REPORTING FROM LONG BEACH, CALIF. — In August, Staples Center, Los Angeles, experienced a power outage during Shania Twain’s performance at the arena. Immediately, fans took to Twitter to find out what happened, and Staples Center’s account had to respond. The outage only stopped the show for about five minutes before a backup power source had the show in full swing once again.
“Some of the security team told us they didn’t even know about it until they saw our tweet,” said Marina Maroste, communications and social media manager, Staples Center and Microsoft Theater.
Social media allowed Maroste and the rest of the Staples Center team to communicate with attendees in real time during the situation.
“It’s brought up the question ‘how do we handle this in the future?’” said Maroste. “Do we talk to the security team and craft a response, wait a couple minutes and make sure we have the right information before we post out and focus less on the real time aspect?”
This communication with fans during different events and emergencies is just one way social media is being used in our industry today. The uses of social media are vast and ever growing and many of them were discussed at the second annual VT RISE (Raising the Industry in Sports & Entertainment) on Aug. 28.
Some venues, especially convention centers, find success in using social media not only as a way to reach consumers, but as a business-to-business tool as well. Through these communications, a convention center is able to build a brand for itself to better sell the product. And the product is the venue.
“We’re often posting for events happening in the building because it’s all about people knowing what room they’re going to and helping our customer sell tickets and be successful,” said Rebecca Bolton, general manager, Las Cruces (N.M.) Convention Center. “And that’s one part of it, that business to consumer piece. But when we’re looking at our brand, it’s a different kind of sale. We’re trying to get people to identify with our brand as our product and book it in the future. I try to keep those two aspects separate. And for me, there’s more dollar value in the business-to-business piece of it.”
For convention centers and similar facilities, there is also the challenge of knowing which platforms are the most valuable for a staff that needs to be more selective.
“A lot of facilities don’t have social media people on staff where that’s solely what they do,” said Kerry Painter, assistant general manager, Cox Business Center, Tulsa, Okla. “It’s become an interesting challenge because we feel like we’re supposed to be everywhere, we’re supposed to be on all these sites and be out there. But if you look at some of them, it’s like we don’t have a lot to say but we’re trying to find something to say, particularly convention centers.”
Of course, no social media platform will amount to anything without the appropriate content to engage fans. Content is king even here, and though it’s changed from text to images to video, there still needs to be a purpose behind it.
“It’s not just worrying about getting your point across in 140 characters anymore,” said Brandon Mellor, senior social media marketing manager, Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement. “Now, you have one second, through a video or a GIF or whatever, to deliver that content and catch their attention. The whole idea behind social was to deliver that content quickly, and it’s a constant battle to give people an even quicker and easier way to get that content.”
And through that content a conversation should begin and a story should be told. If done well, your goal of increased revenue or awareness or event discovery can be achieved. Those aspects need to work together.
Tools that track analytics and data from posts, tweets and other content can be used to measure how successful you’re being at merging the two.
“Ideally it’s hand in hand,” said Mellor. “It’s tough to put something out there and translate how that goes as far as ticket sales. I don’t think there’s a specific answer for that. That’s a challenge we all have.”
Interviewed for this story: Kerry Painter, (918) 894-4220; Rebecca Bolton, (575) 526-0101; Brandon Mellor, (949) 823-1772; Marina Maroste, (213) 742-7327