The other week I watched this video by a small, very new theatre company in Indianapolis preparing for its Fringe debut. I was struck by how high quality it is for a low budget operation and reminded how compelling videos can be to capturing a new theatre audience.

Movie audiences instinctively turn to movie trailers to see if a movie looks good to them, yet performing arts groups have struggled with this despite having a similar visual medium. Readiness of video equipment and budget to get the video distributed in the past were huge barriers to this, but now technology has reduced these barriers making it easier than ever to produce a quality video and get viewers.

Video marketing isn’t my expertise - so I am going to refer to two great resources to help you get started. 

• How To Use Theatre Marketing in YouTube: Sold Out Run theatre marketing blog features a great guide on how-to produce a quality video on the cheap.
• Social Video: Watch this presentation on how to effectively use video and increase SEO. Free courtesy of Indianapolis Social Media Indy. 

Major Takeaways from the Social Video Presentation:

• YouTube is now the second highest search engine. People wanting to know about a certain topic are skipping traditional searches and going straight for video.
•  #1 search engine and technology dominator Google has started giving more weight in search results to videos. So if your theatre has a popular video you may show up higher in the search results compared to other arts groups in your city.

How You Can Use This To Your Benefit:

• Don’t make your video with the end goal of getting a huge number of views. Focus on quality representative of your brand, so when people do look you make a good impression.
• If you don’t have the resources to make a good video for every show you do, make one stellar one for the season, then update it with a new closing slide that showcases your upcoming show as the year goes on. 
• Remember when people search for you the first time they won’t know if the video is old unless the date tells them it is. So feel free to recycle content, just update it so the date refreshes.
• Make sure to include as many relative tags as possible so that it is more likely to pop up in search engines!

Does your arts org have a great video? Share it with me @JustIntrigueME!

Next up in the Fringe Marketing Series:

• Hitting the Street and Building Relationships
• Read part 1: Picking the perfect picture and writing a great show description