Learning Pathway: Digital Communications

Most of us engage with digital communications in our lives in some way—or in approximately one zillion ways, every day: we post on social media, open email newsletters, watch YouTube videos, and visit websites (like this one!). Maybe you’re someone who’s put a lot of thought into your personal *online presence*, maybe you run social media for three different theatre companies at any given time, or maybe the thought of a job description that includes “newsletter creation” makes you want to run for the hills. There are almost as many levels of digital communications literacy as there are humans logging onto the interwebs each day.

This Learning Pathway takes you through the best ArtistProducerResource.com has to offer when it comes to producing communications for a company or production—dig as deep as you like according to your skill level and interest. It was created by me, Annie Clarke, Generator’s Communications Producer, and it is the third in a series of ArtistProducerResource.com Learning Pathways that we launched in January (read Keshia Palm’s post on Personal Organization and Business Management here and Audrey Quinn’s post on Tax Season here).

This Learning Pathway looks at social media, analytics, designing communications for accessibility, and newsletters — all on ArtistProducerResource.com — with some YouTube videos and downloadable templates for you to make your own. The total read/watch time is approximately 2 hours.

Boundaries

The tools you use to do digital communications work for your job probably overlap with the platforms you use in your life—I can’t stress enough how important (and helpful!) it is to set boundaries around communications. The Information Management page on ArtistProducerResource.com opens with precisely this topic and offers tips to help you draw the lines you need to, from email labels to distinct browser profiles. Settings are your friend—get specific where you can. (For instance, you can choose to get phone notifications about direct messages on your personal Instagram without signing up to receive them for whatever business profile(s) you also manage.)

Social Media

Start with an easy breezy overview by watching the “Producing Social Media” YouTube video series Keshia and I made last year.
Watch time: 6 minutes

Once you’ve got those basics down, settle into the Social Media page on ArtistProducerResource.com for a deeper dive. It has helpful contextual information and a lot of details about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

I think the best communications results come from a combination of planning and responsiveness. To help with the planning part, my go-to tools include:

The Social Media page has a run-down of those last three and many more!
Reading time: 34 minutes

Tracking Analytics

Stay with the Social Media page to learn about tracking your analytics. Running social media takes time and effort, and it’s useful to have a way to evaluate what’s working, and what’s not—especially when social media is part of your job description. Whether you do it once a week or once a month (I have a weekly recurring reminder to do this for Generator), make this tracking part of your workflow. You’ll find a downloadable Excel template on the Social Media page to help. And who knows, maybe one day you’ll write grew company’s Instagram following by 250% in three months on your resume and it will get you the communications job you always dreamed of! Only time (and good tracking) will tell.

Keshia covered the Websites page on ArtistProducerResource.com in her Learning Pathway on Personal Organization and Business Management. Head back to Websites to read up on analytics—they’re a great thing to track for your website alongside your social media insights. Google Analytics is a free and relatively easy tool to set up for any website: here’s a YouTube video to get you started.

Designing Communications for Accessibility

These posters created by Karwai Pun on the “dos and don’ts” of designing for accessibility are one of the most popular resources Generator has ever shared on social media—and I know this because of (say it with me!) tracking our analytics. Visit the Accessible Websites, Graphics, Videos and Documents page on ArtistProducerResource.com for more tips and resources to ensure your communications creations are accessible.

A couple things to highlight:

  • Capitalizing the first letter of every word in a hashtag ensures it can be read by screen readers—#TakeThisHashtagForExample

  • When you’re creating graphics and images, make sure to create Alt Text for them too! You can add Alt Text directly into posts on Twitter (before you post) and Instagram (after you post)

  • Colour contrast is an important part of accessibility in graphic design—the tools on the ArtistProducerResource.com page are good ones to bookmark (Coolors.co/generate is especially fun)

Reading time: 16 minutes

Newsletters

I love newsletters. I enjoy creating them as much as I enjoy reading them. And you know what else I love? Respecting people’s communication preferences! Ever heard of the acronym CASL? It’s pronounced ‘castle,’ and it’s short for Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation—we get it into that, and much more, on the Newsletters/eBlasts page on ArtistProducerResource.com.

If you’re looking for a platform recommendation: Team Mailchimp. (PSA: Being on Team Mailchimp also means being on Team Export Your Audience List Regularly to Back It Up.)
Reading time: 22 minutes

Further Learning

  • Accessibility Services Canada has a lot of great webinars (some of them free), including Web Accessibility for Content Managers and Accessible Graphic Design

  • CampTech has a number of workshops geared towards small storefront Ontario businesses, but their newsletter reaches far and wide, with great round-ups of trends in social media and digital marketing (Hootsuite’s newsletter will keep you on top of trends too)

  • BC Alliance for Arts and Culture’s Digital Ladders Project has helpful blog posts looking at case studies in digital tools and strategies across a number of arts organizations

About ArtistProducerResource.com

ArtistProducerResource.com is a free, searchable online encyclopedia of information, resources, tools, and templates for producing independent performance work in Canada, currently with a focus on Toronto. Launched in November 2017, it has since been visited by over 10,000 users, transforming the way artists producers access information and share knowledge across Canada. ArtistProduceResource.com is free to access and always will be. You can become a supporter by subscribing to our Patreon—we’ll send you a monthly newsletter with highlights, features, and all the newest content on the site. Got a suggestion for ArtistProducerResource.com? Send it to us here.