Dance Advantage is very happy to announce Suzanne Blake Gerety’s new column Studio Bizwax! To wax lyrical means “to talk about in an enthusiastic and effusive way.” I can’t think of a better description for the way Suzanne fulfills her role in the dance community. Not only is she the Vice President of her her mom’s very successful dance studio but she is the co-founder of DanceStudioOwner.com, a wonderful site for those who are exploring, starting, or growing their dance studio business. I am an affiliate for DSO because I have witnessed first-hand the care Suzanne has taken to make the site a a truly useful support for studio owners. I’ve found her to be a wonderful resource and she’s been a great friend as well so I am thrilled that she’ll be sharing her knowledge with Dance Advantage readers bimonthly.-Nichelle
Here’s how you can S.T.E.P. your way to social media success!
- Image by felipe_gabaldon via Flickr
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#1. Share
Retweet other people’s posts, quote and link to great blog posts by others, share what you are reading, let people know information that could benefit from.
Be a connector.
Social media is about making connections. One of the things we do with our dance studio fan page is to post about local theatre productions and community events. Why? Because we know that the hours of dance lessons that our young dancers have has a potential impact on local theater. We want to spread goodwill to our sister arts organizations. See yourself as part of the thread woven between your arts community.
#2. Teach
Post favorite quotes, share your expertise, add value, be generous with your knowledge it does make a difference.
A crossroads for dance studios. Many dance studios today are still very protective, not only their class schedules, but tuition fees, competition schedules, studio policies and more. It’s the fear that the studio across town will take or steal information that would cause that studio to lose students. I completely understand the worry.
Here’s the reality. I also represent a demographic I like to call ‘busy mom’. I’m the target market for many dance studios, I have two young kids. First thing in the morning, I don’t read the local paper. But I do read the newsfeed on Facebook and I certainly check trending topics and updates on Twitter. Text messaging is the best way to reach me.
How will you serve this demographic by decreasing your presence, hiding a class schedule, or making registering for classes a challenge? Dance studios want more students; they want their current students to be loyal raving fans. Social media is a great way to achieve this if done well.
#3. Engage
Talk to people! Reply to them, help them, connect people, be social, have fun. Be yourself, let your personality shine through.
Take it one step at a time. Social media is not a race with a winner crowned at the end. You’re missing the point if your approach to social media for your business is all about getting more followers as fast as you can. Soon enough it will become commonplace for every business and brand to have some sort of social media outlet to connect with their clients, customers, and students. We all started with one fan or one follower.
Be just as appropriate behind social media that you would be in person. If you were invited to a party with real people at someone’s house you wouldn’t just barge in the front door, run up to everyone you see and start selling them something. Nor would you just haphazardly repeat yourself ten times. No way, you’d be ‘that person’ everyone would want to avoid. Don’t be that person in a virtual setting either! I personally know, do business with, employ, recommend, and have met many of the faces behind twitter ID’s and Facebook fan pages. Best thing to do – be YOU.
#4. Promote
After you take time to share, teach, and engage…then you can sprinkle in some ‘promote’. Ask yourself, ‘what’s in it for them’ before you hit send tweet or post it. Promoting on social media makes sense and is appropriate when incorporated into a balanced approach.
More Social Media Tips
Consistency is key to seeing results.
This can be a big stumbling block for people. Either the novelty wears off for social media, it starts to eat up too much time or they report ‘no impact’ on their bottom line. Your updates do not have to be complex. Just be consistent. Give a compliment, connect with someone, be generous. Here’s the catch, you may never be able to truly measure the impact of your social media presence in terms of dollars and students. But you can build your brand, make it easy for people to find you, and position yourself as an expert in your training and offering.
Be open to what is possible with social media
- Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr
A little background. In early 2008, I started tweeting. Very few people at that time were using Twitter, so you can imagine how excited I was to finally meet a friend – that’s when Nichelle and I connected. Since February is the month in which we celebrate love, I wanted this first post to reflect the love I have for social media and the good that it can create. I certainly don’t have all the answers – by a long shot – but I have seen people come and go, have observed great techniques in using social media as a business tool and I’ve also cringed behind my computer seeing tactics that are big mistakes.
Leave a legacy
Google indexes much of what you post online. Be mindful of this. You’re representing your brand, your image, your legacy. Who do you want to be known for? What do you want your social media reputation to be? There are simple ways to separate your dance business social media presence from your personal life. I would encourage any dance studio owner and teacher to direct their social media relations with students and parents to a public fan page or twitter account that is strictly professional. It is a win-win for everyone.
Thank you for all that you do to keep dance education alive in the world!
If you’d like to see how our dance studio is using a Facebook Fan Page to connect with our current and potential students visit www.facebook.com/KathyBlakeDanceStudios
Connect with me on Twitter @SuzanneGerety or Facebook: www.facebook.com/DanceStudioOwner
Click here to download an example page and see the full product description
Coloring Pages Giveaway!
To celebrate Suzanne’s new column she’s offered to give away some of the Dance Coloring Pages CDs available at DanceStudioOwner.com!
26 printable coloring pages designed by dance teachers that you can print from the CD. They feature girls & boys, tap, ballet, recital and more. http://www.dancestudioowner.com/products/item9.cfm
Enter to win by placing a comment (name and email is a must!) on this post! Tell us why you love social media (or what is keeping you from trying it).
Suzanne is offering two CDs to give away here on the blog. Winners will be randomly selected from these entries and contacted by email. At this time I will ask for your mailing address so we can get the CD out to you. Any information provided will be used solely for the purposes of this contest. We do not sell or share and you will not be added to a mailing list.
The contest will close Friday at midnight EST. If you are contacted you will have 72 hours to respond or I will move on to the next name drawn. This Contest is Closed but your comments are still welcome on the article! Winners were selected using the random integer selector at RANDOM.ORG. Congrats to commenter #4 (Maria) and #2 (Vivette).
If you are a studio owner (or are going to be), I highly recommend Dance Studio Owner. It’s membership includes studio owners from 44 of the United States and countries all over the world including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, People’s Republic of China, and Norway.
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About Suzanne Gerety
Suzanne, That is a fantastic post. Absolutely spot on with the approach to Social Networking, so fantastic! I’m very impressed.
I find facebook a great way to connect with my highschool students. They might not read an email, but they always check their facebook!
So true Vivette – posting updates on the Fan page is such a great way to do this. We are slowly trying to get all of our parents and students over to our fan page just for the practical purpose of immediate updates! Keep up the great work.
Great post Suzanne. You have made it so simple! I love it and it is so easy to remember and look at how my own social media efforts are measuring up.
I love all of these tips! They are all so true. I have connected with so many talented people through social media. Thanks for the post, Suzanne!
Suzanne–terrific post! Social media is a huge thing now, and I personally connect with a large number of people on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. I love it!
Thanks Catherine…yes, your point is so true about the large reach for social media. It’s so great to have immediate access to every corner of the world. Love that.
Excellent post Suzanne! You embody all that is good in social media and are proof that actively engaging and nurturing your online community can be mutually beneficial. I love it. I’m subscribing to this blog feed.
Love the info Suzanne. I always love your email newsletters too from your site. Having just bought my dance studio from my teacher, I don’t want to ‘rock the boat’ too hard in my beginning year. I have a new website that is hard to get updated from my provider, but Facebook and Twitter are great vehicles for the older girls and the parents of the younger ones.I like the idea of networking with phones too. I hadn’t thought of that. Great ideas Suzanne!
Thanks Nana! Yes, if you have a difficult to update website, the ease of a Facebook page is key to keeping your students and parents and potential students up to date and informed. I think you will see the text messaging alerts and updates becoming popular for dance studios as well. Keep up the great work.
I love love love social media. I can’t always go to conventions to learn and share success and failures but connecting with people like Suzanne and Nicole (as well as numerous others) online brings a continuous stream of ideas to help improve my business
I love being able to connect with other studio owners via social media! Great point about the ‘busy mom’ demo.
Suzanne,
I really enjoyed your post! In today’s world of online everything, social media is a huge factor. Whether it may be for a market or for something different, it is always a good idea to get word out for your studio and really make an effort, especially when there are tons of young dancers all over networks such as Facebook. Your S.T.E.P.s cover basically everything and the added tips give someone who may not be sure if they want to do it an added push to do so. I am a strong believer in social media, and we even have a whole section of my “online media” class to cover it because it has become such a strong power. Social media is a definite way to get the word out there for a studio, especially with possibilities for adding pictures, video and music. Thank you for the great post!
-Rachel
Hi Rachel,
Thanks for your comments. Yes, the ease in which adding video, pictures, and updates via social media make it possible for even the most busy studio owner or teacher to connect with their students. Keep up the great work!
Facebook is great for growing your business also, you can use facebook ads to target very specific groups of face book users. If you are a studio owner and want to advertise ONLY to potential prospects by city, age and some key words like ‘dance’ or ‘dancing’ or ‘dancer’ you can run ads geared toward the student. Then you can do the same to run ads geared toward the parents who will be paying. This is just one way to get new students to you studio. I specialize in all forms of social media and in particular direct response email marketing.
Steve
http://dancestudioprofit.com
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the comment. I agree whole-heartedly, Facebook is great for growing your business. The ability to target by specific demographic criteria makes it very easy to locate potential students. The ease of creating, activating, starting and pausing ads makes it possible for small businesses like dance studios to experiment with low-cost paid advertising.
My feeling is that once a dance studio has taken the time to learn the basics of social networking, engaging with their target audience, sharing great content, demonstrating their expertise and truly having a conversation I think it makes great sense to test some low-cost advertising options such as Facebook ads as you mentioned.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
Suzanne
Thanks for the great tips! Its more helpful.