It’s Fringe Festival season in Canada.

Fringe Festivals, and performing artists, rely on clever marketing and promotions to spread the word about their attractions.

Social media provides an inexpensive alternative to traditional arts marketing. Klout, a platform for rating and ranking social media exposure, is a good tool to examine which festivals are successfully leveraging social media.

Below is some data I gathered in June of 2013. It provides a baseline to review how the Fringe Festivals augment their social media authority during the 2013 festival season.

In October, once the festival season is over, I’ll review the data and update it with new Klout scores.

Klout is quickly becoming a tool companies use to connect with “influencers” who help spread the word about their offerings.

For example, American Airlines and Cathay Pacific offer exclusive airport lounge access to people with high Klout scores.

Canadian theatres aren’t yet making such bold offers, but some theatres, including Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre, have experimented with social media by creating “Tweet Seats,” allowing patrons to live-tweet during performances.

I wrote a story in the Huffington Post about the impact of social media on theatre, asking the question “Will a series of Facebook “Likes” or glowing tweets have the power to make or break one of the many shows being presented this summer?”

It’s still too early to answer that question, in the meantime here’s a breakdown of the Canadian Fringe Festival Klout scores*.

The List

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*The data was collected in early June 2013.

Previous post in this series:
The Theatre Experience Begins and Ends Online
Are Broadway Grosses Down Due to Discounts?
Three Proven Tactics to Increase Subscriptions
Who uses Twitter?
Engagement converts followers