Introduction
The Glens Centre in Manorhamilton, County Leitrim, Ireland, is a cultural and performing arts venue. The company was established in 1995, and the non-profit now calls a former Methodist church home (The Glens Centre, n.d.). The center offers a variety of artistic programs in the areas of music, theater, dance, visual arts, and literature in order to foster and grow the local arts and culture. The organization is a non-profit charitable corporation whose operations are overseen by a board of directors. As part of its dedication to the neighborhood, the Glens Centre hosts various outreach and education events for local institutions and residents. The group collaborates with artists from all across the country and the world to provide exciting and thought-provoking shows to audiences of all ages.
The social media audit will be conducted in this analysis to understand how this organization and its competitors reach the overall audience. The social media pages will be taken from Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, the three most popular social networks. This analysis will be conducted to find inspiring ideas to change the content plan in the Glens Centre social media.
Content
The main content of Glens Center’s social networks is event announcements. For example, it can be music concerts, film screenings, and comedy shows. It should be noted that it is not entirely charity organization because tickets for all events are sold for 17 to 22 euros. A review of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook showed that all social networks publish almost the same content. There are usually 3-4 posts on Facebook and Instagram each week, which may be distributed unequally throughout the week. As for Twitter, the Glens Center often retweets posts of the center’s visitors. It seems that for the older generation, it can be difficult to use these pages since the text on the pictures is usually in small font. However, the information is written in an approachable, educational, and interesting manner, with a strong encouragement to participate in events and donate to the cause.
The Dock Arts Center is one of the competitors in the market of outdoor entertainment. The schedule of this center is different because it mostly focuses on promoting arts and classical music. The content consists of exhibition and concert announcements and links to the media which write about activities at the Dock Center. Posts are published with higher regularity than the Glens Center social networks. In average, there are approximately 11-12 posts per week in Facebook and 8-9 posts in Instagram and Twitter. What makes Dock Center’s networks peculiar is the emphasis on the progressive agenda and social justice. For example, the International Women’s Day event will be devoted to the experience and identity of African American women living in the Northwest of Ireland (Mayock, 2023). In addition, some posts are written in the Irish language, a feature absent in the social media of other cultural centers.
The last competitor that will be discussed here is Hawk’s Well Theater. In general, it is a theater hall in Sligo with a 340-seat capacity. The theater combines some serious cultural events, such as traditional music concerts and book presentations, with the 80s Icons Dance show (Hawk’s Well Theatre, 2023a). It is another active social media creator with 11-12 posts per week in Facebook, as well as in Instagram and Twitter. The accounts of this theater differ from the past in that content managers often add video material to event announcements. For example, videos may include musicians inviting guests to their concert in Hawk’s Well Theatre. Besides, it is evident that theater directors try to attract an audience of all generations.
To summarize, the three facilities described here have some common features in their content coverage. Firstly, all the content on their social media is devoted to the announcement of events. Hence, there are no additional materials not related to the shows and events happening inside these centers and concert halls. Secondly, it is common practice to use photos looking like a poster in publication posts. As a result, it may be difficult for some users to comprehend the information because of the questionable applicability of poster format in social network coverage. Finally, the number of posts was compared to understand how these centers differ (Figure 1). It showed that the Glens Centre should increase the number of its social media posts to be on a similar level to its competitors.
Engagement & Insights
The main problem with the audience engagement of the Glens Centre and its two competitors is the low level of interactions with posts. For example, it is an extremely rare occasion when the Glens Centre receives more than seven likes on any social media. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of Glens Centre’s tweets do not receive even one like or comment. The same problems, although to a lesser degree, are experienced by the Dock Arts Centre and Hawk’s Well Theater. Another problem is that all three facilities rarely interact with the audience because there are no comments under the posts. In addition, none of the facilities publish photos from the events, meaning visitors cannot see their photos after the events and interact with these galleries online.
The most popular content in all the cases is related to some social cause. It can be some charity event that refers to the communities of disabled people. For example, on the Hawk’s Well Theatre page, the majority of likes throughout the whole month received the post with a young person with autism spectrum disorder who helped distribute posters and fliers (Hawk’s Well Theatre, 2023b). In the cases of the Glens Centre and the Dock Arts Centre, it is hard to determine the most popular content because all the likes are distributed equally between posts. From this analysis, it is evident that ‘the daily routine’ of event announcements does not bring engagement to the audience. Nevertheless, there is a tendency that some off-topic information receives more likes and even comments. As it was with the post of the Dock Arts Centre, which announced the invitation of new artists to Art Residency (The Dock Arts Centre, 2023). Thus, it is a certain fact that more diversity in the content type may bring positive developments.
The last aspect to consider about audience engagement is the tone of the users engaged in discussions. Overall, the small sample size of comments in the social networks of all three facilities makes it impossible to consistently differentiate between the audience’s behavior patterns. Therefore, it is possible only to give general comments about the perceptions of these users. The audience at such cultural centers is extremely polite and sympathetic, which is evident in the frequent kind words towards artists, artists, and musicians. For example, users can share their expectations for an event or advise others. This creates an atmosphere of rapprochement between the inhabitants of one community because the possibility of interacting with each other in social networks can evolve into friendship in real life.
Planning
Based on the personal research, it may be said that locals, art lovers, and visitors make up the bulk of The Glens Centre’s and its rivals’ target audience on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook, being the most popular social media platform in Ireland, is the major source of announcements. It is entirely intended for the locals who want to visit some cultural events during their free time. Honestly speaking, it is hard to conceptualize how content on Instagram and Twitter differs from Facebook because the only difference is that content managers may forget to copy the materials from Facebook to other platforms. What is more, it is a problem to identify target audiences of different platforms because of the impossibility to access account data of these centers. Nevertheless, it seems that Instagram accounts for the larger proportion of content creators because this platform allows them to advertise their art.
The Glens Centre and its rivals use social media to spread awareness about their activities, interact with the neighborhood, and find new customers. In order to accomplish these goals, they need to diversify their content offering by increasing the proportion of editorial and user-generated material. They might utilize more pictures to advertise their events and entertainers. Such a qualitative change may become the driver of the higher popularity of this cultural facility. The organization has to build its social media strategy around the following objectives:
- Raise the number of people who follow and like the posts on social media.
- Get the followers and fans more involved by encouraging them to like, comment, and share content.
- Make sure that those who might benefit from The Glens Centre know about it.
- Motivate people to visit The Glens Centre’s website and boost ticket sales.
- Develop an audience for The Glens Centre’s products and inspire them to become dedicated followers.
The Glens Centre will need an effective social media strategy to realize its goals. Here are some suggestions for enhancing The Glens Centre’s online visibility via social media. The Glens Centre should prepare its social media postings in advance by creating a content calendar. For example, as Tytelova et al. (2021, p. 35) note, provincial cultural facilities must create a communication platform “not in the format of a list of events”. In other words, the Glens Centre should include criticism, off-topic posts, and popular culture news to become the place that unites many users. It will make it easier to maintain brand cohesion and speak directly to the people who follow the company’s social media accounts. Such an advice is applicable also to the Dock Arts Centre and Hawk’s Well Theater because the way how content is presented there is similar to the Glens Centre.
In addition, the Glens Centre should publish more often on its social media accounts, especially Instagram and Twitter. Daily posts may help keep the organization in the minds of its followers and boost participation. Glens Centre may also increase its social media presence by posting eye-catching images and videos. For instance, Hawk’s Well Centre regularly includes videos in its announcements which help the facility to receive more likes.
If the Glens Centre wants to increase engagement with its social media postings, it could include more visual material. The Glens Centre should interact with its followers by reading and replying to their comments and direct messages. It will aid in developing an enthusiastic following for the company’s products or services. To boost the exposure of social media postings, use hashtags. To expand the reach of the content The Glens Centre shares online, it should take advantage of trending hashtags. For example, the Dock Arts Centre actively uses hashtags (Figure 2). In order to expand its social media following, The Glens Centre could explore forming partnerships with other groups. As an example, one may team up with other cultural institutions, artists, or musicians to promote each other’s events and profiles on social media. Increase the exposure and audience reach with sponsored advertising on social media networks like Facebook and Instagram. Increasing awareness of forthcoming events and sales of tickets requires the Glens Centre to consider spending money on sponsored advertising.
Conclusion
In conclusion, The Glens Centre has become an important part of the cultural landscape of County Leitrim, Ireland. Their online activity is geared toward spreading the word about upcoming events, fostering relationships with locals, and luring in new viewers. The organization has a modest degree of involvement with its followers, and its content mix requires improvement by adding more non-promotional and community-based material, as well as including more visual components, as shown by an analysis of its social media content and engagement. Social media content and interaction must be regularly analyzed to verify that an organization’s social media strategy is in line with its objectives and target audience, allowing for revisions and the production of more successful material.
Reference List
Hawk’s Well Theatre (2023a) [Facebook]. Web.
Hawk’s Well Theatre (2023b) [Facebook] Web.
Mayock, B. (2023) [Facebook] Web.
The Dock Arts Centre (2023) [Facebook] Web.
Tytelova, L.G., Lisovitskaya, V.N., Shevchenko, E.S. and Shevchenko, V.D. (2021) ‘Communication strategies of provincial cultural facilities in digital environment,’ 2021 Communication Strategies in Digital Society Seminar proceedings. St. Petersburg, Russia, pp. 31-36.
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