Publicity

Publicity Committee members: Alicia Weimer, Deborah Graham, Eileen Napolitano, George Otto, Howard Goldman, Jean Scully, Jim Gartner, Jim King, Joanne Cronin, John Lamb, Loretta Brooks, Margaret Crowl, Michael Mitsch, Nancy Kelner, Olga Alvarez, Pam Robinson, Pat Brangs, Paul Fisher, Susan Lembo

Report From “The Chair” – Paul Fisher

Most of you will have heard by now that Jim King has been in the hospital. He made a special effort to have his son let us know that he would not be able to write his usual monthly press release. “The Chair” filled in and got it done. Most of all the Publicity Committee wishes Jim a speedy recovery.

Facebook

There was some discussion on the value of a new Facebook feature for non-profits. Pam reports the details so far in her report below.

Google AdWords

John Lamb sent out more information on using Google AdWords on February 12. He set up some sample ads and got some feedback from some members of the board on how to improve the ads. His report below gives details on the results so far, but to summarize, 6 percent of our website traffic last month can be attributed to “click-throughs” from the ads. That is good news!

Working with other media

The Publicity Committee continues to seek and experiment with new outlets. A lot of print media has gone over to pure web. We continue to use and share our newly enhanced TV & Radio outlet list.

Member Miriam Libove has taken advantage of this in promoting the Odessa Klezmer Band's appearance at the Minstrel coming up this week. She snagged an interview on WCTC radio and was able to record it from ustream.tv and post it on YouTube. We have also shared it on some of our social media.

There is a lot to learn here!

A New Request

Olga has requested that we be sent the .doc files in addition to the .pdf files for The Minstrel flier and the Swingin' Tern printable flier. It seems that there are some outlets that have problems with using the pdfs but like having the fliers instead of a simple listing.

Old Photo Requests

We need to build a list of our members that take pictures at our events who would be willing to share them for Publicity uses. Since I have not gotten any responses yet to my previous requests, I know that Pam Robinson, Mike DelVecchio and Andy Koenig are often taking pictures.

Would the three of you please contact me on how we can move this forward?

The Morris County Tourism bureau continues to ask for high-res event shots (performers, audience and participants) in different sizes and shapes to place on the Folk Project info page on their website.

A new MCTB Newsletter that arrived today gives more details on what they would like. Contact Paul for details.

They do say that continually updating their website will lead to higher Google search rankings.

Please email publicitychair@folkproject.org with any suggestions.

Webmaster Report – John Lamb

February has been a short but extremely busy and very productive month for the web team. We completed the move to Google mail from DreamHost with only minor problems that have since been fixed. The main issue was getting email to work with the forms that we use on the website so as not to have to publish most of our internal email addresses and expose them to that much more spam. Allan Kugel has made the necessary changes to get form mail working in connection with Gmail. As part of the change, anyone in Folk Project who wants a Google for Business account (normally $5 per month per user) can get one for free for the asking. That could be made a benefit, either for volunteers or for all members.

Our AdWords account has generated more than 33,000 ad placements nationwide and resulted in 113 click-throughs to the site in the 17 days that it has been active. From Google Analytics, we know that there were 1855 total sessions (a session is a single visit to one or more pages made by the same person in a reasonably continuous manner). That means about six percent of the users of our site came in via the ads on Google. That is not huge, but it does add up over months and years. Some other interesting data from Analytics - about 66% of our users are on desktop or laptop computers, about 22% on phones and about 12% on tablets. The average session consists of 2.5 page views and lasts just under 2 minutes. The vast majority of our audience is from the United States, but we get occasional visitors from as far away as South Korea and Zambia.

Charles Lamb has done a lot of work in meeting Getaway's web needs and helping them sell out and fill the waiting list in under two weeks. Lori Falco has helped with making many of the day-to-day updates to the site while Allan and I were working out the email details. As always, thanks to the whole team and we would love to have another volunteer or two join us. Keep those questions, comments and suggestions coming to webmaster@folkproject.org.

Social Media Coordinator – George Otto

Pending.

Facebook Report – Pam Robinson

FaceBook Page:

We have over 1,300 people who "like" our Page.

Our combined Posts over the last month have reached a total 4,000 people.

FaceBook Group:

We now have a 2nd administrator, Paul Fisher.

We have had a couple of Spam Posts to the Group. Various members of the Group have reported the Spamming. The individual who was Spamming has been banned from the Group and the Posts have been removed.

FaceBook is now offering a new type of Page designed specifically for Non-Profits. Info can be found at: https://nonprofits.fb.com/

I am not sure this is designed for our type of Non-Profit. I'll keep my eye on how they change it over time and see if it make sense for the FP. (looks like designed for political, social charity based non-profits rather than performance and community based non-profits)

Twitter Report – Jean Scully

Pending.

Merchandising – Margaret Crowl

No updates at this time.

Publicity Happenings

Online

• Morristown Happenings (https://www.tapinto.net/towns/morristown) listed the Diane Perry / LagansLove concert twice near the top of their Friday listing. One listing was just for LagansLove and the other specified The Minstrel Series and listed both acts. https://www.tapinto.net/towns/morristown/sections/arts-and-entertainment/categories/news/articles/morristown-happenings-things-to-do-in-morristown-51

• Mike Agranoff got a call based on a listing in The Progess newspaper in Caldwell. Nancy reports that it is one of the Recorder newspapers, where we have a good relationship.

• MorrisArts.org continues to list our concerts. Nancy caught an error on their site and it was quickly corrected.

◦ They promoted tonight's (Feb 29) Grover Kemble “Durante” show at The Morris Museum.

◦ They also are listing this Friday's Odessa Klezmer Band show at The Minstrel.

◦ Actually, all March Minstrel events (including the Open Stage) are listed.

◦ Also, Swingin' Tern dances are listed under “Dance”.

• The Folk Project continues to be listed by the Morris County Tourism Bureau (morristourism.org).

▪ They have Uke Fest pictures on “our” page and can use new ones.

• NJARTS.net continues to list most Minstrel events and Special Concerts.

• JerseyArts.com is listing most Minstrel, Special Concerts and Swingin' Tern events.

• The Daily Record has listings for Minstrel concerts and Special Concerts.

• Morris County (morriscountynj.gov/about/arts) provides a link to our web page on their website.

In Print

• Vicinity Magazine included Minstrel, Special Concerts and Tern calendar events for February.

• Listings were seen in a number of local outlets, including Ledger Local.

On the Radio

• Miriam Libove promoted the Odessa Klezmer concert on WCTC.

Paul Fisher, chair