It’s been far too long since I’ve managed to get a post up on here. The main reason for that is that I’ve recently started working for Whatsonstage.com as their Acting Deputy Editor. Its a fantastic job, and one that I would not have been able to get without the experiences that posting on this blog and interacting with all of you have brought me.

The purpose of the five blog posts which proceed this one, which you might have noticed were quite a different style of post to my normal ramblings about the state of theatre and social media, were actually part of a bigger experiment to see if I could create content on the go at the same level of quality as I can when sitting at my Macbook. All of the Amsterdam posts which I uploaded before this one were created entirely on my iPhone.

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A number of weeks ago, before a major piece of uni work was originally due and the bereavement which postponed it, I was sent an email asking an interesting but pretty simple question: is it possible to generate theatre ticket sales from Twitter?

Having got the email, I set about straight away and tried to craft a succinct answer. I’m pretty pleased to say that the words I managed to get down into my iPhone at the time still form the basis of this post, but it was the decision to turn my answer into a blog post and do a bit more research, fleshing out my quick response, which has really delayed my answer to a seemingly simple question. So here we go… I think the number of commercial theatre productions and building based companies at least paying lip service to social media proves that as part of your marketing mix, social media should help you shift some tickets. But can a social media campaign alone help you fill your auditorium? Can you actually generate ticket sales through Twitter?

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Based on numbers from those following me and those I follow, I know as I hit my 2,000th tweet that I am by no way the world’s most prolific Twitter user. According to one of the many services set up to help you remember such things, I first joined Twitter on 19 January 2008. My first tweet, at this point being fed by my Facebook status updates, espousing my anticipation of Tim Burton’s Sweeny Todd, also included a link back to my Facebook profile. On reflection Sweeny Todd isn’t that great but I have since realised that I actually have bigger issues with Tim Burton and his insistence on casting Helena Bonham Carter in absolutely everything. This, I realise, is a matter for another time.

The matter at hand is that I have been an active Twitter user for some 2 and a bit years. In that time I have learnt a number of things about the micro-blogging platform which I think are worth passing on. I shall seek to do that below, hopefully keeping to the 10 points I have allowed myself. At the top of the post is a word cloud created from the 2000 tweets. I think the words which pop up most often, mainly “reading”, “theatre” and the selection of URL shorteners I have used, reflect that I have been using the tips I present below for the duration of my Twitter participation. I was both relieved and pleased that “theatre” was one of the most prominent words in the cloud. It would have been a bit embarrassing if it hadn’t been there.

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If you follow me on Twitter then you might have noticed that since Christmas I have been hash-tagging certain tweets as #ciam. The hashtag belongs to the penultimate module of my undergraduate LIPA life, Contemporary Issues in Arts Management, a series of guest lectures from members of the performing arts, music and entertainment industries which culminates in a student led conference the week of 12 April 2010 at Liverpool’s Contemporary Urban Centre.

As someone studying Music, Theatre and Entertainment Management being asked to deliver a 20 minute conference paper on a current issue in the industry opens up almost endless possibilities. This is probably a good thing as all 30 of my classmates will be delivering presentations. The fantastic thing about the conference, and indeed the course, is the huge range of perspectives people approach things from. To get a bit of an insight into the range of topics being covered have a look at the collated abstracts on the conference’s website.

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As March settles in, making no signs of forgetting February’s weather, it seems crazy to think that it might be almost time to embark on another year of Edinburgh Fringe adventure. The next couple of weeks will prove busy ones in the offices of Fringe venues and producers across the UK and around the world as the reduced price Fringe registration deadline rolls around on Friday 19 March.

If you are bringing a show to the Fringe this year and don’t have all of your ducks in a row just yet don’t worry too much, Fringe registration only opened on 1 March and the final deadline for inclusion in the Fringe programme isn’t until 21 April 2010. So what is the cost of missing the early deadline a week on Friday?

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There comes a time where we are all asked to make presentations. For many, and I know I have been guilty of this in the past, it mainly tends to involve working out at incredibly short notice what you are going to say, scrawling it all down into something like a Word document and then copy and pasting the resultant spiel onto an obligatory Powerpoint as bullet points. Depending on how good you are at improvising, you then find yourself reading almost verbatim from the Powerpoint screen behind you, all but ignoring your audience and quickly skipping from slide to slide.

I’ve had to make a couple of important presentations recently: one in front of other management students telling them about the three month academic placement I was on working for Perfect Pitch in London, the other pitching ideas for a dissertation – my Management Research Paper – in front of classmates and academic supervisors. For both of the presentations I chose not to use Powerpoint and instead experimented with a web based alternative called Prezi.com

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Facebook is the world’s most popular social network. In spite of the media’s current fixation with Twitter this study from the beginning of the year shows just how powerful Facebook’s numbers are: 350 million users is not to be sniffed at and something that Twitter, with a predicted user base of around 18 million, has quite a long way to match.

I personally would consider myself somewhat addicted to Facebook. Whenever I open a new browser window I find myself drawn to click the bookmark link that sits on my quick bookmarks bar. When I don’t open it straight away I have a copy of my news feed automatically show up on my iGoogle homepage and when I’m waiting for the bus its inevitably the Facebook and Twitter apps that I check whilst waiting for my lift into town.

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Twitter is only as useful as the people you follow. Here are 100 theatre people to follow on Twitter so that you know what’s going on and keep you up to date. You’ll be surprised the number of people who follow you back, engaging in conversation with you. Remember to retweet and @reply to be active in your online community

Update: Thank you for all of the feedback on who to include in the list. Harnessing the power of other people’s Twitter lists and suggestions you made the list of 100 has now swelled to 129. Enjoy.

London Theatres

Follow them all in one click with Twitter Lists

1. @NationalTheatre The National Theatre on the Southbank, with six or seven productions in repertory at any one time.
2. @OldVicTheatre Led by Artistic Director Kevin Spacy. Original home of the National Theatre company.
3. @NTLive The National Theatre’s initiative to broadcast live theatre to cinemas.
4. @TheRSC The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) based in Stratford-upon-Avon but perform worldwide.
5. @RoyalOperaHouse Home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
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