Social media outlets are a great resource for entertainment venues, both in terms of relaying information and personalizing the relationship between your brand and its fans.

House of Blues (HOB) at Downtown Disney considers social media one of their most valuable marketing outlets. It provides brand awareness as well as an open forum to communicate with fans directly.

Similarly, it provides a space for HOB fans to converse with others of similar interests, and they see the value of allowing fans to share personal thoughts and experiences with each others.

HOB periodically asks their fans questions to gain feedback about how they can make guest experiences at their venue even better. The key is to actually listen to what they have to say, what they want and expect from you, and then actually do something about it.

On the flipside, a potential downside is that people can use social media to share negative thoughts and experiences; it’s uncensored and leaves businesses open to criticism. But with the good, it’s important to take the bad and learn from your fans.

HOB takes a lot of pride in knowing that the fans they have on these portals have CHOSEN to “follow” on Twitter and/or “like” on Facebook; fans that are genuinely interested and WANT to know what HOB has to offer.  They also have an outlet for easily sharing news about music and events in the community, things that are relevant to their audience.

Additionally, HOB is able to use Twitter and Facebook for promotional purposes to distribute information about upcoming shows, pre-sales/on-sales and restaurant promotions. They post all upcoming events with a direct links to purchase tickets, or a number for more information, making the purchasing process direct and seamless.

They also provide more “exclusive” offers like ticket giveaways, which ends up benefiting them as well since they typically see an automatic ticket-sale increase for those shows with ticket giveaways.

Rena, their marketing manager, believes it’s important to have some type of call-to-action when posting an event, especially nowadays when most people have smartphones and can purchase tickets right from their phone.

“There are endless opportunities with social media,” Rena noted, “and it’s important to be creative and keep it interactive.”

Have any other entertainment venues caught your attention as being really proactive via social media?