August 1, 2007

Great Dance is Expanding

I'm in the process of expanding the Great Dance website into a large-scale blogging platform for the dance community.

This means that greatdance.com will host many dance blogs that cover a range of topics from different perspectives. Among the blogging formats that will be featured include:

- Dedicated and short-term blogs by dancers and dance companies

- Audio and video podcast interviews with dancers and choreographers

- Blogs from dance writers, students and others who cover dance

- Hot topic blogs for extended conversations about important issues, and

- Dance blogs dedicated to the Internet and technology, video and film making, dance instruction, improving dance literacy and other topics

Goals

I'm introducing an expanded website for the following reasons:

1) I would like to help dancers, choreographers and dance companies take full advantage of the Internet for creative, marketing, educational and community-building purposes.

2) To work with dance-makers to create new and expanded revenue streams from advertising and sponsorship, online contributions, increased bookings, larger audiences, and product sales and licensing (digital and packaged).

3) To provide dancers with on-going education and recommendations about how to use digital tools and technologies for both artistic and business purposes. And,

4) To develop an active online conversation that provides dancers and dance audiences with a compelling and meaningful forum for discussing a wide range of dance-related topics.

The Blogging Challenge for Dancers

In theory blogging offers dancers, choreographers and dance companies great opportunities for sharing creative work, reaching larger audiences, building active communities and developing new revenue streams.

But in practice it is very difficult for dance-makers to achieve these goals when working independently.

The Solution: A Large-Scale Blogging Platform for Dance

My approach to solving this challenge is by inviting dancers and dance companies to create their own blogs on Great Dance.

Participating dancers and dance companies are provided with:

1) A free blog on Great Dance. In some cases bloggers may join others in topic-specific blogs.

2) Free blogging support and guidance including how to add multimedia elements such as pictures and videos to blog posts and how to submit content via mobile devices.

3) An instant audience of readers and extensive on-going marketing to build more traffic for your blog. And,

4) Community development tools and promotion so that your blog readers are encouraged to become actively involved in your discussions.

New Revenue Streams

By building this high-quality, multi-blog platform, it then becomes possible over time to generate both direct and indirect revenue streams for dancers and dance companies.

Realistically, it is not possible to generate sufficient online advertising revenue from sponsors, or financial contributions from website visitors unless you have a large, loyal audience of dance fans and supporters who visit and participate in your website. The same holds true for using the Internet to build audiences for your performances and to increase bookings.

So an important part of what I'm ramping-up to do now is sell advertising and sponsorship for this extended Great Dance blogging platform. Participating dance bloggers will then receive a percentage of the advertising revenue resulting from their blog readership, or will generate advertising revenue in other manners. I'm now in the process of exploring different possible revenue models.

In addition, I'll be working directly with dance bloggers to develop and pursue other revenue streams such as from increased contributions and more bookings.

Overall, one of my major goals is to create new business models for dancers so that they can generate greater financial support to pursue their artistic interests. I've written about this topic for almost two years and I'd like to play a constructive role in making this happen.

At the same time, I don't want to oversell or over-promise the financial possibilities of an expanded Great Dance for dance-makers. What I've described above is what I plan to work toward in collaboration with the dance community. Also, in some cases, there will be potential revenue streams and in other instances there may not be. For example, a dance company with its own blog on Great Dance may have a broader range of financial possibilities than a dancer who posts occasionally to a topic-specific blog with multiple bloggers. These details will all have to be worked out.

Summary

This expanded Great Dance blogging platform will provide dancers and dance companies with the resources, know-how, marketing guidance, and technology infrastructure they need to take full advantage of the Internet. By aggregating high-quality dance blogs on a single website, it will be possible to reach larger audiences and help participating dance-makers develop new revenue streams to support their creative activities. This improved financial support will, in turn, make it possible for dancers to create more compelling content for their ever-growing online audiences.

Your Thoughts and Feedback

What do you think about any and all aspects of the above?

Your Participation

Are you interested in blogging on Great Dance?

If you would like to explore upcoming possibilities, please send me an email with a brief introduction about yourself and your involvement in dance. And, of course, include a description of the type of blogging that you'd be interested in pursuing and the subject matter that you'd like to cover.

I will soon post formal guidelines on how to submit proposals and how the evaluation process will work.

Advertising and Sponsorship Information

I'll soon be posting an overview of advertising and sponsorship opportunities for the upcoming expanded Great Dance site. If, in the meantime, you'd like to learn about these advertising programs, please email me.

Posted by Doug Fox on August 1, 2007 12:33 PM

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