5 Pro Strategies to Encourage Engagement With Your Community Theater’s Twitter Channel

But before we continue, here’s a shameless plug: Follow us (@TicketPeak) on Twitter!

All right, now that we’ve got that out of the way…let’s begin!

1) Use a #CustomHashtag

The use of #CustomHashtags is a great, traceable social media engagement strategy and lets you have a little bit of fun at the same time! #CustomHashtags can have a number of different applications, for example:

• Formulate a #CustomHashtag to accompany your new season of performances.
• Create a fun #CustomHashtag that you use weekly on one specific day.
• Start tweeting a #CustomHashtag that specifically references your performing arts organization.

2) Share Great Content

Most would think that this is a given. Of course you want to share great content! But you’d probably be surprised at the number of tweets we’ve seen that contain boring, poorly written content.

Share content that’s awesome, interesting, engaging and is relevant. This might be a photo, a quote, a blog post by one of your actors, a promotional YouTube video for an upcoming performance…the point is to get creative and think about your audience base and what they would like to see/read/watch and (most importantly) share!

3) Evoke an Emotional Response

Not surprisingly, evoking an emotional response from your Twitter followers is a great way to encourage channel engagement.

The best emotions to play-up are:

• Nostalgia. Nostalgic posts give your followers the ‘warm and fuzzy’ feelings that encourage users to reach out and share their own personal experiences with you.
• Compassion. Do you have a great human-experience story to share? We highly recommend sharing it, whether it’s a story that’s directly related to your organization or something that’s industry specific. These types of posts help inject a little bit of humanity to what can be a very impersonal social experience.
• Happiness. Fun, happy posts promote creativity from your users. This is a great opportunity to break out of your glossy, polished shell and get a little silly.

4) Start a Social Media ‘Supporters Program’

We came across this awesome idea in a recent Technorati article and absolutely love it! In the same spirit of recognizing your community theatre’s financial supporters, they suggested also recognizing your biggest social media ‘supporters program.’ This type of program gives your social media audience a tangible incentive to engage and share your content.

5) Make it a Combo

These social media engagement strategies are best employed in combinations; try creating a #CustomHashtag that plays on nostalgia, or share a special YouTube clip and offer a tangible incentive for sharing through your social media ‘supporters program.’

There are a number of possibilities with these strategies, so dream a little and find the best course of action for your community theatre.

Do you have a favorite way to encourage fan engagement with your community theatre’s twitter channel?