Case Study: Nonprofit Social Media Marketing for a Professional Orchestra in Central Illinois
Arts organizations find themselves in a tricky position when it comes to social media marketing at times. Knowing when to invest and how much to invest in marketing when there’s no guarantee you’re going to see that investment translate directly into sales is tricky for nonprofits like community and professional orchestras who are already operating on a tight budget.
We can still make big things happen on small budgets. As we’ll see in this case study from a year-long partnership with an Illinois professional orchestra, significant impact for nonprofit social media marketing is possible!
The challenge
Like most performing arts organizations, this ensemble was suffering post-pandemic. Dwindling concert attendance and low retention was not only discouraging them, but starting to raise doubts about the longevity of the orchestra. Audiences were at between 30-50% capacity—something needed to change.
They turned to Aelsa on Socials to help create a holistic orchestra marketing plan that took advantage of the opportunities social media offers for orchestras and other nonprofits.
The solution
To grow IRL audiences, we knew we needed to start finding new social media audiences and maintaining those relationships online. For maximum impact on a nonprofit budget, they went with a Tier 2 package.
Some of the ways we planned to do this included:
Implementing a regular posting schedule, especially with their nearly silent Instagram
Creating content that went beyond promoting the concerts (educational, engaging, human interest, etc.)
Filming short-form video content on location in our community
Expanding onto TikTok
Installing a pixel so we could track ad conversions
Overhauling our ads strategy to center human needs rather than the concert itself
Increased community engagement
The results
Organic
In one year, organic Facebook reach is up 37%. Meanwhile, Instagram reach? Up 2,200%!
We’ve seen a 5% increase in Facebook followers and 13% follower growth on Instagram. One year of casual but consistent TikTok posting raised our TikTok following by over 600% in one year.
Monthly engagement on Instagram runs between 7-8%, and on Facebook, we’ve achieved a stunning 9% engagement rate. Views/engagements on TikToks are also climbing, with a few of our recent weekly videos breaking the 1.5k view mark and getting between 8-10% engagement rates.
Paid ads
On the paid side, this nonprofit orchestra is working with a fairly small advertising budget, and Meta’s policies make it difficult to perform well, limiting success with BOF conversions. But paid impressions are up 100% from last year, and we’ve seen significant increases in add-to-carts! We did see that ads that center human needs (connection to loved ones, a break from busy life, etc.) outperformed static concert-poster style ads. As time goes on, we will continue to make tweaks to our ad strategy to try to break through the wall we’re facing when it comes to Meta’s learning stage restrictions.
Despite the frustrations with Meta, ticket sales are unmistakably increasing. My client sold out a concert for the first time since before COVID, and ticket sales are up as much as 100% (varies from concert to concert). While a social media strategy was only one small part of the marketing strategy for the year and a lot of the positive changes can also be attributed to the orchestra’s unique programming, a strong social presence creates hype before the concert and community after the concert.
It’s been a great year for my client, and they’re excited to build on this progress going into 2025.
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