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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 29, 2017 8:46:54 GMT
So being a bit of a Twitter novice (never been that fussed about it so never bothered to find the ins and outs) I only recently discovered the thing where you can get notifications for all tweets by someone. Innocently I switched it on for various things I’m interested in. Jesus. Some organisations don’t half thrash it don’t they? I would really quite like to hear interesting stuff from my local theatres, or the accounts of upcoming productions and tours but what I DONT want to see is every single positive tweet from every person who sees and enjoys a show retweeted onto my timeline and a notification shoved under my nose for it. Some of them, yes. Not EVERY SINGLE ONE!  The Palace and Opera House account in Manchester is a nightmare for it so they’ve been switched off now, and because I’m not an avid user I’ll no doubt miss anything interesting they may tweet in an amongst the ass-licking dross. I do realise that this is a marketing tool and the need to promote the show is important, but really? Cut down on the dross, you might get more followers who are genuinely interested in stuff instead of people just dismissing the 200th tweet about how great last nights show was. As for instagram... forget it. Closed that account completely. The utter DROSS that gets put on there is astonishing. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2017 9:19:17 GMT
You can set things up so you only see the theatre's own tweets - go to the theatre's twitter profile, click the three dots next to the "Following" button on the right, and select "Turn off retweets".
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19,803 posts
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 29, 2017 9:34:13 GMT
Ooh! Told you I was a novice!
I still think it’s ridiculous though, who do they think wants to see all that stuff?
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Post by Tibidabo on Oct 29, 2017 9:45:18 GMT
who do they think wants to see all that stuff? Oh, definitely people who are crossing the road in front of my car..... I'm with you on Twitter BB. Load of old bolleaux. |
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Post by shady23 on Oct 29, 2017 10:12:15 GMT
Some of the performers could do with going on the StageFaves "how to successfully tweet course" doing the rounds.
If someone tweets them saying they enjoyed the performance it would be great for them to reply and say thanks rather than retweet and say thanks. That just leads to your news feed being full of "aren't you wonderful tweets" and it does get a bit much!
The theatres retweets can be quite interesting though. If they're retweeting mundane lukewarm things like "that was good" out of desperation, it's usually a sign it is not that good.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2017 10:34:24 GMT
Nope... Only a couple of posts down and I’m already getting that feeling again, the one I used to feel in the fourth year at secondary school, when we had to do a Latin Taster course. Ablative absolutes. Gerundives. Ovid’s Metamophoses... And it all went nicely over my head while I used to hum the Overture to Jesus Christ Superstar (in my head.) I’m humming the Overture to Superstar now. What a cracking opening to a show...!  |
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Post by Tibidabo on Oct 29, 2017 10:39:25 GMT
Nice weather at this time of year so I hear... |
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Oct 29, 2017 12:24:25 GMT
What's embarrassing is when a theatre that doesn't normally tweet excessively suddenly going into overdrive for a particular production, and you know it's a turkey they're trying desperately to flog tickets for.
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Post by showgirl on Oct 29, 2017 15:44:16 GMT
What's embarrassing is when a theatre that doesn't normally tweet excessively suddenly going into overdrive for a particular production, and you know it's a turkey they're trying desperately to flog tickets for. Yes, as in tweets such as "tickets are selling fast for...." which I take to mean the opposite - especially as in most cases you can see this from the online booking system. On which point I notice the Donmar has tweeted a lot this season about Klaxon tix (and others) still being available, which we know they would not be if productions were selling well. |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 29, 2017 18:57:22 GMT
I have never been convinced that Twitter is a good way to sell tickets. It is a very blunt instrument to reach people who almost certainly won't see your key message because there is so much activity that it is very hard to guarantee a decent return.
In terms of mis-using social media, I think Facebook is often over-used or just used really badly. Quirky/funny pics of theatre staff doing something wacky won't make me want to buy tickets. It will, however, make me very likely to unfollow your page rapidly.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2017 19:08:00 GMT
I appreciate it when a theatre company I support and trust tweets a recommendation of the activity of another theatre company. I do heed these tweets, and occasionally they promote things of which I was utterly unaware.
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Post by bellboard27 on Oct 29, 2017 20:24:04 GMT
On tickets, one useful Twitter case is where theatres provide codes for last minute discounts. I’ve used these for bargains a couple of times for press night tickets at the Old Vic.
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Post by showgirl on Oct 30, 2017 4:36:30 GMT
Yes, like most things, Twitter has pros and cons. I've found it useful when needing to ask theatres about running times - though of course no use if they don't reply; you get to know which ones will and won't. On the other hand, even though I'm saying this for the umpteenth time, it shouldn't be necessary to ask: this crucial info should be on their website as soon as it's available, along with details of whether or not there's an interval.
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Post by Stasia on Oct 30, 2017 13:03:43 GMT
As person who both reads different theatres twitters' and used to run a few of them I see both sides. Not all people read their twitters every minute (and very few subscribe to notifications of your account), meaning they are missing quite a few of your tweets. Especially now when twitter is not very chronological. That's why they need a few of "Been there and loved it" - retweets so that they will pop in people's feed and remind of their shows. But some social media managers are definitely overestimating the patience of their readers (and have KPIs and just generally far from theatre life), so things do happen. I remember having a small twitter fight with the guy responsible for Once's twitter. When Ronan Keating started in Once, he RTed about 50 tweets praising him in a day or two! I personally did no more 3 RTs in a row no more than 2 times a day (meaning people were getting about 3-5 such tweets in total, balanced with some other stuff), and this is probably as much as I am ready to take from others, but I am usually turning off RTs for most of the theatres' accounts as they are obviously not as understanding as me  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2017 10:09:04 GMT
Not overdoing it per se but I just had a massive head-f*** when two theatres I follow who happen to have very similar logos were tweeting cast/production announcments side by side on my TL for two very different productions....it got confusing in a 'wait you got x actor and they're doing what play...oh wait that's the other one'
Critics/blog sites can be equally annoying. A local well-meaning but enthusiastic review site RT's more than any theatre I know. Meanwhile an offshoot of our former overlords does LOVE to tag reviewers in tweets which means I get 20 odd notifications for a production that's nowt to do with me.
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