Today's post was written by guest blogger Eric Saber, Account Specialist, here at Patron Technology.

I love burgers. One might consider me to be a burger enthusiast. I also love French fries
and milkshakes. So, you can imagine my delight when I found out that the Midwestern burger chain Steak ‘n Shake was setting up shop in New York City (around the corner from Patron Technology’s offices, no less). This was going to be a match made in burger heaven.

Then it happened. Not only was Steak ‘n Shake opening within spitting distance of our office, but its first 150 customers on opening day were being treated to vouchers for a year’s worth of free burgers, fries, and shakes weekly. Unbelievable, right?

I decided to wake up early on the day of the grand opening and try my luck. Through some combination of good fortune (there was a horrible rainstorm that morning) and tenacity, my coworker and I were the 79th and 80th customers in line, respectively. I couldn’t believe it: we won the prize!

Now, I had barely even heard of Steak ‘n Shake, much less tried any of its food before that day I won a year’s worth of free burgers, fries, and shakes. So why did I act like a crazy person and wait in line, in a rainstorm, on a freezing cold January morning in New York City? Because the deal was so unbelievable I couldn’t resist it.

What does this have to do with the arts?

A funny thing happened on that morning last month. Not only did I witness a frenzy of media coverage of this event, but I became part of that frenzy. Over the course of a few hours, I also found that I had become an evangelist of the food and of the chain itself. I think my experience is a case study in how to create a “super fan.”

I know, I know -- you’re thinking “the arts can’t be compared to a fast food stand” and “deals and offers from sites like Groupon often leave a bad taste in our mouths.” Stick with me, though, because I think the arts world can learn a big lesson from my burger experience.

No, arts organizations do not need to offer “freebies” necessarily but should instead aim to offer something that is unbelievable, something so great that it would not only incentivize people who normally wouldn’t be the first to come to your performances but would also excite them enough to become your mouthpiece. 

The key here is that your unbelievable deal should hinge on customers making some kind of effort or commitment to prove themselves worthy of the deal. The main difference between my burger experience and a Groupon deal, for instance, is that with Groupon you basically get something for nothing. You don't have to be a super fan, because you don't have to do anything other than click a button and buy the deal.

I’m not currently a subscriber to any arts organizations. But I have an interest in the arts, and I know that there are tons of people just like me out there. What if a theater (depending on the size of its venue, of course) gave 100 tickets to every event for the year either at very low cost or for free to the first 100 people in line the week before its first show’s opening? Can you imagine the word of mouth this might generate? The winners could be your newest super fans and would tell all their friends (and hopefully bring their friends with them). I know that I would jump at this kind of opportunity. And, I know some will cringe at the idea of giving away anything for free like this because it lowers the perceived value (such as another guest blogger a few weeks ago), but I’m arguing that the “incredible” aspect will be worth it.

Here’s a high-tech example of a similar proposition. The file-sharing and data storage service Dropbox first gained exposure and word of mouth through a referral program that had a two-sided incentive for sharing. The idea was that any new user who signed up through the referral link of an existing user automatically got more storage space than he or she would through signing up normally. And then the referrer got additional space as well. Dropbox had astounding success with this program (the service reports a permanent 60% increase to its sign-ups).

Imagine if a dance company offered a referral program that gave previous season subscribers the new subscriber rate and the first 35 new subscribers an even better deal than the regular new subscriber price.  What if, on top of that, the company threw in extras, like free wine and/or free parking or a free coat check before the performance for those first 35 new subscribers?  This is the kind of practical, but terrific deal that the arts world could embrace to expand its reach into new audiences.

Everyone in my office is extremely jealous that my coworker and I won the burger deal. But everyone also wants to go try Steak ‘n Shake, not just because it’s so close in proximity, but because we’ve been raving about it. I firmly believe that these same principles can be applied to your audiences. If you can create innovative and brilliant ways to incentivize not only current patrons but new patrons to become your biggest fans, you’ll open a door to people who didn’t even see there was a door there at all.

Even if you've been hiding under a rock, it's been hard to ignore the hype around the recent announcement of the Facebook IPO. It seems the company was holding out before going public in order to control its own destiny for as long as possible. When public, the scrutiny from investors and the press will be magnified ten times more than it already is, and the company will have to be much more transparent about the direction it's going.

One immediate example is that in the details of the offering, it seems Mark Zuckerberg has maneuvered the arrangement in such a way that he's still pretty much controlling the makeup of his board, more or less in perpetuity. As long as he continues to have the magic, he's set himself up as the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. So, his thinking is going to be pretty influential for a long time to come.

That's why I found the letter that Mark Zuckerberg wrote in the preamble to the IPO worth examining. I found it thought-provoking and decidedly non-corporate. Here's a portion that I found particularly instructive:

One result of making it easier to find better products is that businesses will be rewarded for building better products - ones that are personalized and designed around people. We have found that products that are"social by design"tend to be more engaging than their traditional counterparts, and we look forward to seeing more of the world's products move in this direction.

Only a few short years ago, many people were dismissing Facebook as simply a site for twenty-somethings to spout off about what they had for breakfast. Instead, it's setting the template for an entirely new kind of interpersonal collaboration throughout the world. Zuckerberg refers to it as the "rewiring" of society.

The letter suggests that we're living in an era in which virtually all customer experiences will be "rewired" to be "social by design." That means more openness, more collaboration, and more instant feedback. The prior "corporate" approach of top-down control, with tightly controlled messaging and media, gives way to a much more fluid and less controllable dialogue with patrons and customers.

In the arts world, the fault lines are beginning to be more easily seen. Some arts sites have Facebook and Twitter buttons prominently on display (like the City Museum in St. Louis), while others pull their recent feeds right on their sites, such as The Moth and Loft Ensemble. Some organizations have blogs written by insiders in the organization and prominent YouTube videos which offer insights and take comments from the public (like the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra).

And in the arts, "social by design" is meeting "corporate control" inside the venue, sometimes with uncomfortable results. For instance, over the Christmas holiday, I bought tickets to the Alvin Ailey Company's run at the NY City Center, where there's a "no cell phone" policy in the theatre. One of the more engaging pieces I saw was Ohad Naharin's "Minus 16," in which the dancers leave the stage, fan into the audience, and invite unsuspecting audience members to join and dance with them onstage. What ensues is a completely unpredictable, spontaneous, totally engaging, and unique arts experience.

So, can you guess what happened next? The friends of those who are invited on stage pulled out their iPhones and started recording to capture the moment. Immediately the City Center ushers came by and forced them to turn off their phones -- all during the performance and in front of everyone sitting around them (causing far more disruption than the phones themselves).

It's clear that Facebook's IPO is a big wake-up call for an era of behavior and technology that's "social by design." Every arts organization is going to have to address this issue and decide to what degree it wants to cross this chasm. "Social by design" isn't merely about having someone post to Facebook once a week; it's an entirely new mindset. And it's one that for the organizations that get it right will help them "Break the Fifth Wall" and engage with their patrons in a new and deeper way.

The arts are, and always have been, social by design. I think the Facebook IPO is a welcome and healthy reminder for all of us.

Today's blog post is written by Allison Klein, Client Services Manager here at Patron Technology.  

The last time I wrote on Gene's blog, I wrote about how the museum that I joined this year, unlike the theatre company I subscribe to, did something vital: they asked the friend who was buying memberships for both of us for my name.

What did they do with that simple piece of information? Well, for one, they put it on a card. 

It may sound silly because it’s just a piece of paper, but I love having that personalized membership card to carry in my wallet. And I would gladly carry a card for the theatres I’ve subscribed to as well.

Why?

My membership card sets me apart from non-members-- it makes me feel special and a part of the community. I must get it from my father, who still carries his Boy Scouts of America card in his wallet. Having my museum membership card is a source of pride for me, and it would be even if there wasn’t really anything I could use it for.

Of course, my museum membership card is not just a token. It also gives me access to my member benefits. While the main benefits of my museum membership and my theatre subscription are the same-- discounted admission tickets that can be used flexibly throughout the year-- the museum throws in some extra goodies that have me holding them in high esteem.

Promoting your member benefits, like those of a museum, can actually add value to the price of a subscription rather than focusing mostly on how much money a subscription can save a subscriber over single ticket purchases. It’s not just a way to attract more subscribers but also a way to deepen the connection your subscribers have with your organization.

Here are some fairly standard benefits of museum membership translated to the theatre/performing arts setting:

• My museum membership card gets me out of the lobby and in front of the exhibits faster -- no waiting in long lines of tourists. What if my subscriber card granted me access to a subscriber-only will call line? Nothing says “I’m important” like getting to save time by skipping a long line.
• When I flash my membership card at the museum cafes and gift shops I save 10 percent or 15 percent. I’d love to have an incentive like that to have a drink or snack during intermission at the theatre’s[H1]  bar.
• Taking that one or two steps further, how about discounts or freebies (a glass of wine, dessert, etc.) at the restaurants and bars that advertise in the show programs? The theatre could also organize informal pre-theatre “meet-ups” for subscribers at a nearby establishment. This would strengthen the community aspect of my subscription not just with the theatre organization but also with fellow subscribers.
• My museum membership card gives me access to member-exclusive tours and extended hours of their most popular exhibits. Again, I love this VIP-like treatment! In the theatre setting, an invitation to the opening dress rehearsal, a quick back-stage tour, or a special talk-back would have a similar effect. 

And subscriber events don’t have to be free either-- the allure of exclusivity is enough for many to pay a little extra.

So, once you know who all your subscribers are, benefits like membership cards and other extras give your already-loyal fans something to talk about and champion you for. That can come in the form of gaining added convenience or superior service or just plain feeling valued.

And, when I’m feeling valued as a member/subscriber, who knows, I may become a donor as well, because the benefits I am granted now make me feel like I already am one.

Twice a month I offer expansions on the themes and topics that Michelle Paul and I wrote about in our book, Breaking the Fifth Wall: Rethinking Arts Marketing for the 21st Century. If you like these, you can buy the book from us here, or on Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Nobles' Nook. 

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Last week James Taylor played duets with the commander of the International Space Station.  One might assume that this came about because of some some high level government contact, but no, the real story-- as documented in The Berkshire Eagle-- was more like this:

The video teleconference was arranged after Taylor's personal assistant Ellyn Kusmin spotted an e-mail from NASA scientist Dan Cook, head of Behavioral Health and Performance Space Medicine sent to Taylor's website, like any fan.

"We get at least 1,000 e-mails a month," said Kusmin, "and I read as many as I can but I have to say I am very glad that I read this one. At first I thought it was a hoax. But it wasn't."

What's this got to do with Twitter, you ask?  A Twitter message that references your organization is the same as the random email described above. You simply don't know who is out there, but if you reply, good things can happen.

At the last NAMP conference Scott Stratten, the author of Unmarketing, who has over 100,000 followers on Twitter and 80,000 tweets, revealed that the majority of his tweets were replies. After the conference I tested this, and needless to say, he Tweeted back.  

The bottom line is that people who take the time to publically talk about you on Twitter are people worth responding to, just as if they had written you an email. I hear folks saying that replying to Twitter  seems like one of those "I don't have time for yet another to-do item" kind of things, but my advice is that you need to recalibrate and figure out how to make it part of your marketing operation. Steal time from something else, because this is becoming increasingly important.

And the same goes for Facebook.  

As luck would have it, I was at the New York Philharmonic's concert last week when an unsuspecting long-term subscriber's new iPhone alarm starting playing a marimba tone over and over, during the most etherial ending section of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. I was no more than 10 rows away, and was dumbfounded as Alan Gilbert stopped the concert and had what seemed like a standoff with the patron who was in the front row. 

Now that the facts have gotten out, it turns out to be a profoundly unfortunate confluence of errors, which it so often seems is the case with situations like this. The subscriber had no idea it was his phone and had indeed turned it off before the concert started.

Over the weekend I was talking with some friends who have worked in the symphony business for decades, and most of them marveled at why this event got so much attention since this isn't so unusual. One friend recounted how at a Chicago Symphony concert  pre-concert dinner in 1991, 400 guests were given Tiffany alarm clocks as a gift on their way out from the dinner to the concert. During the concert, some of the clocks starting going off and they had to stop the concert to collect all 400 bags. The story is recounted in all its glory here by Henry Fogel, who was the CSO's executive director at the time. 

So, is this more recent event simply a brilliant litmus test of the power of social media, and the Internet to carry a relatively mundane situation into the PR stratosophere?  Or is it uncovering some pent-up anti-cell phone rage that concert-goers live with?  

Having seen this in person, I find it all the more intriguing since I assumed some people who were there would talk about it for years to come,  but not that it would end up on the evening news. What do you think?  

Since this column is all about "cloud"-based web services, here's on that epitomizes that: Dropbox. Dropbox is a free service that provides data storage in the cloud in such a seamless and intuitive way
that you'll almost forget that it's a cloud service. When you install Dropbox (after watching the excellent introductory video) you'll get a new folder nestled amongst the other folders on your computer. You can store anything you'd like (up to 2 gigabytes) for free, and you can use it like any other folder, even creating subfolders.

The difference here is that folder is then accessible anywhere you are - either from the Dropbox website, or on all your other computers. If you make a change on your laptop, Dropbox automatically updates that file on your other machines.

What's going on under the hood is that Dropbox actually saves a copy on your hard drives and on the web. So you always have access to your files, even if you're not logged on. 

What I'm finding is that describing this is harder than actually using it. So give it a try, the first 2 gigs are free and there are paid versions where, say 100 gigs is less than $20 a year. I should also mention that there are persistent tech industry rumors that Google is going soon introduce something called "G-drive" which will be similar. But for now, Dropbox is the "it" service in this realm.