Every glance, every engagement, every word-of-mouth recommendation is important to the life of a theater production. And as we all spend more time these days looking at our phones and computers instead of billboards and bus displays, digital marketing has never been more important. But in this complex landscape of platforms, how can a new production make its mark?
In search of the answer to this question and more, I was able to connect with Katharine Quinn, founder of And That’s Showbiz—a Broadway marketing agency—to discuss the growing importance of social media in connection with marketing theater productions.
Our interview below has been edited for clarity.
Miles Willow
So tell me a bit about yourself and then what And That’s Showbiz is all about.
Katharine Quinn
I am Katharine Quinn and I run And That’s Showbiz, which is a Broadway marketing agency. We started just about a year and a half ago. We are very new. Our first proper big client was The Great Gatsby on Broadway. I do not have traditional marketing and agency experience; my background is as a director-choreographer and I’ve spent more time in rehearsal rooms than in marketing meetings. But I actually think that’s part of what makes our operations a little different.
We’re on Maybe Happy Ending and The Great Gatsby and we did a show at the Kennedy Center last year and a national tour and regional premiere at the Old Globe. We went from just me a year ago to now four of us full-time and nine contractors. So, it has grown a lot in a very short period of time and we’re trying to bring Broadway further into the digital age.
Miles Willow
I’m curious, when you’re doing these working projects for different shows, what are the platforms that you find are most effective for theater marketing? My assumption was that it’s probably TikTok/TheaterTok—is that the ultimate place for it at the moment or are there other things that you’re finding are more effective?
Katharine Quinn
Well, I don’t think that any of the platforms can properly be ignored at this moment. I think you know, TikTok was a little precarious there for a little while. Instagram is better with community. TikTok is better with discoverability. Facebook has our older audience. YouTube has a more male audience and is better for longform content. We definitely don’t focus on any individual platform because it feels like it would be a folly and we would miss some of the potential theater audience.
Miles Willow
Certainly. As many folks as you can grab for butts in seats, all of the shows deserve it so I’m really glad that you’re spreading a wide net there.
Katharine Quinn
Thank you.
Miles Willow
Which model do you think is the most valuable for a show? Should each show be looking to have direct social media engagement or should they be pivoting more to influencer collaborations, getting people to spread their message for them?
Katharine Quinn
I think it has to be both and it’s like a handshake. Sometimes a show will approach me and say, “Hey do you wanna do influencer marketing for us?” And the answer is yes but I can be a lot more powerful if we’re also doing social and vice versa.
On both Maybe Happy and Gatsby we do both influencer marketing and social media. I feel like we’re in a moment where the marketing model is kind of being turned on its head a little bit and social is sort of becoming the hub of a lot of the creative content. It used to be an additional nice thing to have, and now it’s a little more generative and an amplification tool for every other arm of marketing.
But all this goes to say, I think you can’t ignore your own social channels, you can’t ignore outreach on other people’s channels, and you can’t ignore influencers because you need all of it. It used to be the case that the adage was it took 6 times to see a brand for there to be brand recognition and now it’s 22 times because of the amount of digital inundation that we have. So, you need as many voices as humanly possible talking about your brand.
Miles Willow
In this era when it seems like everyone wants to be an influencer, where potential influencers abound and they all have their different scopes, how would you advise productions on whom to bring into the campaigns? Is it strictly based on follower count or are there additional vetting factors?
Katharine Quinn
There’s definitely other vetting factors. I think much like anything there has to be a mix. We need the big reach of the more macro followers, but we also want the engagement and devoted fan base that often comes with a micro influencer who is really specific in a niche. And the way that we would collaborate with each of those influencers is totally different. Influencers are really only powerful if you are using them strategically. You can’t just say “Hey, influencer post about the show” and expect to get tremendous return. Sometimes it happens, but sometimes it doesn’t; so, you have to be really thoughtful and mindful about what that influencer strategy actually is.
Miles Willow
Is there a standard assumption or a practice across the theater marketing space in recent years that you would like to change or to shake up in some way?
Katharine Quinn
I don’t know if it’s necessarily a practice, but I think that social media is still really fighting for time and fighting for a perceived equal value to traditional media like press for instance.
But in an ideal world press and social media are a handshake. We are amplifying them, and they are helping amplify our work. And what that looks like is something as simple as collaborating with People magazine on releasing production photos and actively making sure that the question is asked “Are you open to a social collaboration with our show handle @BwayGatsby? We have 250,000 followers cross platform and we would absolutely love to collab with you.” Just that ask alone is really powerful because all of those outlets are digital now.
I think that people still do big print ads in The New York Times and some of it is valuable and some of it is a bit maybe “because we’ve always done it that way.” And I want to see greater willingness to integrate social into every arm of the marketing funnel.
Miles Willow
That makes sense. There is a reason why there’s a share button or a link at the bottom of every New York Times article now.
Katharine Quinn
Exactly.
Miles Willow
Finally, transitioning to you a little more specifically: what are the ways that you try to stay creative and fresh with social media content especially when you’re promoting multiple productions at once?
Katharine Quinn
First of all, I have an amazing team which is a huge gift. Part of the job, particularly as it pertains to my community managers, is I want them scrolling. They are encouraged to spend some of their paid hours on TikTok, on Instagram, seeing what inspiration strikes, what the algorithms are feeding them, etc. Also, we get to collaborate with artists which is such a tremendous gift and sometimes the actors have really brilliant ideas as well.
Miles Willow
That is one of the nicest things I think about the space is that there’s just such a concentration of art-focused people in this one single venture. I am really excited to see how it progresses.
Katharine Quinn
Me, too! It’s going to be fascinating!