, aggregating all the Tumblr blogs you follow into one stream. All of the posts appear in a uniform format with the options to like, short reply or reblog.

Tumblr’s features make it easy and accessible for the individual blogger, but that doesn’t necessarily make it great for organizations. Here are a few issues I saw with how the site operates that might be irritating for some arts organizations:

• Tumblr is a Clique: While a Tumblr blog can be viewed by anyone, features like reblogging and replies are only available (and visible) to someone signed into a Tumblr account. This is true of many social networks, but since Tumblr is essentially a blogging platform, there is an expectation that the level of engagement should be available for all visitors. Organizations can lose out on connecting with non-Tumblr visitors who cannot “like” or comment on a post that really engages them. x
• Kept Out of the Conversation: Another problem for engagement on the site is the system for comments - it's extremely difficult to create a conversation. Tumblr users can leave short replies, but there are no systems in place to let authors and other bloggers reply to that comment. What follows is a mess of reblogs and screen captures of comments in an effort to make a threaded conversation. Some Tumblr bloggers have tried to solve this problem using a service like Disqus, but then a problem is created for the Tumblr community. Visitors outside Tumblr can engage, but the comments will not show up in the regular feed or be accessible for Tumblr users through their accounts, and the two communities remain disconnected from one another. x
• Customization on the site can be tough: The options are limited and those options change completely based on which theme you have installed. Some themes severely limit your options for color choice and background image, making branding difficult. Other themes do not allow for visitors to have a reply option, even within Tumblr. x
• Remember all those reblogs, short replies, and likes? While these show up in your update feed, there is no built-in way to track them. It’s an exciting experience to see a post go viral and get re-blogged multiple times, but tracking that effect through Tumblr over time is extremely difficult. x
• Managing the Archive: Managing past posts is difficult and while a mass editor exists, this just gives a visual overview of your posts over time. It’s hard to track a post from more than a few months back and there is no way to export your archives.

So should an arts organization take advantage of Tumblr anyway? If you have an existing, integrated social media strategy and primary blog in place, it may be worth a shot. Tumblr has a fairly clean interface with Facebook and Twitter, and could be a good way to provide content to an ever-growing community of bloggers.

If your organization is thinking of making this their main blog, I would hold off since it will be harder to manage in the long run and success metrics would be a pain. It will be interesting to see how Tumblr is going to improve the site to focus on the creative community and what effect it may have on how people interact with blogs in the future.

The arts industry, beyond genres

June is conference month for arts managers. We all know the drill: sit through sessions, hobnob, and think about trying to new things that you may or may have the guts to try when you get back to your desk. I attended one of these conferences and have been listening to everyone’s feedback on the conferences they’ve attended and have come to the non-earth-shattering realization: we’re all having the same conversations.

The conversations that I had and heard about social media at Opera America were nearly identical to conversations that I've had with my friends in the non-profit theatre and orchestra industry. Yet when we try to have cross-disciplinary conversations, people start putting up walls—“Well, he works in with an orchestra. Tell me how that research relates to MY patrons.” Many of our problems are shared, we just don't get together to talk about them. Although we have the technology to collaborate, find conversations and have discussions—many of us simply don’t.

In the same sense, conferences bring us together, but they also isolate us. They affirm labels and barriers in some cases, and in others, break them. When we stand strong as orchestra managers, are we still standing strong as arts advocates? When we are united as arts marketing professionals, are we still loyal to our own organizations?

One of the sessions from the Opera America stuck with me. The session, New and Unusual Opera (a play on words with “cruel and unusual”?) was about new ways to think about opera as an art form--thinking outside the boundaries of our industry. Opera industry vet John Conklin started the session by playing "Nessun Dorma" sung by none other than Aretha Franklin. (See below.) Of course, that got the expected chuckle from the audience. But Conklin went on to make the point that, for the majority of the American public, that’s opera. If people can embrace this music on their own terms, what are we doing putting up a barrier against their entry point? Why are we so against the crossover of pop music and opera, or opera market research and orchestra market research, or the marketing and development departments within our own organizations?

Challenge for this week: Have an experience in an industry outside your own. Subscribe to a development blog if you're a marketer. Follow an opera company if you work at a museum. New ideas spring from new experiences. Start having new conversations and start breaking down those barriers for yourself and for the arts industry.

Performing Arts' New Media Opportunities part 1 of 2

As traditional print media's coverage of performing arts and the arts in general continues to decline and audiences across the board start to adopt social networking sites, it may be time for your organization to strongly consider updating your website and starting to utilize a new set of tools to get the word out about your organization.

I realize that I may be preaching to the choir at this point, and other people have recently addressed this, mainly due to the release of Global Faces and Networked Places A Nielsen report on Social Networking’s New Global Footprint earlier this month.  The report shows that social networking has now surpassed Email usage, and is currently the fastest growing sector of online use.  This demonstrates how drastically the way that people are using the web is changing.  It is moving from an information based, Google search oriented "Super phone book" to more of a community that relies upon members for word of mouth updates about events and information.

This means that the reasons people are visiting your organization's website are shifting from trip planning (directions, hours of operation, finding a place to eat/hotel) to engagement and becoming involved with the real life community centered around your brick and mortar building.

So, everyone is utilizing these social networking platforms to stay informed about their day to day lives, which creates some opportunities to get your organization's message across above the din of traditional marketing and the other media that is out there.

I'm going to briefly outline a few of these tools and how your organization may be able to utilize them to inform your target audience, as well as maintain healthy relationships with your existing community.

Facebook:

I briefly touched on Facebook's updated Pages features Here, but it may be useful to give a brief overview.  Facebook is a social networking site that allows your organization to create a "Page."  The Page exists much like a user profile in that you can post basic information about your organization, send event invitations for upcoming performances and exhibitions to people who have become friends of your organization, and update your audience about current events and offerings.  It also has the ability for you to aggregate any blog feed that your organization may have, and update your fans when a new blog has been posted.

There is one very important issue that I cannot stress enough at this point.  Do not approach Facebook from a purely Marketing perspective. Audiences are quick to selectively tune out organizations that they feel are just trying to sell them something.  As an Arts Organization it is better to focus on audience engagement, informing people about upcoming events and cultural offerings like classes or discussions, and maintaining a dialogue about your organization.  Facebook audiences prefer to be informed about an event or offering, not to have it sold to them.

Blogs:

Should your organization have a blog, and if so what approach should your organization take?  Well, if your only reason is because Johnny Awesome's arts organization down the street is doing it, then probably not.  Nina Simon, author of the Museum 2.0 blog, breaks down the blogging conundrum in exquisite detail Here.  She breaks down the why and the how of an institutional blog.  Before allocating time and resources for  the production of a blog first think about it's relevancy to your readers.  Who will be reading this, and what is the desired outcome?  That question is the best place to start.

Twitter:

For as much as I have railed against Twitter, on an institutional level I recognize how useful it can be is.  Twitter is officially everywhere, and I'll admit to drinking the Kool-Aid.  We've posted time and again about Twitter and how arts organizations can be utilizing this tool to inform your followers of what is going on at the organization.  Recently though, I have been relying upon Twitter to stay abreast of current events among peers within the Arts Management field by following people such as:

Maryann Devine and Jeffrey @ the MF and the Brooklyn Museum

Yelp:

There is so much information available to us at any given moment that people are now relying upon social constructs and taste makers to filter what is out there.  Beyond asking friends on Facebook or on Twitter for help in finding something interesting to do, or a place to eat or go on a date, Yelp provides candid reviews of just about any business broken down by location.  This happens to include an entire Arts and Entertainment category, so depending upon the city, your audience may already be posting reviews about your organization online.  Yelp presents a good forum to address customer service issues by responding to negative comments, and it may be a good idea to upload some current photos and make sure that all of your information is correct.

Continued in part 2, I will present a few more tools that performing arts organizations should be aware of.