Social Media is on Song

My internship has been keeping me on my toes with new and exciting ways of thinking about communication and social media, and how these differ between the worlds of personal and professional.

One of my ongoing tasks here at Zaccaria has been updating the company's social media sites, namely Facebook and Twitter. In the live music and entertainment industry, these two communication platforms are imperative - customers and fans want information that is interesting and timely, and they want it often! As Zaccaria manages several events simultaneously, there are a number of things to consider when managing Zaccaria Events Presents Facebook and Twitter Pages. I will use any time I get (which is not often!) to scan the internet for music news and anything that might be relevant to our upcoming concerts or events.

On the Zaccaria Facebook page, my access as an "admin" allows me to see how many people our posts are reaching, the percentage of people engaged in our posts, the location of people who like our posts and our page, our most popular posts and the trends of our online marketing activity over time. This data allows me to strategise future posts - we are able to determine, before we post them, which updates are going to appeal to our target audience. One particularly important aspect of using social media as a marketing/PR/communications platform is ensuring the content is relevant. For example, if we announce the pre-sale of say The Presets tickets one morning through an eDM to our entire Zaccaria e-mail database - we then follow this activity up with a Facebook post with similar information in the eDM. I have realised the importance of, and how effective it is, to strengthen one medium by backing it up with a complimentary form of communication. Here is the Facebook post I released after the announce of The Presets on-sale.

This post reached 600 people after the first two hours of posting - a figure which is consistent with the fact that we announced through eDM the on-sale that morning.

While on the topic of being timely and relevant, another tour Zaccaria is promoting is Human Nature: The Christmas Tour. Zaccaria has been organising a number of publicity events to promote the tour, one of which was an TV appearance by Human Nature on Better Homes and Gardens. Following this appearance on a Friday night, I posted on Zaccaria's Facebook and Twitter pages to remind the public and our target audience of the tour. The idea is to keep people thinking about the event - it doesn't have to always be about announcing tickets on sale, but rather keeping our audience in the loop with the latest news and happenings of Zaccaria and the talent we are currently representing. Below is my Twitter post from this morning, which I was excited to see was "favourited" by Human Nature - meaning the word is getting out.

So there is my brief reflection on the importance of social media and how it can be utilised in a more effective way to maximise publicity by supporting another form of communication. My experience at Zaccaria has taught me that as PR professionals we cannot rely on one form of communication - we need to focus on creating a diverse, integrated marketing communication technique in order to resonate well with our stakeholders.

Is anyone else using social media at their internship, and what insights have you noticed from using it in a professional manner as oppose to just generally stalking people?

Hope to hear from some of you!

Delta

Summer Series - The Presets at Hotel Rottnest

The weeks are flying by at Zaccaria Concerts and Touring. We have been incredibly busy in the office lately with the finalisation of Kate Ceberano's WA tour, having sold sell-out shows in Perth, Albany, Bunbury and Mandurah. My last post described how we were experiencing difficulty with selling these shows and there was a chance of cancellation, however we pulled through and all concerts were a success.

Following on from this, we have been busy with the planning stages of The Presets at Hotel Rottnest as part of Rotto Live summer series - a subsidiary of Zaccaria Group and Hotel Rottnest together as partners. We announced The Presets exclusive WA performance last week and are promoting it with the tagline "The ULTIMATE Sunday Session", which my manager Pam and I decided on as a catchy and effective selling point. This particular event is safe in terms of ticket sales - at Zaccaria we know it is going to sell out because of the nature of the performing artist and the location, time of year, weather - so aside from sales, our main aim of this campaign is to raise awareness and hype of our brand Rotto Live and also our main company, Zaccaria Group.

The artwork my manager Pam and I came up with as the official promotional poster of the event

One of the main ways of raising awareness of this event and hence the Rotto Live summer series and Zaccaria Group, is by gaining the support of a significant sponsor. A key way of getting a sponsor on board is to design and develop an effective proposal, with the aim of winning the sponsor company's support because of the exciting content and details revealed in the proposal. Zaccaria's Marketing Manager Pam delegated to me the task of designing and preparing the proposal to send to Telstra Thanks in support of The Presets at Hotel Rottnest. Telstra Thanks is a promotional branch of Telstra, aimed at Telstra customers and poses as a customer loyalty program, much like Virgin's Velocity Rewards system. Telstra Thanks offers their customers the advantage of pre-sale tickets as a way of saying "thanks for being with us", where customers are able to redeem points and benefit from other loyalty-type promotions. For Zaccaria, having Telstra Thanks as the major sponsor of this event is a huge deal - we are having our event and our brand sent to Telstra Thanks WA customer database of over 50,000 people, which for us means a sell-out ULTIMATE Sunday Session at Hotel Rottnest. For Telstra, they invest a significant amount of money into our event which we use to help promote the event. Telstra then gains from the brand association with not only Zaccaria Group, Hotel Rottnest and Rotto Live, but also with The Presets.

So the preparation of this proposal to Telstra Thanks saw me conduct significant research on The Presets to develop a profile for the group, so that Telstra Thanks could identify in one or two paragraphs the significance and prestige of The Presets. I also had to search for recent artwork and photography to use in the proposal for the design and layout, which I developed in Microsoft Powerpoint and saved as a PDF - a very effective way of producing a succinct, professional looking proposal. The proposal also included tourism information on Rottnest Island and the WA market, so as to "paint the picture" for Telstra Thanks and basically outline the environment of the entire event on paper for them, to create an idea that would be as visual as possible.

After finishing the proposal and sending to Pam for review, we sent the proposal to the directors of Zaccaria for final approval, and then e-mailed the final version to the sponsorship and marketing coordinator at Telstra Thanks. Much to my delight, the proposal was successful and we now have Telstra Thanks as the major sponsor of The Presets at Hotel Rottnest. My research and copy on The Presets was also used on the Zaccaria website - check it out here to see a snippet of what I came up with.

With this sponsorship locked in, the next task was to start planning the radio and television campaign. Pam and I considered 92.9 and Nova93.7 as the key radio stations we would use for a radio campaign - however we had to choose one. To choose between the two, we liaise with the sales and production team at both radio stations to describe the event at hand, to which the radio station responds with their own proposal. Their proposal will include types of activities they will utilise to promote our event, timeframe, implementation, description and budget. From these proposals we are able to determine which station to use - in the instance of The Presets at Hotel Rottnest, Pam and I decided on both as we could target a significant share of our desired market. Listen out for our radio and tv campaigns in the next couple of weeks!!

There will be a lot of ticket give aways on both radio stations too, so make sure you tune in. Both proposals from 92.9 and Nova 93.7 were about 15 pages long and detailed some impressive campaign activities - here are a couple of pages from Nova 93.7's proposal.

I have found working on The Presets to be challenging and satisfying as I was only given the morning to come up with the proposal that was submitted to Telstra Thanks. I have found that most tasks in this environment are bound by time constraints and it is extremely important when researching or producing any work for publishing or professional, external submission, that it be correct and written tailored specifically for the target audience.

The hands on experience I have gained at my internship has been invaluable and really reinforces how important public relations, external relations and communications are imperative for business success, particularly in the music and marketing industry. Zaccaria have asked me to stay on after my internship, working for the company until the new year. I am excited to keep learning and gaining practical experience after the last three years of theoretical learning!

Til next time,
Delta

Trouble In Musical Paradise

Hello everyone!

I have been at Zaccaria Group for about 5 weeks now, completing my internship for two days a week. I have learnt so much since my first day about not only public relations but also marketing, advertising and maintaining important professional relationships.

Here at Zaccaria Group, we have recently been having a bit of "trouble in paradise", you might say. I have learned that things do not always run smoothly, as we would hope. What do you do when you are the promoter of a touring musician or act, you've expended your marketing and publicity budget, and tickets are just not selling? I had never considered before that tickets for a well-known show would not sell - as an avid concert-goer myself, I never really think about the logistics and workings behind actually selling a show. As members of the public, we just buy our tickets and attend, that's all there is to it. So I have had my first taste of crisis management in the music marketing industry. The artist at hand is Kate Ceberano - her regional WA shows are selling fantastically but Perth is just not buying it! We have promoted Kate over the past month on television (you can see the television advert in my previous post), radio, print articles and press releases, but still no cigar.

The last two marketing and finance meetings have revolved around strategising ways to improve sales - it has gotten to the point where it is vital to consider all other marketing avenues. The marketing budget has been completely spent, with only 30% of forecasted tickets sold. Not good. As the promoter of this tour, Zaccaria Group takes risks and must put on a show no matter what - cancelling the show is not an option. The worst-case scenario would be cancelling, and this is at the high probability of not only damaging our professional reputation, but also our relationships with the artist's management. Would they sign that deal with us again, knowing we cancelled on them last time? No, probably not. Instead, business would go to our competitors. Not only this, but the artist does not want to be playing a show to a half empty venue. Could you think of anything worse? I have learnt from this that maintaining relationships with important stakeholders is a key skill in public relations practice.

Our outlook in this situation is "SELL TICKETS NO MATTER WHAT!", we will proceed with the show at any cost, because nothing is worth sacrificing a reputation. Our strategy is to bring planned advertising forward a couple of weeks, so tickets start selling earlier rather than in a couple of weeks time. We have also arranged give aways with 96fm radio and changed advertising to different tv networks - we determined this by looking at shows which get the highest ratings, then liaise with that tv network to dedicate a 30 second spot during that prime time tv show. We can also tell that, for example, women over 30 are watching Channel 7 on a Sunday night because of a particular show being broadcast. This is all vital information which helps up strategise ways out of our "crisis".

We have also considered different ticketing strategies. Sometimes it comes into consideration to drop ticket prices so that sales take off, but at times this is not appropriate. Would it be beneficial to focus on selling a more expensive ticket package (such as a meet and greet after the show and a glass of champagne) to entice our audience? Tickets just might not be selling because people do not want to see a cheap show - they want an experience. Again, we need a good relationship with our artist and their talent management for this to occur - there will be no "meet and greet" if we have already hinted chance of cancelling the show.

So that is just one aspect of crisis management in the music PR industry that I have been faced with. I hope to report on my other tasks in my next blog, as I have just realised this has taken up far too much space already! Hope you found it interesting and please feel free to comment below. I also hope you are all enjoying your placements! It seems to be flying by, considering how daunting it seemed at the start!

Until next time,

Delta.

Rock and Roll - PR in the Music Industry

I am into my second week at my internship for PR 393. I was lucky enough to secure a placement with Zaccaria Group - a Western Australian market leader in the music concerts, touring and event management industry. Zaccaria Group is comprised of Zaccaria Concerts and Touring - the music management branch, and House of Zaccaria - the fashion label, which is great for me because I happen to love music and clothes! Zaccaria also has offices in Hong Kong and Nashville, USA. Zaccaria Group also runs a not-for-profit organisation called Strike A Chord. For my internship, I am primarily involved with the marketing, communications and public relations activity for Zaccaria Concerts and Touring, and so far it has been really exciting! Zaccaria's portfolio of clients to date includes Stevie Wonder, Tina Arena, Duran Duran, Michael Buble, Sting, Kate Ceberano, Santana, KD Lang, "So You Think You Can Dance"and Tears For Fears, to name a few. To see more about Zaccaria Group, check out the website here.

I am completing my internship two days a week for ten weeks, and am currently onto my second Monday. My duties so far have mainly been related to marketing and communication strategy, including updating and evaluating concert marketing budgets - at the moment I am working on Kate Ceberano and her four concerts coming up in October in Perth, Mandurah, Bunbury and Albany. When a concert is in the planning stages, we evaluate and produce marketing and advertising activity suitable for the desired target audience. This includes securing 15 second advert spots on radio (usually Mix 94.5 and 92.9) and 30 second advert spots on television - could be any station, depending on the target demographics. For Kate Ceberano, we are using regional television station WIN (Channel 9 equivalent) and using Mix 94.5. To secure spots with these advertising mediums, we have to liaise with the production team, who will send us a proposal report outlining the potential spots we can secure - for tv it is usually 20 x 30 second spots in a week for the duration of the campaign (usually 2 - 3 weeks), and will occur during peak times. We then compare the proposal to our marketing budget to ensure the forecasted cost is not exceeded by the proposed cost provided by the tv or radio station.

With the production of such television and radio adverts, we have to first secure with the artist's management the materials we are allowed to use. For example, Kate Ceberano is touring to promote her new album, so we were told by her management to use mostly her new songs and one or two of her old songs (which the public would recognise) as well as only the new album artwork, head shots and themes, to align with Kate's new image. We write the copy and scripts for the adverts (what we want the radio stations to say) and prepare the 15 second sound-bed (the music and sound effects in the background) by liaising with a technical producer/graphic designer, get it approved by management and CAD (television governing body that classifies commercials before they are broadcast), then send it off to the radio or television station to confirm the start of the promotional campaign. The idea is to align the start of the advertising campaign with the announcement to the public of the touring artist. We then track ticket sales and determine the correlation between when the adverts air and the spikes and troughs in ticket sales (which we monitor by logging onto a program called InSight, which is linked directly to Ticketek). By doing this, we can determine if the campaigns are effective. See below television advert that has just been approved by CAD and is going to air this Wednesday.

I have also been involved in reviewing the CMS for all recipients of e-mail direct marketing (eDM). Zaccaria has a total database of over 40,000 customers, which is then broken down into different sub-databases so we can target different demographics depending on the type of artist and concert we are promoting.

Zaccaria is currently in the process of reviewing the feasibility of bringing an exciting and well-known artist to WA towards the end of the year. I hope it happens and cannot wait for the announcement - at the moment I am not allowed to say anything! For determining if a project is feasible, management will have to review how much to price tickets at, which venue to use to host the artist (Perth Arena or Sandalford Winery - Zaccaria's competitive advantage over other players in the industry!), which ticketing website to use, which communication and promotional platforms to use, decipher the probability of a sell-out show and if not a sell out then how can we make it one (secure an exciting support act), review how "big" the artist is in Australia compared to the rest of the world, and the list goes on. I have just sat in on a marketing and finance meeting with the directors, which was really interesting to observe. I have realised that finance and marketing in this type of industry go hand in hand - forecasting, budgeting and reporting is so important to continually be working away at and allows the marketing team to plan campaigns according to statistics compiled by the finance team. The meeting reminded me of the unit Business Capstone - think lots of spreadsheets, talk of ROI, graphs, and numbers, numbers, numbers aka my worst nightmare! It is cool to be able to have a real life comparison to the things we learn at uni, and definitely makes all the theory come to life and just click like it usually doesn't in the classroom!

I am excited to be here to keep learning new things. I have realised that public relations is largely a very broad profession and can be applied to almost any job, so I am enjoying the fact that my internship has a strong marketing foundation. I also am well aware of the fact that it's so important to have contacts in an industry if you want to be a leader and succeed. The number and calibre of contacts and talent that Zaccaria has is overwhelming and exciting to be able to experience.

That's all I have time for today, but will keep updating as the weeks go by.

Delta