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Drawing Fans into a Digital Conversation
From its quirky beginnings in 1963, the Coconut Grove Arts Festival is today recognized as the largest outdoor fine arts festival in the country. This signature event boasts a longer history than most others in Miami, and while it has enthusiastically watched the city it calls home develop over the years, Miami's expanding cultural scene has also created one of the most competitive winter art seasons in the region.
After five years of providing the organization with traditional public relations services, the Arts Festival turned to Kiskinis Communications in 2011 to amplify its voice across social media platforms and maintain dialogue with its longtime, loyal fans in advance of its 50th Anniversary celebration in February 2013.
Prior to the organization's golden jubilee, Kiskinis Communications worked alongside the organization's staff members to outline key talking points, research preferred conversation topics of the Arts Festival's target audiences and establish benchmarks for evaluation.
Kiskinis Communications' intimate knowledge of the Coconut Grove Arts Festival along with the agency's proven experience in working with national, regional and local media to develop story angles that introduce people to the arts has helped us to maintain our ranking as the #1 outdoor arts festival in the nation. Your commitment to detail and helping us to achieve our marketing goals has made working with you these past 10 years a true pleasure.
Designing a strategic social media calendar, Kiskinis Communications was able to heavily engage with platform users beginning 40 days in advance of the event. The agency fully planned, created and implemented captivating content the client wanted to convey and that users wanted to read. Social media sites showcased participating artists in creative, varied forms, and also spanned important sub-topics such as entertainment, culinary, merchandise and sponsor integration. Additionally, Kiskinis Communications developed and executed interactive prize contests to enrich active viewership, while maintaining memorable experiences with fans of years past in honor of the upcoming anniversary.
The Arts Festival's social media campaign proved successful. By the end of the 2013 event, the organization received direct responses from 16,564 unique users, earned nearly 6,500 new followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and attained an average virality rate of 4 percent – all based from self-produced, non-paid media content.
Most importantly, as the Arts Festival's social media numbers grew, so did its attendance. With social networks abuzz before and during the event, the 2013 Coconut Grove Arts Festival experienced one of its best attendances dates on record and an improved social media presence allowed it to once again remain ahead of the competition.