How Marketing Professionals Use & Staff Social Media Efforts...
This past July, a survey of venue marketing professionals was conducted to answer the question: “How do marketing profes- sionals use and staff social media (SM) efforts in public assem- bly venues?” The survey was conducted in cooperation with IAVM, in preparation for the 2018 VenueConnect conference. The survey was emailed to 890 venue professionals, all of whom were members of IAVM. There were 71 unique venues who re- sponded (8% response rate) and answered most of the 55 ques- tions covering various topics about the use, staffing, and per- ceptions of social media. Forty-five percent of the respondents selected the category of Arenas/Civic Centers/Auditoriums, 32% selected the venue type of Performing Arts Centers/The- aters, and 14% chose the venue type of Convention Center/ Exhibition Centers. The remaining 9% chose Stadium, Fairs, or Amphitheaters. What follows is an executive summary of the some of the findings from the survey. Staffing of Social Media: Only 8% of venue marketing
professionals use an outside contractor for their social media initiatives; most use an in-house marketing team. Another 49% of venues reported that, in the last 12 months, they either hired someone (27%) to enhance their social media efforts, reassigned someone (13%) to enhance their social media efforts, or con- tracted with a vendor (9%) to enhance their social media efforts. Seventeen percent of the venues have plans to “staff-up” (hire, reassign, or contract) their social media efforts in the next 12 months. Finally, 45% of venues reported they have not “staffed- up” in the last 12 months, or have no plans to staff-up in the next 12 months. Interns or Not: Fifty-one percent of the venues surveyed
were non-profit venues. As a result, it may be easier for these venues to use interns and volunteers to do some of the social media work of posting, commenting, and monitoring social me- dia. Across all venue types, a surprising 51% of venues did not use interns or volunteers to help with SM. Thirty-three percent of venues reported using paid interns, 9% used non-paid in- terns, and only 1% used volunteers. Facebook Still Rules: When asked what is the single most important social media platform you use in your venue, Face- book claims the top spot with 85% of venues reporting it as most important; Twitter comes in second most important (8%), Feelings About Having a Well-Defined Social Media
Strategy: When venue marketing professionals were asked if they felt like they had a well-defined social media strategy, 80% reported they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. Twenty-one percent of the venue marketing professionals were uncertain, disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement. When comparing the results from a similar question asked in a 2010 study of SEVs, we find that in 2018, venue profession- al feel better about their SM strategy than they did in 2010, when only 57% percent of venue marketing professionals felt like they had a well-defined social media strategy. Even though social media platforms continue to evolve and change, it seems
many venue marketing professionals are taking advantage of the increasing number of resources to learn how to manage their SM campaigns.
Social Media Effectiveness: When asked if social media had increased revenues, a whopping 73% reported they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. Only 5% reported no increase in revenues. About 23% were neutral; perhaps suggesting they could not measure social media effectiveness. Another interesting comparison when asking the same question in 2010, only 38% of SEVs reported increased revenues. In 2018, a full 35% more venue marketing professionals reported increased revenues as a result of using social media. It should be pointed out that venue marketing professionals still report difficulty in measuring return on investment of social media. Fifty-eight percent of venue mar- keting professionals report they are not sure they can measure return on investment. Paid versus Organic Social Media: Only 38% of venue
professionals report a decline in organic reach when using Face- book. This is a bit surprising, because 52% of social media mar- keters from a variety of businesses (as reported in the 2018 So- cial Media Marketing Report) reported a decline in organic post reach. When it comes to paid social media, venue marketing pro- fessionals predict they will spend more money on social media in the next year. It appears Facebook and Instagram will get more of the marketing budget, while Snapchat and Pinterest will receive little, if any, spend. Traditional Marketing Spend: While most would agree traditional marketing tools like direct mail, TV, radio, print, and billboard have their purpose and utility, venue professionals pre- dict an uptick in the use of new media like social, email, website, etc. (85%), and a decline in the use of print ads (85%) and bill- boards (55%) over the next year. Main Reasons Venues Use Social Media: When it comes to the main reason marketing professionals use social media in their venues, it may not be surprising that 92% report they use it to improve sales. Communicating with the public and monitoring the conversation are the second and third most popular reasons, respectively. The least common reported reason marketing pro- fessionals use social media in their venues is because it was a di- rective from management. Taking this Conversation Online: Obviously, this short
executive summary presents only the results of the study, with little space to address the implications or possible reasons for the responses. I hope the opportunity to compare your situation to the responses from other venue marketing professionals stimu- lates thoughtful opinions and analysis. To facilitate this, let’s take this conversation online. Each of the points made above will be posted to VenueNet where you can share own opinions and ques- tions related to social media use in venues. I’ll meet you there. For a copy of the slide deck summarizing these findings with charts, send an email to
philrothschild@missouristate.edu. FM
IAVM 53
...in Public Assembly Venues | By Dr. Philip Rothschild UNIVERSITIES:
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