Building your audience with new apps

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For years, the crowdfunding model has been at the helm of innovative new ways to engage and connect with audiences, creating genuine exchange and providing sustainable new ways to source funding.

Even the government is pledging to make it easier to access crowdsourced equity funding. In a budget otherwise riddled with grave implications for artists and arts organisations, Treasury has cut the red tape when it comes to becoming a public company in order to access equity funding, setting aside $7.8 million over four years to implement a new regulatory framework for crowdsourced funding.

But what’s new for audience engagement beyond collecting dollars? Apparently it’s in the palm of your hand. From attracting global audiences from the comfort of your living room, to spreading the news of an upcoming gig like wildfire via social media, here’s some of the most the most innovative new apps that artists and arts organisations should be leveraging.

Periscope

One of the most moving things about attending a concert or theatre production in the real world is the element of spontaneity and being able to witness a performer in the moment, reacting to their environment and audience.

Real time video streaming apps have offered a way to discover such moments through other eyes. Labelled the ‘next-level Twitter,’ Periscope is the closest thing to teleportation. Once you’ve downloaded the app, you can broadcast live footage via your smartphone to any of your Twitter followers who happen to be online at the time. Similarly, you can view other people’s streams as they’re recording them.

Meerkat also offers similar functionality. The instantaneous nature and global reach of the app has been herald as changing the way we consume breaking news, but it can also present exciting opportunities for the arts. Audiences are able to tune in real time to concerts in a living room, or spontaneous street performances, gigs, or have a tour of a gallery on the other side of the globe.

Claire Matthews and Les Merquita of music duo One Hat Town recently hosted a gig in their living room, streaming it on Periscope and attracting over 400 audiences members. For an emerging act, engaging an audience of that size would be a rare circumstance. Live streaming allows amateur and professional acts alike to find new audiences and bypass expensive venue hire.

Download Periscope for Apple
Download Meerkat for Android
Download Meerkat for Apple

Crowdfire

We all know that leveraging social media is one of the best marketing tools and strategies to engage with your audience. While there are dozens of practical tips and tricks that artists can use to get noticed on social media, Crowdfire is an app that lets you zoom in on your existing audience base to help generate retweets, build a good following, and share valuable content on a regular basis.