Apr 1, 2025

Social Media Marketing for Theatre

Klingon cosplayers perform a stage play titled It's an Honorable Life with yellow text reading Final Show Tomorrow.

Creating the social media marketing for a very niche theatre production during the holidays, staged in the midst of a freezing Minnesota winter at a theater fairly off the beaten path of the main stages, would seem like a task way outside the scope of what I do here at TWVS.

However, I spent much of the previous year managing the social media for a small comedy company. I discovered during that contract it was exceptionally effecient for me to produce AND program the marketing content I needed for the posts on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. All through the magic of genuine human intelligence and creativity!

So, these two factors dovetailed into a very effective social media campaign for this theatre company of limited resources. I enlisted a known costumer/cosplayer in the “Klingon” community to perform in these ads. I relied on the talent in the show to pose for photos and to assist with performance documentation. These two kinds of social media content gave me a lot to work with as I built the content strategy.

Over the course of 10 weeks, the stream of targeted content boosted the theater’s online reach by 0ver 700%, with individual engagements with the photos, videos, and posts showing an increase of over 300% from previous levels. The results of this became clear after opening weekend, as the buzz surrounding the content (and the show) resulted in several sold-out shows. So, the performance was “in the black” before the mid-point of its schedule.

KEY RESULTS OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

The success of this social media marketing campaign came from a few key factors:
1.) An audience that was eager to engage with content that spoke to them.
2.) A creative team with experience and imagination to see what could be created within the scope of the social media marketing efforts.
3.) The technical ability to create good content at a breakneck pace.

MOVING THE ENGAGEMENT DIAL

In many ways, this was a very special case, but I think therein lies the heart of the matter. Finding the core of what this production was all about really helped drive the message forward. This engaged those who were online and already invested in the stakes of the play, and their enthusiasm pushed the content out into digital and physical spaces where it may not have otherwise appeared. Because the algorithm.

While the success of this two-month campaign points to some insights for affordable niche marketing, I think the numbers also point to the value of extended campaigns. Let’s look at another chart.

KEY RESULTS OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

The success of this social media marketing campaign came from a few key factors:
1.) An audience that was eager to engage with content that spoke to them.
2.) A creative team with experience and imagination to see what could be created within the scope of the social media marketing efforts.
3.) The technical ability to create good content at a breakneck pace.

MOVING THE ENGAGEMENT DIAL

In many ways, this was a very special case, but I think therein lies the heart of the matter. Finding the core of what this production was all about really helped drive the message forward. This engaged those who were online and already invested in the stakes of the play, and their enthusiasm pushed the content out into digital and physical spaces where it may not have otherwise appeared. Because the algorithm.

While the success of this two-month campaign points to some insights for affordable niche marketing, I think the numbers also point to the value of extended campaigns. Let’s look at another chart.

Analytics dashboard line graphs showing a spike in metric traffic from a micro-campaign running through February.

This is from a micro-campaign to drive new traffic to an affiliate site that had been doing NO social media. In this particular case, the goal was to leverage existing content before investing in creating new posts on the target website.

I generated new imagery and designs for the posts, livening up the content stream with fresh material. This took a bit of an ad boost to get moving, but it didn’t take much money to get eyeballs back on the site. The goal of this micro-campaign was clicks to site. They also got substantial increase in traffic and even gained some followers to their social media. In this particular case, the decision was made to not create new content for the site. Hence the dropoff at the end of the campaign.

BIT BY BIT

Imagine what just a low-level stream of content would do for this site and related digital destinations? Even a few posts a month would help sustain the traffic and the prescence of the destination site. Not just any posts, of course, but sincere content specific to the audience and the brand. What will excite the audience? What will the audience get? What will the audience want to show to their friends both inside and outside of their community niche?

Somewhere between FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and IYKYK (If You Know You Know) there is a world where finding and making the right content drives growth for even the most frugal enterprises.

BIT BY BIT

Somewhere between FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and IYKYK (If You Know You Know) there is a world where finding and making the right content drives growth for even the most frugal enterprises.