Great Social Media Idea: Promoting Concerts and Plays With Video

You know what's cool? When colleges create trailer videos for upcoming fine arts and theater performances. The talented drama and music students rarely get their due when it comes to promotion, and I love that schools like BYU create videos like this:

Doesn't that totally make you want to watch that play? I've followed BYU for a few years now on social media, and as far as I can tell they always create a trailer for their upcoming stage productions, which I think is such a fun and clever way to spread the word on social media - publicity stills can only get you so far, and we all know how posts like "Come to the play next Saturday!" go over. (Lead, balloon.)

[For those keeping score at home, that was an homage to the exquisite "(Picnic, lightning.)" from Lolita, which is probably my favorite book of all time. Extra bonus trivia - Nabokov finished writing Lolita while staying in Ashland, Oregon in the summer of 1953. Yeah, my home state rocks.]

ANYWAY... I also saw this post from Stanford today, which promotes an upcoming symphony performance:

Post by Stanford University.

This takes a different tack than the BYU video in that it features a professor discussing the upcoming performance and why it is interesting and important.

I like both, and I like the idea of supporting these students and departments in a more powerful, meaningful way on social media.

Bravissimo, Cougars and Cardinal!