If people don't come to Facebook, let Facebook come to the people

I have now relocated to Zurich, Switzerland, and haven't had much computer time lately. But you don't necessarily need to be connected to get into social media networks. One day when I was walking down the Bahnhofstrasse, the big buzy shopping aorta in my new city, I passed a "Facebook Photo Box" that caught my attention. The clothes store "Big Boyz" has placed a "FOTOBOX" in their shop-window. Bypassing people can pose for a photo that will immideately be uploaded on the Big Boyz Facebook site as well as on the shop's website. They call the project "Big Züri Smile" and mean that it gives the whole world the possibility to get a vision of the Züri-style. "Real time. Real cool." And it is really cool! When visiting the Big Boyz facebook fanpage and website I see that I am not the only one who likes the idea. Over 2000 people have uploaded pictures where they are posing to show their best "züri-style".Unfortunately the FB fan page has a lot left to wish for and the Fotobox idea could be drawn a lot further, but the basic idea is really good. As the "züri-style is spread over the world" the Big Boyz is generating trafic to their website and gaining new local customers.

Wouldn't this be a great idea for an opera house, a theater or a cool art gallery!? Place a Fotobox in the foyer and let people take their picture, tag it, and click: their networks will know that they have been to a certain performance or a vernisage before they have even left the building. I think that a Fotobox would be actively used because it is a fun, and also, people generally want to get the word out when they have been to the theatre/opera/art exhibition and gained some cultural capital, n'est-ce pas, Bourdieu? Great way to get the word out!

Don't believe that you own your FB fan page

I was recently at a restaurant here in Sydney. In the ladies room I saw that they really need to work on their social media strategy... The sign above was  hanging on the toilet doors.

The text says:
 "To win a free bottle of wine, all you need to do is to share your experience with us on Facebook! The most creative comment every week will receive a free bottle of wine."

Hummm... the most "creative comment"?

Everybody is trying to figure out social media for the moment, and it is good to give it a go... but I think this is an extraordinary example of a bad strategy. Today everybody is talking about the "new marketing": the customer oriented marketing that  is based on listening to customer needs and creating relations. The restaurant's idea is probably to create a big fan base: by posting you let your friends see that your are their friend etc. But really, with social media they got a brilliant possibility to see what people really think, respond to that, create a great experience for their guests and then let the guests do the positive marketing for them. Instead, they ask their customers, without even having created a relation, without even bothering to ask what people really think, to do the marketing for them. For a bottle of wine..?

I think that one golden social media rule is: Always remember that your fan page is actually not your fan page. You are monitoring, listening and communicating. But you don't own it, you don't have the right to tell people how to act and what to think. In social media everybody is the owner of their opinion.

What is the Open Graph and how can it be used in Performing Arts marketing?

Two weeks ago Facebook launched the Open Graph Initiative. I am pretty sure that there are still some organizations out there that haven't yet added the Open Graph plug-ins to their sites nor understood why and how they should. So, I have been doing some thinking about the Open Graph for Performing Arts organizations, here it comes:
 
The Open Graph Initiative is based on the idea of making the web experience "instantly social". The Facebook crew means that a person is defined by his or her connections. On Facebook you are connected to people through your "friends", and to things, causes and organizations through pages and fan groups. Everybody in the" Facebook world" is connected in a global social graph. The idea is now to open up this graph and share your likes, interests and recommendations beyond Facebook. 

Any organization that wants to be connected to the open graph can install a plug-in, a little "Like" (or "recommend") button, in connection to features on their website and let people share their likes to their networks. Sharing is nothing new and is already done by sites as digg and reddit, but the difference is that your organization now can be connected to a network that have over 400 million users all around the world. This is of course important for big global companies, but it can also have an important impact on small local organizations. Like your theater!