How Social Media Makes the Grand Ole Opry New Again

In With the Old and New

Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?
The Grand Ole Opry is a spry 90-years-young epicenter of country music that boasts a stunning community of 1.1 million Facebook followers, 425k Twitter followers, and nearly 300k followers on Instagram. Unlike what you might expect from a near-centenarian organization, the Opry has fully embraced social media and used it to create a true family-style community with its audience and musicians.
The Opry has become a social media watering hole where fans can mingle with artists, whether they are listening live in the Opry House or live streaming at their house.
Having not only grown up in Nashville in the shadow of the Opry, but also going on year 13 as an employee, Katrina has a close connection to their audience. She knows exactly how to engage both consumers (audience) and producers (artists) in such a way that both feel comfortable and connected. Under her guidance, the Opry has become a social beacon in the world of entertainment.

In This Episode

• Why content cultivation means developing a comfortable relationship with producers and consumers of your media
• How embracing multiple channels and different audiences leads to an immersive social presence
• Why outreach beyond your core audience means prepackaged materials for your social partners
• How having an audience both locally and internationally leads to multi-layered content on each social channel

Quotes From This Episode

“With social, we’re almost programming a show outside of the actual show that happens onstage.” —@kabrina
“One of our biggest goals in social is to reach that younger set of people who have not grown up listening to the Grand Ole Opry.” —@kabrina
“Social takeovers have really helped us to capitalize on artists feeling at home and being open to showing a personal side of themselves.” —@kabrina
“We try to build relationships and interact with artists on a regular basis so we have their trust and they realize that we’re not going to put anything out there that shows them in a negative light.” —@kabrina
“For our live streams, we really want to keep that to something you can’t get anywhere else.” —@kabrina
“We’re making it as easy as possible to activate our artists and get them sharing on social.” —@kabrina
“Artist engagement helps us to expand our footprint and make sure that we’re reaching people beyond the people just following the Opry.” —@kabrina
“Instead of always having live commercial reads, we’ve started to incorporate games that not only add value to our sponsors but also keep the live and listening audience entertained.” —@kabrina
“Live tweeting is a really great way to entertain the in-show audience as well and get them involved in social media.” —@kabrina

Resources

• Katrina Maddox on Twitter: @kabrina
• Grand Ole Opry on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Periscope, Pinterest, Google+, and MySpace
• WSM Online
• Grand Ole Opry’s Mobile App