Do you know who your true audience is?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/04/23/151201002/are-your-facebook-friends-really-your-friends

Tanja Hollander was curious about the relationship status of her 626 facebook friends.  How many of these 626 "friends" were actual friends?  Using the medium of photography, Hollander set on a quest to photograph every single friend she has.

What intrigues about this article is the wondering how arts organizations are able to gauge the level of involvement their facebook and twitter followers.  Knowing everything there is to know about your followers would really allow organizations to gauge the best way to utilize the social media outlets to cater towards their loyal patrons, the inquisitive newbies and occasional participators.  Even though there are different matrix options available to gauge your activity levels, this doesn't truly tell you who your followers are and how to most effectively reach out to them.

But how could the audience be gauged?  Using a combination of different technologies that have been discussed and blogged about this semester could certainly help.  WHen scanning tickets using the new eventbrite software, perhaps there could be one question asked, whose answer could be input with the push of a button.  Or perhaps a quick questionnaire as part of the ticketing process could be incorporated.  The more data an organization is able to capture, the more effective their distribution of information could be and the more engaged their patrons will be.