Dance Weekend

Advertising your Lindy Hop or West Coast Swing event by posting messages on internet forums is so five years ago.  Sure, there are some must-hit forums like Yehoodi, and even posting on the smaller scene-centric forums is never a bad thing, per se, other than the time commitment.  But it’s time for organizers to start taking better advantage of the free advertising opportunities presented by the so-called “social media”.  Social media, Web 2.0, social networking, my-twit-friend-space-face-ster-bookr, whatever you want to call it.  It’s a gold-mine of free word-of-mouth advertising and information distribution that has yet to even begun to be effectively tapped by the swing dance community.

In this series of posts, I’m going talk about some of the different social media sites and tools available and give some ideas for how you might want to use them to help promote your event.  Today, I’m going to tell you about Twitter.  If you’re like a lot of people, the whole concept of twitter doesn’t make much sense.  It’s a silly little toy site with a silly toy name and it’s hard to imagine any real utility to be gained from the site.  And you’re absolutely right!

You’re right, that is, if you think Twitter is a social networking site.  But it’s not!  Twitter CEO Evan Williams said recently that Twitter isn’t a social network, it’s an information network.  Indeed, twitter is a fantastic opportunity for organizers to quickly and efficiently push out information to a self-selected audience that has explicitly indicated an interest in hearing what you have to say about your event.  When a dancer follows your event on twitter, it’s like they’ve set-up a “red phone” directly from you to them and are saying, “Send me all the important details, right here!”

Think of the opportunities for “tweeting” out information: “Early bird registration is now up!”, “Sign up soon, only 5 early-bird spots left”. “We’ve picked the dates for MOJO-LX 2011.  Going to be on May 1.  Mark your calendars!”, “Housing is full but we have a waiting list. Go sign up if still homeless.”, “Just booked an awesome band!! Can’t mention their name yet but you will enjoy!”  The opportunities for building buzz and keeping your event in people’s minds is endless.

And the beauty of twitter is that once a dancer has opened the communication channel by following you on twitter, you can dissemenate information at will.  For an annual event, there really is no excuse to not have a twitter account specifically for your event.  Your “follow Foobar Lindy Exchange on Twitter” link should be on every page on your site and at the bottom of every email/forum post about your event.  Even if your event is still in the infancy of it’s planning stages and you don’t have your site built, you should at least have a page that says “Website coming soon.  Follow us on Twitter.”

People want to dance and want to know what dance events are happening.  But they don’t want to have to go hunting for information.  They don’t want to have to remember that your event is in about 7 months so they can remember to check the forum to find out when registration opens so they can remember to actually go signup and snag a cheap pass.  Make it easy on them by allowing them to open a channel of communication where you can unintrusively give them exactly what information they need, exactly when they need it.

So if your event doesn’t have a twitter page, go signup for one now!  And be sure to follow @danceweekend so I can follow your event and keep track of the important details.

Oops, I forgot to mention that for an example of an event that is already using twitter, check out DCLX on twitter. DCLX obviously “gets it” when it comes to everything Lindy Exchange and it’s no wonder they’re one of the best swing dance events around.  Emulate the best!