Top of the list!

Okay, in truth it’s just a list of business and theatrical blogs put together by Ken Davenport , but right now I am at the top of that list. I am pretty sure he just puts new people at the top of the list, so I plan on riding this high for as long as it lasts. Ken’s blog is a pretty big deal in the producing world, and I have been trying to get more traffic to my blog. My numbers go up and down, depending on what I write and where I post it.

Ken just asked that I add him to my blog role, which I did. The test will be to see if traffic picks up. In the first month of the blog I averaged 113 hits per week, and now I average 139 per week. My goal is to have it reach around 300 per week in one year.

We will see if I can keep this up and if people are still interested. Writing a blog is NOT as easy as I thought it was going to be. Fist off, you have to have enough things to write about, which is why I have Ask My Friends Wednesdays so that I can take one day off, but even then I have to line people up and make sure there is good content for them to write about. Then I have to make sure I write the night before so that I can send it off to Clayton, my godsend who edits these blogs. Go back to the first week, and you can see why I need someone to edit. I enjoy sharing my thoughts and hope you all enjoy reading them. I have gotten some really nice notes about the blog and hope to keep it up.

That said, I love writing the blog and encourage others to do the same. Some of my friends have better ideas and things to talk about, and I try to get them to write a blog. Pick a topic and just go. If you do start a blog, let me know and let’s compare how we do it, and who knows...maybe I can put you on my blog role.

As I Travel

Today I am traveling so I will be catching up on my blog reading. My favorite blog is the Producers Perspective by Ken Davenport. I suggest you it add it to your favorites and stay up to date with Ken.

http://www.theproducersperspective.com/

Off-Broadway

Recently when producers talk about Off-Broadway they say it’s dead. That you can’t make money with the costs of unions and marketing with such small house counts. Shows like Glory Days that probably should be Off-Broadway figure there is a less risk in a Broadway house because you get more exposure and almost the same risks.

Well, recently producers like Ken Davenport have been working to fix the reputation of Off-Broadway. Last week there was an article in the New York Times that I thought was worth sharing.

So your homework for today is to read this article and tell me what you think about Off-Broadway.

Twitter Part 2

Yesterday I talked about a couple of ways to use Twitter. Now let’s focus on Twitter and Broadway. There are four specific examples of Twitter on Broadway that I know of and I am sure there are more.

1) ROCK OF AGES – An Off-Broadway musical that moved to Broadway and now is nominated for the Best Musical Tony Award. They use Twitter to show off ads and discounts. Nothing was of interest to me. I “un-followed” them pretty fast. Maybe if you live in NYC and love the show you would be interested in following them but I found the information useless.

2) NEXT TO NORMAL – Again a Best Musical nominee that started Off-Broadway then came to Washington to return to the Great White Way. They have used Twitter in a whole new way. They have the characters Tweeting their inner thoughts in order of the show and it is lasting several weeks. I think this is an interesting way to use Twitter but I really don’t get much out of it. It is being drug out so long that I am not sure where we left off and would have to go their site to see the whole story. I personally would rather just listen to the CD.

3) TONY AWARDS – This I find be a better use of Social Media. I think I like it more because it covers all the Broadway shows with focusing on the Tony Awards. I think it could go a step further with talking about when shows are going to be on TV. Like the Next to Normal cast being on the View.

4) KEN DAVENPORT – I saved the best for last. I love his tweets. He uses Twitter to talk about his day. Meetings he goes to and thoughts he has about certain issues with theatre and he posts articles. The brilliant part is he slips in things about his shows. So you don’t even realize you are getting ads sometimes. He doesn’t just send you ad after ad but slips them so you don’t even notice.

How could you use Twitter to best promote yourself or your show. Why would people want to follow you and I mean REALLY follow you. Make it interesting.

Twitter

I have talked about Facebook and the why I like it so much on this blog. Now it is time to talk about the other big social networking / media site Twitter. Twitter is new to me. I have had an account for 3 months. But I am just now learning how to use it. Lots of people use it as a Facebook wall and just write what they are doing throughout the day. But others are starting to really get a lot out of it.

The updates of your day are really boring unless you are a star or someone I am extremely interested in like Ken Davenport. A friend of mine said this weekend that Twitter won’t be around in a year. At which point we made a bet. If Twitter is more popular I win if it less popular then he wins. The hard part about this bet is that I can not find the number of Twitter users today.

When you start with Twitter it might take a while to find it useful. You might start to follow a lot of people that you really find useless. But stick with it. Un-follow them and work to build the right Twitter group to follow. Then you will find it useful.

Theatres are still figuring out how to use Twitter. Some just send out discounts and specials. (I un-follow those people fast.) Others are having important people in their company talk about what they are doing. Those I think are the most interesting. Who wouldn’t want an insight of the company they enjoy. Arena Stage just offered free tickets in Tweet. I think this was to test how many of the followers really read the tweets. I would be curious of the results. In my own experience the followers that act on tweets is very small but then again I am not giving away free tickets.

If you find Twitter useful please write a comment about how you use Twitter it could be to just get news or just follow friends. And don’t forget to follow me at @nderaj.