I say most useful because I wanted to separate out things that can be acted on, resources/measurements that can be explored, impactful facts and figures, and new “lightbulb ideas.”  A big thank you to these great posters for posting meaty tweets – If you like something you see, follow the author on Twitter. Up next, the same from the TCG Conference. So here goes, from oldest (pre-conference) to newest (end of conference) order…

My picks for the 50 top tweets from AFTA 2011

1. @twocitygirl What I’m really getting from #AFTA11 is that temporary public art is the way to go.

2. @sparkoc Not attending @Americans4Arts Convention in San Diego #afta11 ? – You can still attend keynotes on FREE live webcast! http://conta.cc/kmEroP

3. @DDombrosky My list of tech resources for arts managers can be found at http://bit.ly/artstech #AFTA11

4. @ansteady Matt Lehrman recommends 2 books for understanding technology: DREAMING IN CODE & GROUNDSWELL. Good laypersons guides. #afta11

5. @FJavierTorres Check out the IMPACTFUL video from this Public Matters Project: http://ow.ly/1tQjk0 #AFTA11 #FOODEQUITY Market Makeovers

6. @FJavierTorres Another Fantastic Public Matters project that helps you see the change in community over time: http://ow.ly/5jLmi #AFTA11

7. @teaoranges Markusen and Gadwa’s Creative Placemaking study: http://t.co/rAggde5 #afta11

8. @FrameDance Higher than I would have guessed @artfulmanager: NEA festival study: 76% of festivals pay their artists. #afta11

9. @createquity +1: This is why we need independent interpretation. RT @artfulmanager: Why does arts research so often sound like talking points? #afta11

10. @ArtsAdvocate_MD How can we work to turn this around? RT @shewhotravels: 22% of businesses expect their arts giving to decrease this year #afta11

11. @wassilyk #afta11 kickstarter soon to introduce curated pages… Organizations will pick fave projects to back

12. @saharjavedani Acevedo states our need for “Inter-culturalism” understanding one’s own culture through the lens of others’ #cultures #afta11

13. @saharjavedani Acevedo gives shout out to @philaculture for reports on Cultural Engagement Index http://t.co/4wzP0hR #afta11

14. @MAinArtsMgt #afta11 Great positive findings on the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project survey SNAAP. Check their website: http://t.co/3PL877Y

15. @wassilyk #afta11 kickstarter, cross-social media promo critical, 40% of unsuccessful projects get 0 pledges

16. @SAHEARTS Kickstarter most common pledge is $25. People like to be a part of the project. “backing a project” #afta11

17. @MNCITIZEN majority of outdoor festivals (77%) occur in towns with less than 250,000 ppl, 60% are free, most held in easily accessed locations #AFTA11

18. @artfulmanager Up first at research session: NEA study of outdoor arts festivals. #afta11 http://1.usa.gov/iH7uMA

19. @IrenicImplement @Americans4Arts….loving the QR code on the button…you just gave me a new idea for our membership drive #afta11

20. @jesskstern Monterey Arts Council starts license plate program to raise $40M for arts ed. Kudos to oregon cultural trust for theirs as well! #afta11

21. @SheWhoTravels Did U know that every tweet ever made is archived @ Library of Congress? Good reason to never tweet pics of yr body parts #AFTA1

22. @ansteady Public art doesn’t have to be expensive. SnoWaffle cost $40: http://ow.ly/5jwHd #AFTA11

23. @MNCITIZEN Good advice: RT @APAP365 “If you’re at…#AFTA11 or any conference this summer, here’s why (& how) you should tweet: http://t.co/Cbm1JjG”

24. @MNCITIZEN 34% of arts EDs expect to leave the job in the next 2 years. 10% within the next 12 months #AFTA11

25. @MNCITIZEN Only 32% of arts EDs are hired from outside the organization, the rest are founders or from board or staff #AFTA11

26. @GordonJayFrost The #afta11 sessions on #philanthropy will be available on-demand: http://t.co/id3vwYc

27. @SheWhoTravels Go Marcus! RT“@artfulmanager Sidewalk Poetry project in St. Paul. Turning concrete into canvas. Wow. #afta11 http://t.co/b6mcrgK”

28. @trishamead oooh. Direct link to mobil-ready video trailer? I’m thinking how to maximize QR code on coffee s hop poster, i.e. #2amt #afta11

29. @crystalewallis oooh! RT @wkradio: #AFTA11 DO NOT be fooled into using QR Codes >>> Excellent design will always transmit more information. #techfads

30. @teaoranges Prof. dev: Seeking mentors *and* becoming a mentor to others in the field is key to building and elevating everyone’s skills. #afta11

31. @artfulmanager Interesting view of ‘creativity’ as the intersection of originality and impact (PDF file) #afta11 http://bit.ly/krGunP

32. @lisa_hoang Whoa. RT @ArtsAdvocate_MD: Federal Funding for the arts is $0.02 for every $100 of non-military discretionary spending (2009) #AFTA11

33. @PAArchive Hot topic at #AFTA11: the arts as an economic generator in cities that have a high percentage of vacant buildings.

34. @NPAConvention Keep it simple, simple, simple: MT @fjaviertorres: Krug’s 3 laws of web usability: http://ow.ly/5kteT #AFTA11 #NPAC

35. @SparkOC There are about 110,000 nonprofit arts orgs out of 1.4 million nonprofits nationwide #afta11

36. @FJavierTorres Grt infographic on Twitter vs Facebook usage: http://ow.ly/1tRIEl #AFTA11 Which 1 works better 4 ur fundraising/online relationship building

37. @FJavierTorres Old truth remains true in fundraising: “People give to people!” #AFTA11

38. @namac Trend rising: donors who prefer to give online tend to not want to give any other way and will get peeved if you try! #afta11

39. @ArtsMendo Downward trend in share of population attending art event but volunteerism and personal creation shows an upward trend. #afta11

40. @SparkOC In 2009 41% of nonprofit arts orgs operated at a deficit. #afta11

41. @Americans4Arts @richmintz tells us about his experiences working with @Americans4Arts on ARTSBlog http://t.co/Rs7uCdS #afta11

42. @NPAConvention MT @diasporavibe @pllorenzo: Sharing-Cool Web Apps for Arts & Cultural Organizations #marketing #arts http://t.co/vvo33e3 #afta11 @SDAFF

43. @artfulmanager Managing Media Mayhem session: to track journalists and bloggers online, visit muckrack.com #afta11

44. @saharjavedani Here’s NEFA’s Cultural Count Database http://t.co/O1j9ac6 #afta11

45. @MsRubyC Want to encourage resistant staff members to use new tech? Put it in the review process, where relevant. Heavy handed? Maybe. #afta11

46. @artpride How do you keep up w/ constantly changing technology? Evaluate the tech. you use annually and do your research #afta11

47. @pllorenzo Audioboo: Inspired http://boo.fm/b389975 #afta11 #arts #sandiego

48. @gerlie_irvine Ben Cameron, Doris Duke Foundation – Could sustainability be enemy of adaptability? #afta11

49. @artfulmanager Funny that ‘continuous partial attention’ is a curse for some & a goal for others. At #afta11 it’s the only option. http://bit.ly/7TBhhx

50. @RinglingCollege #afta11 Fischer #SeaWorld notes recent quote “facts don’t persuade people, emotions do”

Like this post? Please share it with others who you think might benefit from it, via the links below, and subscribe via email orRSS to receive future updates. Ron Evans is an arts marketing and consumer psychology researcher, and principal consultant at Groupofminds.com Arts Marketing Consultants in Sunnyvale, CA, USA. He helps arts audiences increase their understanding, appreciation, and frequency of attendance through innovative uses of technology.

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I usually write from the perspective of helping arts organizations in a promotional aspect, and I wanted to change lanes for a moment and talk about Twitter use by arts administrators as individuals who may be struggling with “why.”

“Why do I want to use Twitter?”

“What’s the point of knowing what somebody had for lunch? I really don’t care.”

“I followed everybody and now I can’t handle all the tweets.” (Or “twits,” perhaps if you’re referring the the people who tweet stupid things.)

To help answer these questions and more, I’m going to tell you a bit about how I use Twitter. Now, I’m coming from the perspective of using Twitter as a professional and artistic resource, not just another place to gab. More on that below.

1. Use Twitter as a human filter.

Many of you are I’m sure aware of Google Alerts, which is a service by Google that will deliver content via email to you, based on the keywords you select. I use Google Alerts to bring me all sorts of information. As an example, Google sends me alerts based on the keyword “Arts Marketing.” Most of the time, what is sent to me as something to do with the arts. But sometimes, Google does its best and sends me webpages about “Martial Arts Marketing” since it contains the keywords I told it to look for. That’s a little annoying, and I’m sure I could enter more information into Google to get it to subtract “martial” from any searches, but the point is, Google is programmatic and brings back literal results without any consideration to how valuable it will really be to me. Kung-fu is great, but not in my inbox when I was looking for something else.

My Twitter friends however, are smart. They come across a ton of interesting arts articles each day, they scan them, and then tweet about them on Twitter to spread the word. I do the same. Suddenly, I have a “human search engine network” of people that only pass along the really cool arts stuff that is exactly what I am looking for. That saves me time sorting through stuff that doesn’t matter, and fosters collaboration.

But what if your friends are tweeting things you’re not interested in? That’s simple.

2. Only follow people that post content you’re interested in.

The idea that you should follow everybody that follows you on Twitter is just a recipe for information overload. I’m sure you’ve seen people with 15000 followers, who are following 15000 people. How can you realistically keep track of the constant updates of 15000 people? It’s not possible and you shouldn’t waste your time trying it. I’ve always thought its a little rude actually — since I know the person is following 15000 folks, how important are my individual posts to them? Not very. So, follow those people who provide information you’re interested in most of the time, so that you can really use Twitter as a resource for information.

3. 90% of your posts should be information that is useful to those that follow you.

The lunch updates, the random quotes, the posts that don’t mean anything — just don’t post them. People follow other people for useful information, and I ruthlessly unfollow people who don’t post useful content or who I’m not personally connected to. On the flip side, I try to make each one of my Twitter posts link to an interesting article, useful website, great statistic or other resource that arts folks will find helpful. Cut the noise — make your posts helpful, and don’t follow folks who’s posts aren’t helpful to you.

4. Only use about 120 characters in each post, which leaves room for others to retweet.

Twitter gives you 140 characters, which I know is short. But for people to be able to pass your tweet on to their networks, they need to be able to “quote the source” and mention @groupofminds or @yourname or whatever as the originator of the tweet. If you use all of the available space for your message, there won’t be room for them to add their footnote. This drastically reduces the viral-marketing aspect of your tweets. Just use the Twitter character counter to tell you when you’ve used up 120 characters, and leave the rest.

5. Use a url shortener.

I’d like to hug the person who invented url shortners — you may have heard of one of the most popular: http://tinyurl.com. A url shortener is just that — it takes a really long url such as:

http://groupofminds.com/articles/arts-marketing/dear-facebook-want-a-new-revenue-stream-that-will-help-arts-marketing/685

and makes a shortcut to it that lives permanently on the web, that looks something like:

http://tinyurl.com/n4s7lw

because a shorter url means fewer characters used in Twitter. Pretty smart eh? There are many url shortening sites; a quick search of Google will reveal a bunch of them.

Twitter can be extremely useful to arts administrators, as a way to keep up with people they respect in the field, and as a source of knowledge about trends in the arts. With these simple rules of the road, you’ll be able to tame the Twitter information overload beast, and really get to using the system for the elegant communication it was designed to create.

Ron

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