Houston Is Inspired With Inbound Marketing

I'm new to Houston and impressed by the enthusiasm and activity of this city pretty much on a daily basis. I recently attended a round table brainstorming event for “Houston is Inspired,” where artists, museum directors, and business professionals come together and discuss how to best get the word out there about the amazing and energetic art scene here in Houston . There were two overarching ideas around promoting the arts in this event: word of mouth and inbound marketing.

The first scenario is a “tell your friends” way of promoting the arts.

You go to a play and afterward you tell your friends you enjoyed the play and suggest they see it. Your friends go to the play and tell a friend... You see where I'm going here, word of mouth style promotion of the arts.

This is an organic approach at spreading the word - a very personal and appealing way to share with people your experience, trusted and true. How many people did I inspire? It's a person to person, face to face approach.

The second scenario is a bit more inbound marketing way of promoting the arts.

I go to the play, I check-in on Facebook and all of my 500+ friends see I'm there. Thumbs up, they like that I'm there and may of their friends see the interaction thay have with me. I tweet while I'm at the play that it's the best one I've been to in years and hashtag the theater name and a few pointed #bestplay #houstonart #blewmymind (you get the idea). After the great experience I then blog about what a fantastic experience I had, and I put a few links in about where people should go to also see this fantastic play. Some 100+ people read it and share my post on their facebook, linkedin, etc.

This is a contemporary inbound style of spreading the word that is interactive, gives clear direction, and often has fun pictures and maybe even a google map to the venue (bonus!). How many people did I inspire?

Ultimately, both of these methods are valuable.

What’s even better is that Houston Is Inspired is providing the forum to make all of these things happen to get the word out there that art in Houston is awesome and something to be passionate about.

How do you get started promoting the arts in Houston and being part of Houston Is Inspired?

If you aren't the confident inbound marketer (no worries, not all of us do this for a living), take the steps that you are comfortable with.

• Tell your friends about an event, then post about it on facebook.

• Starting a blog is always a great way to talk about your art if you are the artist, link your articles to Houston Is Inspired and interact away!

• If you're just involved in twitter, just tweet #houstonisinspired whenever you are experiencing any of the great art Houston has to offer.

The key is to stay interacting, linking, connecting, and sharing online.

Thanks to Houston Is Inspired it's going to be easier to get involved. Artists are collaborating across this big city and are spreading the word; check them out and get inspired!