Social Media @ 2010 DC Capital Fringe: Twitter Lessons

DC Capital Fringe as Social Media Mini-Case Pushing Boundaries, a solo storytelling performance by Ellouise Schoettler currently at the DC Capital Fringe Festival, is the story of a 1950s “I Love Lucy” housewife who morphed into a national ERA Activitist.Four reviewers attended opening night; each wrote glowing reviews.Ellouise, a nationally known storyteller, is my mother. I’m serving as Ellouise’s public relations and social media manager for the Fringe performances, and learning mini case study lessons along the way.

This post is one of a series that talk about ways we’ve been blending social media with traditional marketing. We welcome your comments, observations — and any lessons you’re learning from using social media at the DC Fringe. Together, this information will help all of us better understand using social media as a performer for such an event-specific purpose.

Have you been following the DC Capital Fringe on Twitter?

While we monitor many keywords specific to Ellouise and Pushing Boundaries, I watch the general tweets that relate to the Capital Fringe, looking for trends, reviews and other interesting shows.

Some early obvervations about Twitter use at the Fringe:

1. There’s a lot less Twitter use than I expected given the level of ticket sales and expected age skew of audiences.

2. A large majority of  tweets seem generated by performers and reviewers, as opposed to non-affiiliated audience members. That can be an opportunity, but it does make me wonder who besides performers and media outlets are reading the tweets in time to impact performance choice and ticket sales.

3. Some performers have generously supported other performers and programs, which helps the overall amplification of positive Fringe buzz. That’s a good thing for all, and leads  a lasting, larger  searchable archive post-Fringe. I’m wondering, though, if that also results in a positive impact on ticket sales — anyone know?

Event Hashtag Confusion

This year, there’s Capital Fringe Hashtag Confusion and that’s muddling Twitter Math.

A quick Twitter Math review:

(1) Tweets have a maximum character length: 140 characters, including spaces.

(2) Twitter best practice: Leave enough character availability in your original Tweet to encourage retweeting without editing the original message. For example, if someone re-tweets your tweet, that automatically adds RT @YourTwitterHandle to the Tweet.

(3) Hashtags (#keyword) help people find Tweets related to a common #event (like the Capital Fringe). Often, we also use hashtags to  tell different groups of people about that event, so we need multiple hashtags.

TWITTER MATH:

140 characters

MINUS Retweet Attribution Space

MINUS Hashtags

EQUALS Charachers Left for the Rest of Your Twitte Message

Meanwhile, this year, people are using two Twitter hashtags for the same event: #capfringe AND #capitalfringe. It’s no one’s fault really; hashtags are a crowd-sourced thing. But, if you’re planning an event, know that you can announce a preferred #hashtag, and if you do it early, people will try to use it. After all, everyone’s goal with the hashtag is the same — to draw attention to their tweet.

Bad enough that both #capfringe and #capitalfringe are fairly long, eating up 10 and 14 characters, respectively, out of a maximum of 140 allowed per tweet. Those of us trying hard to reach everyone searching for Capital Fringe info often put both.

That’s 24 characters plus another for the space in between: 25 characters.

A real waste of valuable Twitter Real Estate, don’t you think?

Read Related Capital Fringe Posts:

• Social Media @ 2010 DC Capital Fringe: Leveraging Free Tools
• Social Media @ 2010 DC Capital Fringe: Twitter Lessons
• Social Media @2010 DC Capital Fringe: Working with Schmaps, Twitter & iPhones
• Pushing Boundaries at the DC Capital Fringe - 1970s Networking in a Social Media World