Chicago Symphony Rolls Out Some New PR Bling

Right on the heels of the How To Connect With New Media series of articles the Chicago Symphony rolls out an updated press page at their website which contains some of the items from my Marketing Wish List…

I'm still going through all of the changes on the site but some of the components that caught my eye were the dedicated RSS feeds for concert events and radio broadcasts. The ultimate fire and forget PR tool, RSS feeds are one of the most effective, yet underutilized, tools orchestra marketing professionals can take advantage of. Although it is great to see the addition of RSS feeds I hope the Chicago Symphony will take the additional steps to create fine tuned feeds for individual concert subscriptions and key word based custom feeds.

One of the next components that caught my attention was the surplus of Social Networking shortcuts. Although you can say that the addition of social networking badges could be pandering I don't think that's the case. For example, although it is still called a "Press Room" there is ample evidence that the Chicago Symphony is gearing up toward building some sincere connections with non-traditional resources such as this statement at the very top of the Press Room introduction page:

Welcome to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Press Room…If you cannot find the information you are looking for or need to speak to a member of the public relations staff immediately, please contact us at one of the numbers below.

This is good move in the right direction and if other orchestras follow suit and raise the bar by expanding on the offerings and adopting a similar attitude toward new media outlets, it is only going to move the business toward a better place sooner than later.

Comments

[Jason]

We've been using the social networking chicklets all season with our release feed. You can check them out here: http://www.akronsymphony.org/general/news-release-gms2008/

Thanks for pointing that out Jason, although in all fairness I should mention that the CSO has been using social networking shortcuts all season as well, but it seems as though they've expanded on them. The real benefit are hose RSS feeds. BTW, I stopped by the Akron page and I like that you are taking advantage of some widgets but the upcoming events widget came up blank in FireFox and produced an error msg with IE7.

Stability with widgets is an ongoing battle. I cut back on the number used here because they kept slowing down page loads or coming up with error messages. Even the widgets from major providers, like Amazon, are sketchy; I've had to yank that widget from time to time due to terribly slow server connections. this is why, at least for the time being, RSS feeds tend to be a better, and at least more reliable, tool. ~ Drew McManus

[Marc]

Thanks Drew, for this article. I've been very anxious and excited to get the press room launched. I'm curious to see its effects over the next couple of weeks and eager to think about future features.

I believe it is very important to reach out to new media outlets (see badpitch.blogspot.com on how not to do it). Just yesterday, the well-read Chicago area Web site chicagoist.com asked about our Beyond the Score series. I was happy to point them to the dedicated site at beyondthescore.org, but I also wanted to let them know they could embed a YouTube video on the series in the article if they wished. They didn't end up using it, but it was neat to be able to offer the possibility.

I know the press room is a work in progress and new media brings many great opportunities, so I more than welcome any suggestions and comments like the idea of custom RSS feeds.