PUBLICITY

Publicity Committee Report

9 November 2014

Publicity Committee members: Alicia Weimer, Jeff Saxton, Jim Gartner, Jim King, Joanne Cronin, John Lamb, Michael Mitsch, Nancy Kelner, Pam Robinson, Pat Brangs, Paul Fisher, Loretta Brooks, Susan Lembo, Jean Scully and Cathy Ballard

Webmaster Report – John Lamb

The website is alive and well, with little out of the ordinary required this past month.

Getaway is considering hosting their own site on wix.com. I have informed Mark Schaffer that, should they do so, we can provide a link to their site but not guarantee technical support for it. If Charles Lamb is agreeable, Mark would like him to continue his fine work on the Getaway web presence in whatever form it takes. I have suggested that Mark also consult with Liz Pagan, who did the graphic design forfolkproject.org, to coordinate selection of colors, fonts and graphic elements so that any new site that he may design presents a consistent brand image with our own. In my opinion, wix.com provides an excellent user interface to allow quick design of simple websites for those with no coding experience. The downsides are the cost (our current web hosting is provided for free), the lack of email support (although that will not be needed as Getaway email can still be run through folkproject.org) and that the wix.com editor program requires the files it produces to be hosted there. Should the Getaway site ever wish to move to a different host or come back to folkproject.org, any design done at wix.comcould prove very difficult to duplicate and maintain elsewhere.

As always, many thanks to Charles, Lori and Allan. Please direct questions, suggestions and comments to webmaster@folkproject.org

Facebook Report – Pam Robinson

The biggest news on FaceBook as it relates to The Folk Project is that the photo album that I posted on Nov 1 of the Minstrel's Halloween show has "organically" reached over 3,000 people. (please note that there were 73 photos posted). (see attachment)

The next most seen post was a photo of Yankee Caravan, that Andy Koenig took the same evening and posted to the FPs page, it was seen by over 750 people.

In October, the Minstrel Grams as posts on the FPs page were seen by between 135 and 280 people depending on the week.

Twitter Report – Jean Scully

Pending

Report From “The Chair” – Paul Fisher

The committee continues to function smoothly, getting out releases as needed when the chair provides them on time.

Post-Getaway recovery has been slow for a lot of our members, but things continue to move.

We continue to pick up new outlets and adapt to changes in existing ones.

Susan has continued working radio ideas but at a lower intensity than pre-Getaway, where she was working very hard.

Nancy continues to be very helpful with ideas, suggestions and reminders and the committee continues to function well. She has offered some of her expertise to the Livingston Symphony Orchestra in how to better do publicity. She also consulted with Mike on his press release for the CD Release Party.

Was there any discussion last month of how to reach out to the festivals in the towns (Chatham, Madison and Morristown come to mind)?

Other news:

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Online

· The Minstrel continues to be frequently listed among the Top Ten Monthly Events by the Morris County Tourism Bureau.

◦ Grover got a big write-up there.

· Folk Project events listed on northjersey.com

· All of our events were posted to the northjersey.com calendar.

· It was noted that publicity@folkproject.org has been getting hit with a lot of spam emails lately. The web team provided suggestions on how to mitigate the annoyance using gmail, which filters it effectively. This continues to be a problem.

In Print

· Listings were seen in a number of local outlets.

· Bill Nutt published a big article on Grover's show.

Working with Performers and Their Publicists

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On the Radio

· Grover was interviewed on WDVR.

Other Items

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