Social Media Marketing Handbook for Art and Cultural Events

Abstract

Events offer the opportunity to cities to create infrastructure, improve the image and revitalize the economy. Especially art and cultural events which reflect the mind, soul, and identity of the destination and their citizen. Offering more individuality to the participant experience, and a real possibility to those cities to differentiate themselves and improve community pride and destination image.

Many of the organization producing this type of events are facing challenges because of the market development. Such as the growth of more organizations insight the same sector, which bring the increased need for finding financial resources for the different projects. Also, the competition for attracting new customer within the sector and other such as the entertainment industry. Another aspect of the market development is that customers are becoming more selected about their choices. Creating the shift from product oriented to customer-oriented market mindset.

Many of these events and organization have a small structure and limited budget for function. As a result, they marketing range is restricted and in very close circles, limiting the possibility to anyone who will be interested in participating. As a solution, social media have the convenient tool for offering exciting information related to the organization or event. Give the possibility and tools to make art reachable to everyone. Also, increase brand awareness and help build a meaningful relationship with fans.

This document is a product-oriented thesis, with the objective to gather and develop social media marketing strategy and tools on a practical handbook, to help promote cultural events. The thesis includes a theoretical framework comprised of three parts, event management, event marketing and marketing of cultural and art events. The empirical part of the thesis consists of the handbook creation process which includes four steps, interview, internet re-search and benchmarking, classifying the material and designing the handbook. The author had interviewed the different stakeholders taking part in this organization with the purpose to find why and how artist and promoters use social media marketing and participant expectation of the experience. Followed by internet research and benchmarking on the usage of the social media by art and cultural institutions as well as from expert in social media marketing strategy in other industries. From the results, the author selected the most critical point that can be helpful for art and cultural institution to take into consideration when planning the social media marketing camping. So, the last step was the design of the handbook and editing all the material gathered in templates and tables for practical use. The final step is the discussion and reflecting on the future of the book, and the process followed Handbook product as an attachment.