Tragedy as The Hexagon Theatre fails to impress on Twitter
“It’s behind you!” What? The online reputation of Reading Arts if it doesn’t wise up to how social media isn’t just about making money – it’s about making friends! The clue is in the word ‘social’.
One of Morgan PR’s Associates, Katharine Robinson, who is a Twitter expert known as @TheSourceress on the micro-blogging service, tweeted her disappointment that @TheHexagon had not followed her back. She said: “It irritates me when businesses don't follow me back. E.g. '@TheHexagon - I live nearby, I have eyes & a butt - I'm a potential customer!”
This led to a flurry of supportive ReTweets and effectively published Reading Arts’ fundamental failure to understand Twitter to over 15,000 followers – and has led to this blog, which will be mentioned on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and will reach many thousands more. It will attract comments and that attracts more readers and it will remain popular on Google and other search engines.
Without following people back @TheHexagon makes it impossible for followers to send Direct Messages, which many users see as important as emails. The only people it does follow are celebrities and organisations, which can be seen as snubbing ordinary followers - those who would buy tickets from them.
It also means that @TheHexagon is putting itself on a par with the experts using Twitter who offer enough value that they do not need to follow people back, but a quick look at the tweets put out by Reading Arts shows they are nothing other than self promotional, they are also three weeks out of date having not tweeted since December 9th.
There is nothing wrong with a theatre promoting what shows it has on offer, just as there is nothing wrong with a business promoting what it has to sell. However it needs to be balanced with even more tweets that build relationships with your followers – not least by following them back, tweeting a welcome, ReTweeting what those followers talk about and promoting other events in their industry and geographic area.Being social!
An arts venue that has been socially media active longer than @TheHexagon is @CornExchange in Newbury which gets this important mix right and while it could follow more of its followers, it actively engages with key local Twitter folk – and reaps the reward.
We should add that we are sponsors of The Corn Exchange, but rest assured if they were not getting Twitter right, we would be quick to tell them too. For example, we’ve noticed that they are falling into the alienating trap of using Twitter language on Facebook – we explore the perils of this practice in another blog post: Don't be lazy! Use the right language on social media
Before we condemn @TheHexagon too harshly, they should be applauded for engaging with customers through Twitter, but they still have much to learn if they are not going to alienate people and actually created dissatisfaction where there had previously been indifference.
Morgan PR, who always aims to get the balance right, helps businesses thrive on social media by understanding what their customers want and expect, not least through our monthly Twitter Workshops in Newbury, which we deliver through another of our associates, talented trainer Mary Thomas.
As @TheHexagon might put it: “Quick, only a few seats left for the Twitter Workshop later this month!”