Case Study: Candlelight Concert Society virtual concert

How To Promote a Virtual Event on Social Media

Case Study: Recently we began working with Candlelight Concert Society (CCS), a classical music concert presenter in Columbia, MD. Their first priority was to promote their free January 30 virtual online concert. We had roughly three weeks to execute our social media strategy.

The result was a 322% and 418% increase in attendance from their previous two virtual concerts in December. AND: the concert drove $1.1K in direct donations for CCS after the event.

Here’s how we did it:

The Plan

• We boosted their Facebook Event for $100 to a targeted audience within a 30-mile radius of Columbia, with interests in classical music and live music concerts. The Event ad reached 4.3K targeted people and garnered 77 event responses over 3 weeks.
• We ran a $100 traffic ad on Instagram to a similar audience for 10 days. The ad reached 11.4K targeted people and grabbed 100 link clicks.
• We published 3-4 event-related feed posts and stories weekly to Facebook and Instagram each for 3 weeks. We tagged the artist on each post, which grabbed the attention of his management in the UK. They reposted our event content to promote their artist’s performance with us.
• We published event updates and info on supporting online events* in the Discussion tab of the Facebook Event.

*CCS also presented a concert preview podcast, a pre-concert talk, and a video interview with the artist in the weeks leading up to the concert. In addition, they sent out several newsletters to their email lists to promote all concert-related events throughout the month.

Coordinating all of these promotional elements with CCS staff was key to our success. It ensured that our messaging was consistent, well-timed, and strategic.

The Results

With a modest $200 ad spend, a focused social media content strategy, and close coordination with Candlelight’s other event marketing, we attracted some 500+ eager viewers to log in on January 30 to watch the concert online. At a time when arts organizations are struggling to survive, this audience was truly appreciative of the opportunity to hear a world-class pianist perform. As a result, they signaled their appreciation and appetite for more live music with $1,100+ in post-concert donations.

Here are some representative comments from those grateful audience members and donors:

I unfortunately missed the Szymanowska Nocturne, but I enjoyed the CPE Bach and Schubert very much. Thank you for making this tremendous concert available to many of us who would not ordinarily be able to afford to attend a recital by such a pre-eminent musician. 💎

David Skinner, concert attendee

Thank you for offering these concerts! It’s wonderful to have such talented artists playing for us during COVID.

Deborah Wetzel, CCS donor

Thank you for continuing programming throughout the pandemic!

Farah Vejzagic, CCS donor

Case Study Coda

In this case study, we were able to demonstrate how to successfully promote a virtual event with social media. With strategic social media marketing, we helped to build an online audience that CCS can now develop for future virtual concerts — and in-person events when they become available. In addition, CCS can develop this new audience into new donors and supporters for their nonprofit organization.

From Candelight’s president:

Candlelight’s mission is to bring the greatest musical artists in the world home for our Maryland audiences. These days, our audiences are attending our concerts from home and looking at social media. We saw strong interest and attendance from around the world for the Marc Andre Hamelin concert, and our renewed efforts to boost social media marketing and our work with Faith Wachter certainly helped drive attendance growth.

Bryan Young

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