Introduction

In preparing for this post, I did a Google search on “Conversations with Edith Head.” This is the Invisible Theatre play currently in production at the Leicester Square Theatre in London through the end of August (2008).  It stars, and was co-written by the Invisible Theatre’s inimitable Susan Classen.

Google’s very first listing was the production’s very own website!  People would pay a lot of money to SEO “experts” for such a ranking.

Kudos aside, what next surprised me was the realization that, from my first pass-through of Invisible Theatre’s website and other online presences, I had never noticed any link or mention of this website.

Putting that insight on the shelf for the moment (we’ll come back to it), I should stop right here to say a few words about the Invisible Theatre and my engagement with it.

Back-Story

If you’ve read in my first post in this series, you know that my wife, Betsy Kruse-Craig, was taken on staff by the Invisible Theatre as an “Artistic Associate.” As for me, I’ve been fascinated by the phenomenon of Social Media and the possibilities that arise out of it’s emergence, and I have been working for over ten years designing and engineering software.  What you are not aware of is that before my career as a software maker began, I was in graduate school studying playwriting and performance.  It was natural, even casual, that Betsy made the request of me that I turn my attention toward the Invisible Theatre.

Not long before her request, I happened to have begun this blog.  It seemed a good mix to write about my process of developing a Social Media strategy for the Invisible Theatre.

So I did.

The Recent Past

This gave birth to my “Social Media Makeover Series.”

My very first post was picked up by Chris Laning, a producer of the podcast “Your Neighborhood Stage: The podcast for everybody who works or plays in community theatre.”  He emailed me, expressing his interest in an interview.

I was grateful for his interest, we made arrangements, and did the interview.  The unexpected thing about the interview was its context.  Chris had arranged to conduct the interview over the Internet, in the virtual world of Second Life.

If you are unaware of Second Life, you’re in the majority.  It’s a free, online virtual 3D (rendered in two dimensions) world.  In the world, you create an avatar (a personalizable, animated self-representation) and you interact in particular locations in a virtual “world” with other people through their own avatars. And you interact directly through voice.  And it’s free.

Unfortunately I hadn’t gotten the head-up from Chris that the interview was going to occur in a virtual world, so I was only present (hooked into the world) via audio.  But my experience, and the interview itself was enhanced by questions from the virtual attendees.

What a great idea!  An online, interactive virtual reality interview.  The idea was totally novel to me, but made perfect sense.

The Present

Yesterday, Chris published the interview, which you can download and listen to.  He entitled it “Social Media and Theatre.”  My only wish is that I had been better able to convey what the Invisible Theatre is.  In the interview, on that account, I totally Fail-Whaled.  My sincerest apologies to Susan Claasen, my wife, and to any of you who hear that part of the interview.

The Future

Chris has inspired me to add podcast versions of my blog entries.  Although I am not starting that just yet, I have already acquired the basic, essential equipment and software to do so.  I just need to rearrange my schedule to fit in the extra requisite time to put out a marginally descent podcast.  In other words, I have a bit more to learn before you’ll be seeing podcast versions of my blog available.

My current thoughts on the Social Media Makeover of the Invisible Theatre will be hitting the pavement after Susan returns from London in September.

Until then, I will keep posting my possibly but not necessarily unrelated thoughts, and working my way towards adding audio feeds (podcasts).

(Image courtesy of cathepsut on Flickr, used via Creative Commons license).

There is such a wealth of information about social media available, it can easily become a situation of paralysis, where so many cards are in your hand you get stuck on what to play first.  I found myself in this position thinking about this series and what next what to post.

I had the good idea to go back and revisit my last post, looking at the Invisible Theatre’s existing website and, as Social Media Guru Chris Brogan calls them, their “Passports.”  In his post “Starting Points for Online Presence,” Brogan lays down some excellent starting points.

As I’ve said, I am not an expert in this field.  I am, however, a good listener and I’m getting better at “editing” in the sense of having the ability to weed through a lot of existing content to find what’s valuable.  And I’m a software engineer who went to graduate school for Playwriting and Performance Studies.  Among several others, I have found Chris Brogan, through his blog, newsletter and the other ways in which he engages his community in a network of conversations, to be a remarkably valuable resource for the applications of Social Media.

There’s a lot of great advice in the post I linked to above but, in thinking about the staff at the Invisible Theatre (IT), I again realize the importance of bringing information to them in an immediately usable way.  Sure I could tell them as a next step to start “Twittering; to join a slew of other social media networks — but as I pointed out in my first installment, they already have an existing presence on some great sites.  Let’s start there.

I brought up IT’s MySpace account.  As a site in itself, it is nicely and simply designed. Over-garnishing your site is often a big issue on MySpace sites.  On this point, they are not guilty.  In fact, it’s quite good.  They’ve even got a nice bit of music that comes up when you bring up the site in your browser.

This is all important, and could be enhanced, as I mentioned in my previous post, by better cross-linking to their other “passport” sites, but I’ll come to that later.  In looking at their MySpace account tonight, what suddenly stood out for me was the fact that they already have 199 Friends!

With this observation came the epiphany for tonight’s installment.

(Image courtesy of krisdecurtis on Flickr, used via Creative Commons license).

Leverage your existing online network.  Obviously IT’s MySpace has been around long enough to have collected 119 friends.  That’s great, but amassing a bunch of “friends” is only the beginning.

Recommendation #1: Use your friends as a launching pad for understanding and increasing your Social Media Network.  How to go about this is pretty straightforward.  Begin my clicking on your friend’s picture, which will lead you to their pages.

CRITICAL POINT:  Engagement.  Your friends want to feel the love!

Recommendation #2: Investigate your friend’s sites and participate with them!  This will certainly take some time and effort but, after all, they’re your “friends.”  Investigating your friends will give you more insight into your Social Media network.  You’ll get to know them a little bit better. In researching them you may also glean valuable nugget of wisdom you never expected.

As a case in point, and to bring this installment to a close, I’m going to chose one of their friends in particular.  Given the fact that MySpace allows its users to make their site visible only to approved friends, I will find a friend with a publicly accessible page.

Good luck! A click on the first “friend” brings me to Shana’s MySpace page.  An interesting contemporary musical selection begins to play.  Without going into too much detail, let me summarize what I find directly on her page:

• Her choice of artwork and music, if I’m savvy enough, tells me something about her musical taste.
• Her tagline, “Never retreat… just attack in the opposite direction” gives me even more sense about her personality, her sense of humor, and how she wants to be perceived
• Her “About Me” section, “Who I’d Like To Meet” section, “Interests” section, and her MySpace Blog entries will also lead me more deeply into her character.

These are all great ways to get more free, publicly consumable insight in an existing fan of IT.  This is certainly gold.  But the real treasure lies in the fact the Shana, herself, is linked to 183 friends.  And you thought you were popular!  And in her “Friend’s Comments” section, it is easy to identify which of her friends are in conversation with her.

(Image courtesy of philchambers on Flickr,

used via Creative Commons license).

Recommendation #3: Traverse your friends networks effectively!

The fact is that your “friends” on your MySpace page aren’t always your real friends.  This is not to say that they might not be people or, in many instances, organizations or bands that would not be fruitful to pursue relationships with, but only time and experience will tell.

Do the homework, research your extended network of friends, figuring out who might be the best candidates to invite into your own network, and invite them!

If you don’t blog directly on your MySpace page, providing links to your website and blog and other “passport” sites will at least allow your visitors to check you out more thoroughly.  If they find you interesting, perhaps they will accept your friendship request and, voilà, you’ve expanded your network and hopefully, in the process, understood your potential audience a little better!

Recommendation #4:  Close the Deal: Develop a loyal readership.

The number one way I can think of to expand your readership, which is the next real step in expanding your social network, is to provide regularly updated content which your audience will find valuable.

Again, Chris Brogan is masterful at this.  He’s not a Theatre guy, he’s an engineer, but his bag is Social Media strategy, and he routinely gives away great knowledge for free.  Due in no small part to this, he has an enormous readership.  One thing which sets him apart, however, is the fact that he has a personal tone to his writing, and often posts personal entries.  Through this his readership gets to know him.  His blog feels authentic, which I think is a critical factor in creating an actual community.  Otherwise, at best, you’re just a  prolific reference point with a readership.

The question for the Invisible Theatre is what content to come up and how to present it so as to be of value to people.  As with MySpace friends, you don’t necessarily want lots of visitor traffic in itself — you want lots of the right kind of traffic.  You don’t want one-shot friends — you are looking to create an engaged community, and a directed one, so it’s important to center your content around to your main business which, in the example of the Invisible Theatre, the business of producing relevant and impactful theatre.

On Deck:  The flatland of SEO, and why worrying about it in itself should be your last concern when blogging.  Stay tuned!  You can expect the next installment of this series approximately within the next 10 days.