twitter tips for festivals

coastival is only weeks away and at a recent marketing meeting we discussed twitter and i offered a few thoughts based on our experience at electric angel and with creative coast. i claim no authority or expertise here – just what’s worked for us in different scenarios and a little creative thinking but i thought theses tips might be useful for anyone planning a festival or event. so here they are…

  • have a catchy, self explanatory and thus easy to find twitter name.
  • mention the name of your event regularly in tweets – at least once a week.
  • follow everyone who follows you (but don’t follow this advice for your own personal twitter… it makes you look desperate and without any critical facilities).
  • blog as things happen e.g “amazing sounds coming from the sound-sculpture building workshop next door…”.
  • give little behind-the-scenes insights e.g “the levellers rider includes 12 sticks of scarborough rock, mint flavoured”.
  • but don’t flood. one ‘as it happens’, one ‘insight’ and one shameless promotion per day is more than enough. you’re a festival, not stephen fry…
  • start conversations with fans of your acts/artistes, if only to give them a special heads-up before other people.
  • if your event has a strong local focus, search for local tweeters and follow them (they then might follow you).
  • do a few hook-ups/swap tweets with other festivals/friends/organisations. you’re all in it together, not competing.
  • offer the occasional 1-day only twitter discount on tickets. re-tweeting might be the qualifying factor.
  • always respond to tweets aimed at you or that mention the festival and say thanks to re-tweeters.

(coastival’s twitter can be found here)

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