What is Fringe Festival you ask? If we could sum it up in one word: amazing. Since it’s conception in 1989, Fringe Festival has aimed to support local artists by providing them with a platform to create theatre for the people, by the people. Today it is Ontario’s biggest theatre festival, showcasing over 150 plays at over 30 different venues in downtown Toronto throughout the month of July.
With so many great submissions from local artists all over, the festival has also made its fair share of success stories. Ever heard of the Toronto-based comedy show Kim’s Convenience? Probably not before Fringe Festival attendees did back in 2011 where it originally made its debut as a Fringe play. After receiving critical acclaim it was picked up by CBC as a comedy series, and is making it’s way to the big spotlight on the Broadway stage later this year!
But now it’s time to get to the real meat and potatoes of this post, which is why you (the artist) should be using Twitter to promote your play and create conversations around your work. Here are 5 ways you can promote your Fringe show on Twitter so that you can get your audience to come out and see it in person.
1. Create a Twitter Account for Your Show
Create an entire account for just my play? That sounds like a lot of work, isn’t that a bit much? NO. [Tweet “Creating an account for your work shows that it is something to be taken seriously and that it is a play worth tweeting about.”] It also gives your audience a platform to reach out to while funnelling dialogue to one location rather than only relying on your cast members to drive the conversation.
When creating your account, be sure to show off what the play is about! Include the name of your play in the bio along with a short description, as well as dates and times when it will be showing. Then make sure to promote, promote, promote! Use your personal page to promote this account page and let your castmates know to do the same. This is a sure-fire way to get your play the coverage it deserves.
2. Follow the Fringe Hashtag
Following the #FringeTO hashtag is an excellent way to constantly see what others are talking about in regards to events, plays, and the Fringe Festival itself. This gives you a great opportunity to add value to conversations, engage with other artists, and meet potential fans of your work!
Be sure to like, comment, and share with others, but be careful not to try and be too “salesy” when it comes to telling others about your play. Only promote your show when it seems appropriate. If someone is tweeting about how they lost their sunglasses at the festival and how it really bummed them out, promoting your show is a no no, but if someone is asking about play recommendations or looking for a specific genre that your play would fit into, then promote away!
3. Create a Custom Hashtag for Your Show
This one’s pretty straightforward. Creating a custom hashtag (usually as simple as #nameofyourplay) allows for dialogue to have a clear focus and for conversations around your play to be easily found through a standard hashtag search.
Additionally, the custom hashtag is a great way to run contests related to your play and to get people participating and engaging. Ideas could range from random tweet draws to photo contests where the hashtag must be used by every participant who enters.
4. Don’t be Afraid to Promote Your Show Online
Going back to the “promote, promote, promote” advice from earlier, this is a big one to take note of. [Tweet “Promoting your show should be just about as important as the show itself.”] Make graphics, share behind the scenes footage, show reviews and do whatever else you can think of to get your show in people’s minds and in front of people’s eyes.
Make your show personable and really let it come to life on Twitter. Let fans get to know your cast members, show them powerful or memorable quotes from the performance itself, and use writing in your tweets that encourage fans to retweet. These examples just scrape the surface of what you can do to promote your show, but whatever you do, be sure to keep everything consistent and true to your play’s image.
5. Build a Twitter List of Fringe-Worthy Followers
Last but certainly not least, building a Twitter list is a great tool that takes up hardly any time. Twitter has an AMAZING feature that lets you group together people/accounts that fit into similar segments or “lists” as they call it. You can then easily access these lists and see everyone who’s in it all at once.
Twitter Lists
So how would you use this feature to your advantage? By compiling a list of Fringe Festival organisers, supporters, performers and sponsors of course! This is a fantastic way to easily engage with fellow Fringer’s tweets and consistently be aware of all happenings related to the Fringe Festival.
And there you have it, 5 simple yet extremely effective ways to stay ahead of the promotion game when it comes to promoting your play this year. These tips shouldn’t replace all your marketing efforts, but it sure beats busking and handing out flyers all day; Happy Fringe 2017!