Social Media Tips From The Roxy In Hollywood

The Roxy Theater on Hollywood's famed Sunset Strip has long been a prime venue for acts of all sizes and genres, regardless of their level of success. But like so many other venues, it met with some challenges during the tough years of the financial crisis. Owner Nic Adler decided to turn to social networking to breathe some new live into the club, and did so with resounding success.

Lydia Dishma interviewed Nic Adler for Fast Company and he revealed his tips for using social media. I found this part of the interview on the ever excellent Hypebot blog.

(1) Be Early To Be Influential

"It is this land grab that's happening. If you are on early you can move your base. By the time it becomes an awesome network to be on, you are already at 20K followers."

(2) Keep Moving

"If you miss a beat they've passed you by, so be everywhere. That is why we find ourselves in so many different networks. If we were just on Myspace we'd only be talking to a small group. If we spread out we have a better opportunity to reach more people."

(3) Forget Search. Discover

"I go on Pinterest without anything in mind, I'm just looking and discovering in this different mode...So say you are a business and you have this idea to find the best 20 beers, so you ask your fans. Then you build a new board of your followers' favorite beers and turn around and tweet that out. Your fans are then going to a place where all their ideas are visually placed with links."

(4) Be Generous

"It's about watching that feed and seeing someone tweet, 'Hey I'm broke but I wish I could go to that show,' and I'll turn around and say, 'Hey you are on the list plus one.'...It's better than a contest. It's not something we do every day but the response is amazing."

(5) Be Authentic

"Being authentic and organic are the two biggest things we talk about at The Roxy. It's about a slow build and being honest, and if we are wrong we are honest about that, too. When we are wrong and we make it right, those are almost the most important marketing moments we have at The Roxy."

(6) Change The Way You Think About ROI

"For us, Facebook is more about communication and awareness than trying to get people in the door. People use Facebook as this tool for selling, but more of our content is about music, food, TV...More than 50% of fans might not ever come to The Roxy but we all have this interest in music and pop culture in common."

As with all social media promotion, what works for The Roxy might not work for you, but then again it just might. Especially take note of #6. Too many times we try to measure our promotion by the amount of sales, but sometimes it's more about communication to your fanbase that's important.

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