What Symphony Orchestras Are Getting Wrong About Social Media Marketing

I’ve been working closely with a performing arts organization that has been spinning its wheels trying to expand its audience. Like most non-profits, they don’t have a ton of marketing resources or money to throw at new campaigns. They desperately need their marketing dollars to work harder than ever before to expand their audience. 

Unfortunately, what this organization is facing is not unusual in the arts space. It's been well documented that the audiences for performing arts organizations, particularly symphony orchestras, are dying off. Major symphony orchestras are struggling to attract new, younger audiences. 

There have been many experiments done to address this,

• Bringing the music into the community through outdoor summer concerts

• Performing more popular music throughout the year

• Bringing in artists such as the Foo Fighters & Metallica to perform alongside the symphony

• Doing "movie nights" where orchestras play the score with an accompanying popular film.

And yet audiences continue to shrink — which suggests the problem isn't the programming. It's the marketing. So, as a marketing diagnostician and avid cellist, I really wanted to better understand where the disconnect might be. 

Issue #1: Positioning Alignment

From my diagnostics work, I know that one of the biggest issues holding organizations back is positioning and messaging continuity. Your goals as an organization should be reflected in not only what you say to your stakeholders (in this case, donors, audience members & community) but then also carried through on your website, marketing materials, ads and customer experience. 

Symphony orchestras need to expand their audiences in order to survive. They claim to want new or younger audiences and to connect with the community. But what they portray is very different. Below is a sample of ads from 6 major symphony orchestras in the US. Nearly every symphony orchestra uses the same ad style. Specifically:

• Low light photography of an artist or conductor typically in a luxury style

• Taken from a distance

• Typically looking away from the camera.

The ads almost always include a text overlay with the composer and concert date. It's cold, it’s distant and quite frankly it’s not inviting to new audiences.

Issue #2: Breaking Through The Social Media Clutter

The 2nd biggest issue I see in marketing diagnostics is that the ads don’t break through all the noise happening on the platforms. Take a look at those ads again…it's impossible to differentiate one from the other. Every symphony ad uses the same look & feel, color scheme and layout. LA Phil at least introduces a bolder color...but beyond that, the symphony names could be swapped and the audience would never know. I suspect a great deal of audience members gloss over these ads and just register them as “another classical music ad.” 

In order to break through, you have to understand that social media users focus on the image first, then the headline then the description. 

Most major symphony orchestras are not using the image effectively. The image should "tell the story" and capture the attention of the user. This can be done through bolder colors, more engaging photography, or text overlays that grab your attention. 

Not only is the image not engaging, its also not helping to boost their brand awareness. Only one orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, included its logo on the image itself. Including the image or even the name of the orchestra, is a simple, effective way to boost your brand awareness on social media. 

The Fix

Each one of these orchestras is on a mission to build its audience and engage the community. But these two issues are getting in the way. It’s possible for these symphonies to do this through social channels but there needs to be a shift in strategy. 

Specifically, you must align your mission, your marketing and your audience motivations. 

What are the motivations of the audience? According to a study of UK Concertgoers done by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the reason why audience members attend concerts is 

• The excitement of a live concert experience (51%) 

• Discovering new music (30%) 

• Escaping the pressures of everyday life (27%) 

• Enjoying a great night out with family and friends (25%)

The strongest performing ads match your message with your target audience motivators. You’ll notice that none of those reasons mentions seeing a specific conductor or artist. Their motivation is about how it makes them feel. It’s about joy, relaxation, and excitement. Yet none of the ads tap into that emotion. 

If symphony orchestras truly want to attract new and younger audiences, they must convey the excitement of a live event. They need to show the energy, passion, and excitement that exists at a live concert. Photography should be dynamic, inviting & approachable. 

And they need to stand out. They cannot just look like "another classical music ad." They need to better brand themselves on the platform. Include name & logo on the actual image itself. And they need to break away from the crowd. If everyone is using the same style of photography, then no one will stand out. Lean into more dynamic photography, engaging the audience itself, use color, use video and use audio. 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra attempts to resolve both of these. It places its logo on the image where it cannot be missed by the user. This placement helps get the BSO brand front and center and break it apart from the pack. It is also one of the few orchestras that does not feature a particular artist or conductor, instead focusing on the musicians and audience members. This serves to bring a more human element to the ad - rather than seeing the back of a conductor, you’re seeing a real community. 

The orchestra has all the instruments. Now it needs a new score.

Symphony orchestras are not struggling because classical music has lost its appeal. They're struggling to market what actually is appealing about it. The research is clear: people attend live performances because they want to feel something — the electricity of a room full of people sharing a moment, the escape, the joy. Yet the marketing consistently promises something cold, distant, and elite.

This is a solvable problem. But solving it requires more than swapping out a photo or adding a logo. It requires organizations to look honestly at the gap between what they say their mission is and what their marketing actually communicates. When those two things are misaligned, no amount of ad spend will move the needle.

The orchestras that will thrive in the next decade won't necessarily be the ones with the biggest budgets. They'll be the ones willing to diagnose the real problem — and brave enough to fix it. Show the joy. Show the crowd. Show what it feels like to be in that room. Because that's the concert people want a ticket to.