It's Getting Easier to Promote Your Bloomington-area Arts Event
Woman looking at art exhibition. By Mike Von, Unsplash.
Marketing is the lead actor in the entertainment and arts businesses. Get it wrong, and it could be curtains. Of course creative types like to, well, create. Marketing gets shoved into the dusty, I'll-do-this-tomorrow corner.
"Marketing is almost as big a part as the creative process," Kenzie Colvin recently told me. She is the communications director for Drima Events and explained, "We focused heavily on the creative side of our events and didn't do as much advertising as we could've. We are now smarter about how to market our local events."
Arts Forward & Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington hosted a Zoom meeting
Those who attended the January 31 Zoom meeting hosted by Arts Forward and the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington got smarter about marketing our events. Lori Garraghty and others facilitated, as we learned caveats and benefits of how to tell our community what's going on.
Concert
Recent Indiana University grad Xinyuan Zhang, AAGB webmaster, explained the Arts Alliance's events calendar—in progress—and how to use it. As Zhang continues her work on it, it will become even easier to navigate. She said as of now roughly 500 people visit AAGB's website each month.
Alison Kingsley, AABG newsletter editor, described how AAGB announces community events. She showed us the site's membership page, calendar, and newsletter.
There's a comprehensive arts directory coming too, where you can be listed as well as find other arts people. And we learned about this new blog, Arts Surround Bloomington. We want you to post your thoughts on it.
Zoom event recording: Promoting your art event in B-Town. You can come back to the video any time for the information.
Henry Leck wants the arts to be cross-sectional
AAGB president Henry Leck mentioned the impressive Indy Arts Council (Indianapolis) and how he is working on building a similar one for our area.That project, he said, will take about $15,000 and three months of development including collaboration with the City of Bloomington.
Indy Arts Council comprises advocates for community support that fosters the arts. It connects people and organizations and owns and manages the Indianapolis Artsgarden at Circle Centre Mall and Gallery 924, at 924 N. Pennsylvania St. The Council's' online project is the impressive Indy Arts Guide, highlighting thousands of events in central Indiana.
Indianapolis' approach is attractive to Leck, who said that he is planning a "cross-sectional relationship among artists and the community."
He spoke, too, of Artists for Climate Awareness' monthly workshops at Ivy Tech. Ivy Tech, by the way, he said will give free space to a 501(c)(3) that seeks to conduct a workshop.
Use the Flex Space at the College Mall
Speaking of workshops, many are happening in AAGB's Flex Space, in the Arts Alliance Center at the College Mall. Good to hear about that convenient venue getting use.
We learned about Limestone, Bloom, The Herald-Times and Visit Bloomington
We heard from Limestone Post, Bloom Magazine, Visit Bloomington, and a freelance journalist (who is also this blogger) about The Herald-Times. We learned that thousands of local newspapers across America have closed, with the number of newspaper journalists declining by more than half between 2008 and 2020. Although The HT no longer runs a calendar of events, Monroe County is lucky to have a newspaper that is surviving. The paper does have a weekly Thursday column by editor-reporter Carol Kugler, who lists several broader-appeal upcoming events. There's The HT's Volunteer column too, so if your event uses unpaid assistance, this might be a choice.
And advertise. Help our local media so they can help us
In the case of The HT, an ad lets us get what we want—how we want it to look— in front of 50,000 Monroe County readers. And that's part of the whole point. The HT needs stories suitable for a wide range—rather than a couple hundred—of readers.
Make your event appealing to a wide audience
My favorite story about how we imagine our own project to be bigger than it might seem to others —and am I ever guilty!—is about what I witnessed one early midweek morning in Manhattan. As I waited for the ferry, here came a 40-ish businessman, sprinting and shouting. His polished shoes looked like Italian leather; his tie like Burberry silk; his suit probably Brooks Brothers. As he approached the boarding ramp the ferry pulled away into the frosty Hudson River bound for New Jersey.
He leapt into the boat, tie flapping, briefcase swinging. He made it. For those moments, the most important thing to that man was boarding that ferry. It mattered, to him and whomever was involved in his imminent and eminent meeting. But, probably to few others.
Limestone's solutions journalism and Bloom's arts advocacy
Becky Hill, board president, for Limestone Post, told us about "solutions journalism," identifying problems in our community and looking for solutions. Hill also writes for Limestone; her specialty is health and science. She mentioned Limestone's new events calendar.
Rodney Margison, managing editor at Bloom Magazine and professional photographer, suggested people send him story ideas 8-10 weeks before the next Bloom issue runs, since it publishes every two months. Entertainment is big for Bloom, a loyal arts supporter. He said, too, that he's working with a new intern to bolster Bloom's online presence.
"We want to know about the lesser known things in the community," Margison said. So give him your "elevator pitch" of about half a minute: "Short and sweet."
Visit Bloomington continually updates its calendar
One of the first sites I used to click on when I wrote The HT's "Things to Do" column was Visit Bloomington. Mike McAfee, executive director, Visit Bloomington, told us about how current he and his colleague keep that informative list, checking it routinely and frequently.
Connect to area arts: visit these sites
(List compiled by Lori Garraghty, edited by Xinyuan Zhang)
Go to these interactive websites, where you can —
see what's going on
see how other organizations are marketing their events
market your own projects
Graffiti
Limestone
https://limestonepostmagazine.com/
https://limestonepostmagazine.com/calendar/#/
To subscribe:
Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington
https://www.bloomingtonarts.org/
https://www.bloomingtonarts.org/calendar
https://www.bloomingtonarts.org/newsletter
https://www.facebook.com/groups/artsalliance
https://www.facebook.com/bloomingtonarts
https://www.bloomingtonarts.org/blog
Bloom Magazine
Herald Times
https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/
Visit Bloomington
https://www.visitbloomington.com/
https://www.visitbloomington.com/events/
To submit an event to Visit Bloomington, visit https://www.visitbloomington.com/events/submit-event/
https://www.facebook.com/VisitBloomington/
https://www.visitbloomington.com/partners/tourism-grant-program/
Mike McAfee at Visit Bloomington: mike@visitbloomington.com
Use social media too
According to Adobe Express, these will be well-visited sites in 2023:
Instagram
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
TikTok
Pinterest
Snapchat
LinkedIn
The next Arts Forward quarterly meeting covers "Artists for the Environment." Ben Brabson will speak April 12. Check website for time.
Tell us please
As always, please let us hear what you think, in the comments box. What marketing tools are you using? What do you wish you were using? What have you tried and not liked?
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