Merseyside Dance and Drama Centre use Twitter a fair amount but find Facebook to be extrememly useful for keeping up to date with ex-stidents.

We find Twitter to be very useful for extending our dance social network but it isn't yet a marketing tool or for staying in contact with ex-students.

We did a two part blog about Facebook and Twitter:

http://mddcdance.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/how-to-keep-in-contact/
http://mddcdance.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/do-you-tweet-tweet/

I find TweetDeck to be so much easier to use than the Twitter page. If it was not for TweetDeck, I may have given up on Twitter. Seriously!

Cali Lewis (GeekBrief) has a wonderful TweetDeck instructive video, which made it all easy and quick!
cp

Doug,

Thank you for sharing this info. May I never ever use Twitter. You are a great resource, but I fear this way lies madness...or just way too much information!

Catherine, thanks for recommending TweetDeck, a downloadable application that you can use for all of your Twitter needs. There are a number of add-ons and applications for Twitter that allow you to send and respond tweets.

TweetDeck is more versatile than the basic Twitter interface that I described above. For my post, I just wanted to start my coverage of Twitter by sticking with the basics.

I think that this is the instructional video for TweetDeck that you were referring to?

I originally joined Twitter about 6 weeks ago for extra promotion of and networking for my dance projects; I also have a personal account, but only started using it as well at that time.

Although Facebook is very useful for groups and events, the interaction on there is largely static, and between actual friends as opposed to networking contacts; also, it remains to be seen what the impact of the new layout will be, as usage seems to have dropped significantly, with some people threatening to delete their accounts.

Also, although people may have 'friends' from all over the world, they tend to focus more on local or national contacts.

There are three key benefits to using Twitter for dance or other organisations:

- newsfeed: frequent updates with arts/dance news, auditions, job vacancies, class times, performance dates etc.

- 'broadening horizons': It can be a huge eye-opener to see what is being done elsewhere, and by who; we can learn a lot in this way, and people are more likely to overlook these details on Facebook. England does generally have a much lower-tech approach to dance, and so it has been interesting to find blogs and resources, eg by @danceadvantage, @tendutv, @DanceMassTV (UK-based) and @danceinisrael.

- networking with individuals: Twitter provides us with a way of 'meeting' industry professionals, in a way that we would otherwise be unable to do.

Also 'socialising' - whether from people posting random thoughts, anecdotes, observations, frustrations or personal updates; this helps humanise the users to each other, and build stronger links with others; less successful Tweeters are those who do not interact, but only use Twitter to self-promote. Of course, this does mean that the Twitterfeed can at times resemble a chatroom!

There are relatively few dance professionals currently using Twitter, which means that the networking circle is smaller, but also it can make each user more visible, and encourage them to connect with people working in other fields (eg marketing, promotion, photography).

It will be fascinating to see the results when more dance organisations start using Twitter, or more regularly - although it may not be a natural tool for everyone, it really does broaden our contacts and the work we do - at the risk of becoming dangerously addictive!

Here's another possibility for use by dance professionals:

A Twitter feed can be embedded so that it appears on a website (Doug, I see you're doing this). This way people who are not on Twitter can also follow the user's tweets.

If dance companies, festivals, or theaters embedded their Twitter feeds on their websites, they could easily update their audiences with announcements about performances. New performance dates, changed performance dates, special deals, etc. could be posted easily without having to coordinate with the organization's web support person. This could be extremely valuable in the case of unexpected last-minute changes.

KarenDC,

Is Twitter madness? Well, it is easy to waste a lot of time with Twitter. But I do think that there are practical, effective ways that Twitter can be used by dancers, dance companies and presenters. There are some good ideas in the comments above. And, I'll also write a follow-up post in which I'll discuss Twitter and other social media tools from a strategic perspective.

MDDCDance,

Thanks for sharing your posts on how dancers can use Twitter and Facebook. If Twitter keeps gaining momentum it will probably grow into a more valuable marketing tool and an effective way for communicating with current and past students.

Deborah,

Thanks for recommendation on using Twitter as widget on your site/blog for updates.

The Trey McIntyre Project also embeds its Twitter feed into its dance website:
http://treymcintyre.com/TMP/Home.html

Chantal,

Thanks for your in-depth overview and description of the benefits of using Twitter.

Just since I started actively using Twitter in January, there has been a significant increase in the number of dancers/dance companies using this service. So I think it will increasingly become an important networking tool -- we will see what happens.

Thanks for this helpful post, Doug. Do you think Twitter will consider allowing user names that are longer than 15 characters? "Dancingperfectlyfree" is too long, and I'm having trouble thinking of an easy-to-remember user name that represents my blog. Maybe Twitter will allow more characters if enough people join?

Evan,

Hope you find a good Twitter name. There are advantages with keeping Twitter user names on short side if possible. The main benefit is simply that a shorter name takes fewer characters when somebody replies to you or retweets your tweets.

Doug – what a great intro to using Twitter!

90% of my “Twitter-ing” is work-based. Even though my account is technically a personal one, my followers know that I am the Communications Manager at Jacob's Pillow and I'm sure that is the main reason they follow me. Having a personal account has also helped me think about the best way for Jacob's Pillow to have an organizational presence on Twitter.

I love the fact that I can provide a personable, accessible view of the Pillow through this networking tool while I connect with dance lovers around the globe. I've also benefited through information sharing and networking with other professionals in the arts, marketing and travel realms.

I agree that it can be a time drainer if you don't limit yourself, but for me the sharing of ideas and personal/professional connections outweigh the time management challenges.

Mariclare Hulbert

I remember seeing a great website on how to use twitter for marketing (via Danciti)

http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/

In addition to promotion, pr, and resource sharing, many are using twitter in other interesting ways.

The Brooklyn Museum setup its 1stfans twitter feed for members only. Artists take over the feed monthly, and create exclusive online content.

Another choreographer, Yanira Castro, is using twitter to publish her characters' inner psyche + dialogue.

Here's one of her character's feeds:
http://twitter.com/darkbloom8

Jaki,

The Brooklyn Museum 1stfans tweeting is intriguing:
http://bit.ly/70Nc8

I especially like that they have artists engaging fellow twitterers with their art-making.

Hey Doug,

I'd love to see some nice case studies of organizations using Tiwtter in a successful or interesting way. Let's work on a collaborative post!

Firstly thanks Doug for this great article and for using me as an example in your screenshots !

I have been tweeting a link to this article about 4 times a day out to my followers as I hope that the dance community will soon realise how powerful this marketing tool actually is and use it to their advantage.

According to todays stats at Alexa.com Twitters yearly growth rate is up by a massive 1202% in comparison to facebooks yearly growth rate of 195% and MySpace..well its no longer growing, its annual growth rate is down by -11.4%

Twitter is therefore growing at a rapid speed so the sooner you get clued up as to how to use this tool the sooner you will start to see results.

Heres some reasons why you should use Twitter..

Twitter has a ReTweet feature it means that your message can go viral. Try to get others to RT your messages by building up a relationship with them so then you can RT each others messages. Im always happy to RT other peoples messages to my followers that I feel could provide value to them.

For the first time on any social media site you now have access to other dance companies followers. Add them to your following list.

Each tweet also appears on search engines. My advice therefore is to tweet using keywords.

You can easily make friends with some of the top players and posssibly arrange joint ventures to expand your network.

You can place links in your tweets that drive traffic to your website, blog, video or whatever it is you want people to see.

My biggest advice is Be yourself on Twitter...even if you are representing a company. If you try to sell sell sell, no-one will buy. Twitter is really about building relationships, a great networking platform for you or your business.

You can follow me here & I'll follow you right back !
www.twitter.com/dancemasstv

Tweet soon :)
Dawn DeMendonca
@dancemasstv