How Choreographing Prepares You to Be a Social Media Strategist

Devon Hopkins — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:04:41 +0000

You may have noticed that I have not written here for the past few months. I want to tell you about what I’ve been doing! This semester I am completing a research project on how social and new media technologies are affecting choreography in the dance world.

I have been working the past two months with a group of six dancers to create a 10 minute performance/installation which explores Facebook as a virtual space and method of communication. The piece incorporated projections, live interactions with social networks, and a choreographed flash mob that was organized through Facebook and Youtube. I’ll put some clips from the performance up soon!

Being a dance major with six months left before I enter the real world of graduated folks, I am constantly asked “So are you going to dance professionally next year?” When I say that no, in fact I’m planning on working in social media strategy, I generally receive a look that can be characterized by a mixture of surprise, interest, and pity. “But how?” they exclaim! I could go on for hours on how dancing has prepared me extremely well to do almost anything (maybe not molecular biology), but instead, I’ll leave you with five things I learned in the past few months from choreographing a 10-minute dance.

1. How to organize a flash mob

We’ve all seen the viral videos of choreographed flash mobs on Youtube (Central Station Antwerp, Liverpool, Samsung). When I saw these, my initial reaction was “THAT IS SO COOL.”

After I calmed down a bit, I started to think about how the choreographers could have possibly organized their mobs. Most of these types of flash mobs are backed by large marketing firms with big budgets for some kind of a commercial. However, with the power of social media, anyone with a video camera and a social network can organize a flash mob. In just 4 days, I got 30-40 people to be part of my dance and learn two minutes of simple choreography.

2. How to effectively market a performance using social media

I’ve written about 5 Ways Facebook Can Help Promote Your Event, and this performance let me put those methods into practice. With three nights of performances, over 330 people viewed the dance piece. By collaborating with other dancers in the flash mob, I was able to harness the power of their networks as well as my own.

3. How to manage a group of performers and collaborators to create a final product

Part of social media strategy is creating interactive campaigns in order to reach a specific goal. In a sense, that is exactly what I have been doing these past few months. I worked with a team of six dancers and two visual collaborators to deliver a message to hundreds of viewers. We thought about what was relevant to our audience, put together a final product (or dance) that addressed those ideas, and delivered it to them.

4. How social media can be used to enhance messages

Social media is that thing right now that everyone uses but most people don’t really think about. We take it for granted that we can effectively stalk people we haven’t spoken to in four years or chat with someone online while sitting three feet away from them in real life. Making something viral is about capitalizing on something that no one has noticed or paid much attention to yet everyone knows is true.

To do this, I had discussions with my dancers about some of the things we all do on Facebook that are actually pretty bizarre (unfriending someone?). We then incorporated those things with both live movement and visual projection into the dance.

5. How individuals use Facebook

In order to prepare for this dance, we researched how individuals use Facebook and how Facebook profiles grow. I had each of my dancers start from scratch, create a brand new profile, and spend ten minutes a day on it. We collected information on how they were using the site, who they were interacting with, and what kinds of observations they made. This rich source of information helped us shape the dance so that it was both accessible and engaging to a wide range of audience members. I think the best compliment I received was from one of my professors who only said, “I’m totally going to friend you when I get home.” Awesome.

The message I’m trying to send is to be creative when it comes to your learning. There is no one way to go about your education so be sure to look for opportunities in places you wouldn’t expect. For me, that place was choreographing a dance piece.

Photo credit: All photos by Teague Hopkins.

Why Artists Need Social Media

Devon Hopkins — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:14:33 +0000

This is my first blog post. I’ve shied away from the idea in the past because of something I think all artists have: self-doubt. Because we grow up in a highly competitive atmosphere, we are constantly questioning ourselves: “Why do I deserve to do this?” and “Why should I succeed over that person?” What I have come to realize is “Who cares?” You probably aren’t unique, but even if you are, it doesn’t really matter. The focus should not be on whether or not you deserve to succeed, it should be on how you can succeed with the skills that you have. That’s where social media comes into play.

No one cares how good you are if they don’t know who you are. From a very early age, in any art form (dance in my case), we are taught that the only way to survive in the world of art is to be the best. “Do you think people will pay to see that pirouette?!” “You think you can fill seats with that documentary?” We are constantly pushed to be the “best”, when in reality, many of the best artists fail. So You Think You Can Dance just started its 5^th season and after auditioning thousands of dancers over 5 years, they are still finding exceptional talent, enough so that the show is already auditioning dancers for a 6^th season in the fall. There is an endless pool of talented artists in all fields and your job is not to be better than your peers. Your job is to get noticed first.

Thousands of people are competing for the same success that you are. Marketing yourself effectively is about making people remember who you are in a crowd of people. I recently got to work with a choreographer, let’s call her Anya. After college, Anya knew that she didn’t have the years of technical training necessary to become a well-paid professional dancer, so she decided to try out choreography. She, like dozens of other dance hopefuls moved to New York, put together a show, and invited critics and members of the dance community to view it. She, unlike the dozens of other dance hopefuls, fed her audience food and got them drunk on cheap alcohol, convincing them it was “part of her Estonian background.” Was it illegal? Probably. But by marketing herself and turning her art into an event, she enjoyed consistent rave reviews while most of her hopeful dance buddies did not.

Art is not just about creating something. It is about effectively sharing that something with a larger community. Anya acknowledges that she is not the best dancer now, nor was she ever in high school, college, or in her graduate experience. Yet now Anya is a very successful professor at one of the best liberal arts schools in the nation. How? She knew how to market herself and her works. What Anya did to make her art look like more than just another post-modern dance piece, you can do using social media. With all the social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Blogger, Digg, Flickr, Youtube) freely accessible, it is now your job to distinguish yourself from all the other artists doing what you do. Independent artists and labels won half of this year’s grammy awards, due in part, no doubt, to their talent, but also to their access to and skilled use of online social resources. It’s easier now than ever to make a name for yourself, by yourself.

“How?” you might ask. Well, that’s what I’m here to tell you. Subscribe so you won’t miss my next post.

Note: Originally published on StillIndie.com