A Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Media as a Marketing

Tool for Events: Case Study of Shrewsbury Folk Festival

Eloise Sproul

April 201
A Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Media as a Marketing
Tool for Events: Case Study of Shrewsbury Folk Festival

Eloise Sproul

April 2017

BA (Hons) Events Management

Cardiff School of Management

I
Declaration:

“I declare that this Dissertation entitled ‘A Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Media
as a Marketing Tool for Events: Case Study of Shrewsbury Folk Festival’ has not already been
accepted in substance for any degree and is not currently being submitted in candidature for
any degree. It is the result of my own independent research except where otherwise stated.”

Signed: …………………………………… Date: ……………………………………

Eloise Sproul (Student)

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Abstract
This research evaluated the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool for events, using
Shrewsbury Folk Festival as a case study. This was achieved by using two research methods:
quantitative and qualitative. The first research method was qualitative and took the form of
a questionnaire which was distributed to the customers of Shrewsbury Folk Festival through
their Facebook page. This asked questions about their general use of social media, their use
of social media at the festival and if they feel that the use of social media can enhance their
festival experience. The other research method was qualitative and took the form of a semi-
structured interview with the PR and Communications Director of Shrewsbury Folk Festival.
This asked questions about how the festival uses social media, how they think it impacts on
the event experience and what social media sites they use and why. This study highlights how
effective the use of social media marketing can be and how it has changed the way that
Shrewsbury Folk Festival advertises.

Word Count – 14,452

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Acknowledgements
First, I would like the thank Jo Cunningham for agreeing to take part in the interview and for
distributing the questionnaire through Shrewsbury Folk Festival’s Facebook page. I would also
like to thank everyone who took part in the questionnaire. The participants provided
interesting information and gave the researcher the opportunity to expand their knowledge
in relation to social media marketing. Furthermore, I am thankful to my neighbour for putting
me in touch with Jo so that I could complete my research.

Also, I am particularly appreciative of all the guidance and suggestions from my supervisor
Vicky Richards. Vicky, you have offered me so much support throughout writing my
dissertation. You have kept me interested and not stressed; this has made writing my
dissertation more enjoyable, thank you.

Lastly I would like to thank my friends and family who have supported me throughout this
dissertation. I would especially like to thank my Mum and Dad for always being at the end of
the phone for when I needed to talk and to vent; also for reading through my dissertation
before submission.

I am sincerely thankful to these people, without whom I could not have completed my
dissertation.

IV
Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction 12

1.0 Introduction 13
1.1 Background 13
1.2 Case Study 14
1.3 Rationale 15
1.3.1 Aim and Objectives 16
1.3.2 Research design 16
1.4 Outline of dissertation 16
1.4.1 Introduction 16
1.4.2 Literature Review 17
1.4.3 Methodology 17
1.4.4 Results, Analysis and Discussion 17
1.4.5 Conclusion 17
Chapter 2: Literature Review 18

2.0 Introduction 19
2.1 Events 19
2.2 Marketing 21
2.2.1 Marketing Strategies 23
2.3 Social Media 24
2.3.1 Social Media Marketing 26
2.4 Customer Experiences at Events 29
2.4 Chapter Summary 30
Chapter 3: Methodology 32

3.0 Introduction 33
3.1 Case Study Research 33
3.2 Quantitative Research 34
3.2.1 Methods 35
3.3 Qualitative Research 36
3.3.1 Methods 37
3.4 Reliability and Validity 38
3.5 Analysis 39

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 3.5.1 Questionnaire Analysis - Theory 39
3.5.2 Interview Analysis - Theory 39
3.6 Limitations 40
3.6.1 Questionnaire 40
3.6.2 Interview 40
3.7 Ethical Considerations 40
3.8 Chapter Summary 41
Chapter 4: Results, Analysis and Discussion 42

4.0 Introduction 43
4.1 Questionnaire 43
4.1.1 About You 43
4.1.2 Social Media 46
4.1.3 Event Experience 50
4.1.4 Post Event 53
4.2 Interview 55
4.2.1 Marketing 55
4.2.2 Organisational Use of Social Media 56
4.2.3 Impact of the Use of Social Media 58
4.2.4 Customer Experience 60
4.2.5 The Future 61
4.3 Chapter Summary 62
Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations 63

5.0 Introduction 64
5.1 Revisiting Aim and Objectives 64
5.2 Key Findings 65
5.2.1 Questionnaire 65
5.2.2 Interview 66
5.3 Recommendations 67
5.4 Limitations 68
5.5 Future Research 68
5.6 Final Reflection 69
Appendices 71

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 Appendix A: Questionnaire Layout 72
Appendix B: Interview Enquiry Email 76
Appendix C: Interview Questions 78
Appendix D: Questionnaire Results 80
Appendix E: Transcript of Interview with Jo Cunningham 104
Appendix F: Ethics Form 120
Appendix G: Information Sheet for Interview 125
Appendix H: Participant Consent Form for Interview 126
Appendix I: Turnitin Report 127
References 128

VII
List of Abbreviations
Shrewsbury Folk Festival - SFF

VIII
List of Tables

Table 3.1: Sources of Quantitative Data 34

Table 3.2: Sources of Qualitative Data 37

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List of Figures
Figure 2.1: A Suggested Categorisation of Special Events 20

Figure 2.2: Typology of Planned Events 21

Figure 2.3: AIDA Model 22

Figure 2.4: The 7P’s of Service Marketing 23

Figure 2.5: Social Media Components 26

Figure 2.6: The New Communication Paradigm 28

Figure 2.7: Theoretical Framework 30

Figure 3.1: Types of Questionnaire 35

Figure 3.2: Forms of Interview 37

Figure 4.1: Q1- What is your age? 43

Figure 4.2: Q3- Have you attended Shrewsbury Folk Festival before 2016? 44

Figure 4.3: Q4- How many times? 44

Figure 4.4: Q5- How did you first find out about the festival? 45

Figure 4.5: Q7- What social media sites do you use? Select all that apply 46

Figure 4.6: Q8- How often do you engage with social media? 47

Figure 4.7: Q9- Have you engaged with social media at Shrewsbury Folk Festival? 48

Figure 4.8: Q10- How often have you engaged with social media at Shrewsbury Folk
Festival? 48

Figure 4.9: Q11- What do you use social media for during the festival? 49

Figure 4.10: Q12- Does using social media have an impact on your event experience? 50

Figure 4.11: Q13- In what way do you feel that the use of social media can enhance

your experience at the festival? 50

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Figure 4.12: Q14- Does it make you more or less likely to attend the festival again,

knowing that you can interact more with the festival? 51

Figure 4.13: Q15- Do you want the festival to develop and/or change how they use

social media? 52

Figure 4.14: Q16- How would you like them to develop and/or change how they use

social media? 52

Figure 4.15: Q17- Do you use social media after the event? 53

Figure 4.16: Q18- What do you use social media for after the event? 54

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Chapter 1: Introduction

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1.0 Introduction
“The best way to think about social media is not in terms
of the different technologies and tools but, rather, how
those technologies and tools allow you to communicate
directly with your buyers in places they are congregating
right now” (Scott, 2015, p56).
Social media is changing the way the world communicates. Whether this is between friends
and family, business to business or business to consumer. The world of social media is
constantly developing with new features such as Facebook Live and Twitter Moments.
Moreover, new sites are being developed, for example Instagram, SnapChat and Pintrest.
Social media is playing a greater part in people’s everyday lives.

This research project is about how social media has affected the marketing strategy of
Shrewsbury Folk Festival (SFF); and how this has affected the growth of the festival. This will
mean looking at how consumers and the event organisers conduct: pre-event, in-event and
post-event marketing and how effective this marketing has become. Furthermore, this
project will look at why SFF now uses more social media marketing and what other marketing
materials the festival marketers use.

This chapter will outline the background to the chosen topic, outlining what SFF is about and
how long the festival has used social media, the rationale of the project and outlining the
content of the project.

1.1 Background
Safko (2012) suggests that social media is a much more effective way of marketing than
conventional ways. Safko (2012, p5) further states that the consumer no longer trusts
corporate messages; consumers “want their information from people they know, have a
relationship with, and share a bond with through trust.” Moreover, “social media marketing
is all about listening first, understanding the conversation, and speaking last” (Safko, 2012,
p6). As a result, social media is widely used at events.

Festivals are a good example of where social media is used. It is used in the context of
communicating changes to the event to customers, for customers to communicate with the
event and for customers to communicate with each other. This is supported by Jones (2015)
who states that in 2014 2.5TB of data was downloaded at Glastonbury Festival; suggesting

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that people engage with social media at festivals. Furthermore, “91% of festival goers own a
smart phone” (Festival Awards, 2015) giving them the potential access to the internet and
social media apps. The most popular use for a phone at a festival is to text to stay in touch
with friends at the event; 68.5% of people said that they do this (Festival Awards, 2015). In
addition, 35.3% said that they use their phones to share their experience on Facebook and
23.5% said they use instant messaging when at a festival (Festival Awards, 2015).
Furthermore, 16.9% of festival goers use their phones to read festival news (Festival Awards,
2015), this could be through social media or news websites.

1.2 Case Study

SFF is “one of Shropshire’s biggest annual events, attracting 7,000 people to the West Mid
Showground every August bank holiday weekend” (Thomas, 2016, p59). Additionally, “tens
of thousands of fans follow the festival’s live feeds online” (Thomas, 2016, p59). “The festival
has everything from Celtic folk with the traditional type of folk… but we also have… music
from America and Canada” (Cunningham, 2016, cited in Shropshire Star, 2016). In 2016 the
festival had “more than 240 musicians, 250 dancers and 100 workshops” (Shropshire Star,
2016) to celebrate of the festivals 20th anniversary. The first festival in 1997 attracted around
700 people; since then the event has “continued to grow year on year until, by 2005, five
times that figure were attending” (Thomas, 2016, p60). SFF has built up its reputation over
the last 20 years and is “considered by many to be the best of its kind in the UK” (Shropshire
Star, 2015) this is strengthened by Shropshire Star Live (2015) who say that SFF “is one of the
UK’s leading events of its kind” with such a wide range of activities and performances. SFF’s
website (2017) states that they “aim to make your stay with us safe, comfortable and full of
never to be forgotten, happy experiences.” The website further states that the festival “has a
reputation for delivering the very finest acts from the UK and around the world” (SFF, 2017).

Sandra (2016, cited in Thomas, 2016, p60) suggests that the festival is inclusive of all people,
whether they come with their family or in a large group; “but it’s also the kind of festival
where you can come on your own… and feel very comfortable and included.”

SFF has a lot to offer to its customers with four stages on site, including two main stages which
“seat thousands, and the main stage has a mosh pit that can fit more than 1,000 people”
(Thomas, 2016, p62). In addition, there is a dance tent which holds ceilidhs and dance shows

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throughout the weekend. There is also the children’s festival Pandemonium! which offers
“everything from storytelling to crafts… dance and music workshops for the younger festival
goers” (Thomas, 2016, p62). Pandemonium! also includes Panic Circus where the children at
the festival can learn circus skills.

Additionally, SFF has the Refolkus youth festival which is run for 11 to 20-year-olds. In 2016
for the first time at the youth festival there was Kaos Youth Circus who teach acrobatic tricks.

Furthermore, the festival offers a free bus into town on Saturday and Sunday to allow the
festival goers to “enjoy the fringe events, which include a dance parade and displays and pub
sessions” (Thomas, 2016, p62).

The festival also supports local charity Hope House; they have raised “£43,500 over the past
eight years” (Thomas, 2016, p62). The money is spent on music therapy at the local children’s
hospice as to bring the “joy of music to seriously ill children and young people” (Thomas,
2016, p62).

Plus, the festival has a project called All Together Now, this is a project to take the essence of
the festivals music and dance into schools across Shropshire to engage a younger audience.

SFF use social media streams such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The festival has used
Facebook for about eight years and Twitter for about six or seven. The festival also uses
Instagram and Periscope which have been introduced in the last two years and are only used
during the festival weekend. Moreover, the festival uses email to mail shot their customers
and festival volunteers to inform them about what is happening at the festival that year.

1.3 Rationale
The topic: A Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Media as a Marketing Tool for Events:
Case Study of SFF was chosen because social media is ever changing the way the world
communicates. Having studied marketing modules through undergoing the degree of Events
Management the researcher found that this was a topic area that they were interested in. In
addition, because social media is a relatively new concept the researcher wanted to explore
how it is changing and developing the world of marketing.

The choice of case study was SFF as the researcher had completed work experience as a
volunteer at the festival in 2015 and 2016 and so had a connection with the festival. As a

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result, making it possible to get the interview with the PR and Communications Director of
the festival. Additionally, this enabled the distribution of the online survey questionnaire
through the festival’s Facebook page.

These aspects helped in achieving the objectives of the dissertation and ultimately the aim.

1.3.1 Aim and Objectives

1.3.1.1 Dissertation Aim:
To evaluate the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool in developing Shrewsbury
Folk Festival as a major event.

1.3.1.2 Dissertation Objectives:

1. To critically review the literature on social media in relation to marketing and events
management.
2. To evaluate and analyse the role of social media in the marketing strategy of
Shrewsbury Folk Festival.
3. To explore the use of social media before, during and after the event, in order to assess
the impact on event goers.
4. To make conclusions and recommendations to Shrewsbury Folk Festival and other
festivals based on these findings.

1.3.2 Research design

To achieve the aim the research took a mixed methods approach using quantitative and
qualitative methods. The first research method took the form of an online survey
questionnaire which was distributed to the customers of the festival. The other research
method was a semi-structured interview with the PR and Communications Director of SFF.

1.4 Outline of dissertation

This project consists of five chapters these include: Introduction, Literature Review,
Methodology, Results, Analysis and Discussion, and Conclusion

1.4.1 Introduction
The introduction outlines the project and the rationale behind it. It gives the background to
SFF and what each chapter will include.

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1.4.2 Literature Review
The literature review will aim to identify current issues and a gaps in existing research. It will
look at event typologies, marketing, social media marketing, and customer experiences.

1.4.3 Methodology
The methodology will describe and justify the research design as well as explore the feasibility
of the methods that have been chosen to conduct the primary research for the project.

1.4.4 Results, Analysis and Discussion

The results, analysis and discussion chapter will analyse and discuss the results collected from
the primary research conducted.

1.4.5 Conclusion
The conclusion chapter will bring together the results and make recommendations to the
festival of ways in which they can improve and/or develop their use of social media.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

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2.0 Introduction
This chapter will review the literature that already exists on the topic and area of study that
the researcher has chosen. The literature review will outline the key themes, issues,
definitions, concepts, perspectives, problems and techniques that will inform this study. This
will include looking at academic texts, journals, articles and other sources that the researcher
feels are relevant to their topic. The researcher has found that there is a wide range of
material available on marketing and marketing strategies. However, there appears to be a
dearth of research where marketing specifically relates to social media; this could be because
the academic literature related to social media…is still in its infancy (Mangold and Faulds,
2009). This chapter will look at literature on event types, marketing (as an aspect of event
planning), marketing models, social media marketing, social media in events and customer
experiences because of social media interactions. The aim of the literature review is to look
for a gap in the research in which to gauge significance of the topic and relate to their study.

2.1 Events
“Events were originally a celebration of ceremony and ritual – and were a reflection of a
culture and a community” (Yeoman, Robertson, Ali-Knight, Drummond and McMahon-
Beattie, 2004, p54). This is echoed by McDonnell, Allen and O’Toole (cited in Yeoman et al
2004, p54) who state that they are “specific rituals… or celebrations that are consciously
planned and created to mark special occasions… it is impossible to provide a definition that
includes all varieties of events.”

However, there is an increasing interest in “unique leisure and cultural experiences” (Getz,
1997, p326-327). Festivals are a good example of how community and culture are brought
together (Jepson and Clarke, 2015, p20) and “provide authenticity and uniqueness” (Yeoman
et al, 2004, p32) for their consumers.

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Figure 2.1: A Suggested Categorisation of Special Events (Shone and Parry, 2013, p7)

As stated by Shone and Parry (2013, p7) figure 2.1 “splits events into four broad categories
based on the concept of events having leisure, cultural, personal or organisational
objectives.” Shone and Parry (2013) further suggest that most events, if not all, would overlap
into more than one category. For example, commercial music festivals, which have become
“a hugely popular phenomenon” (Bowdin, Allen, O’Toole, Harris and McDonnell, 2011, p23)
could overlap into other categories, such as cultural and leisure. This is strengthened by Getz
(2012, p40) who states that “any event can fulfil multiple functions, facilitate similar
experiences and have many meanings attached to it.” UK festivals can be divided into single-
theme and multi-theme events (New Leisure Markets, 1995). An example of a single theme
festival could be a folk festival. This is shown in figure 2.2 which has categorised festivals
under both cultural celebrations and sport and recreation.

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Figure 2.2: Typology of Planned Events (Getz, 2012, p41)

Preston (2012, p138) suggests that festivals play an important role in the sharing of
experiences, they perform a “serious social function” and they allow attendees to represent
“expressions of identity and community.” Furthermore, Preston (2012, p38) states that
before the ease of communication through global networks “festivals provided common and
shared experiences… festivals break down barriers, making it effortless to enjoy social
congress.” Therefore, if festivals have social ease and experience at their core then marketing
is potentially a tool to get this message out there.

2.2 Marketing
“Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and organisations obtain
what they need and want through creating and exchanging value with others” (Armstrong,
Kotler, Harker and Brennan, 2015, p11). Armstrong et al (2015, p11) then states that
marketing is the “process by which companies create value for customers and build strong
customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.”

Cole (1997, p131) suggests that an organisations marketing material and marketing streams
are a “channel of communication, between the organisation and its customers.” Meaning that
an organisations marketing material should be able to ‘grab’ the customer’s attention as to
then inspire interest, then desire for the product or service and then the action of the
customer purchasing the product or service (see figure 2.3). Cole (1997) then proposes that

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an organisation’s marketing strategy must be at the centre of its corporate strategy; and that
“marketing is a powerful influence on all other functions in a…organisation” (Cole, 1997,
p131).

Figure 2.3: AIDA Model (Mishra, 2016)

As suggested in Brassington and Pettitt (2006) the marketing strategy should mean that the
organisation is looking at their competitors marketing strategy and trying to make theirs
bigger and better and have a bigger and better product so that the organisation is always
ahead of its competitors.

Hoyle (2002, p152) describes festivals as “more varied and sophisticated than ever before”
and that marketing these types of events “requires unique and innovative tactics.” Hoyle
(2002, p152) also suggests that the success of events does not always depend on the type of
event but on “how well the marketer takes advantage of certain factors of the event” this
includes: weather, cost, location, competition and entertainment. This is further
strengthened by Preston (2012, p142) who states that “the success of an event may not
depend on the type of event, the star attraction, or the cause of the event, but on how well
the marketer is able to motivate a potential festival audience.”

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2.2.1 Marketing Strategies
Brassington and Pettitt (2006) suggest that service industries cannot just use the traditional
marketing mix, the 4P’s, for their marketing strategies; additional elements should be added
as services are intangible. This means that for marketing in the service industry they use the
extended marketing mix, the 7P’s, which are: Price, Product, Place, Promotion, People,
Physical Evidence and Processes (see figure 4). Brassington and Pettitt (2006, p1063) then
state that “these extra marketing mix elements can enhance or detract from the customer’s
overall experience when consuming the service.”

Figure 2.4: The 7P’s of Service Marketing (Marketing Mix, 2016)

When people post status’ they are using the marketing technique of word of mouth. Preston
(2012, p112) states that “word of mouth is recognised as being the front line of event choice.”
Campbell (2015) then goes on to suggest when people buy a product or service if they are
happy with it then they will tell two people about it who are most likely to like the product
and be interested in it. On the other hand, if people dislike a product they are likely to tell
eight people about it. This is known as the 80:20 rule of marketing. However, with so many
people on social media they are telling more and more people about both their good and bad

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experiences. This is strengthened by Williams (2015) who states that Facebook has more than
500 million users with at least 32% also using Twitter on a regular basis.

Therefore, a customer posting a comment or photo about the festival can either encourage
people to engage in the activities, or it can also have the opposite affect meaning that people
may not return, resulting in loss of customer loyalty. This is supported by Aaker (1996) (cited
in Hudson et al (2015, p71) who states that “when consumers interact with brands, they can
develop an active relationship with those brands.”

Another marketing strategy that festivals could use is electronic marketing (E-marketing).
“Electronic marketing is an integrated and mainstream aspect of any event marketing”
(Preston, 2012, p112). Preston (2012) goes on to suggest that the use of internet has changed
the relationship that an organisation has with its customers and potential customers.
Furthermore, Preston (2012) suggests that the use of e-marketing will mean that the
consumer is part of the marketing communications of an organisation.

2.3 Social Media

“Social media is not particularly complicated;
it is a set of… platforms and technologies that
allow people to talk with other people… it can
be accessed from virtually anywhere and pretty
much at any time” (Blanchard, 2011, p5-6).

This definition is strengthened by Dann and Dann (2011, p344) who further state that “social
media is about interconnection between content, users and communication technologies…
the current modus operandi for the internet is an inherent belief in the value of connecting
with other people.” Moreover, social media

“provides the way people share ideas, content,

thoughts and relationships online. Social media
differs from…mainstream media in that anyone
can create, comment on, and add to social
media content” (Scott, 2015, p56).

Social media is a very popular form of communication; that is becoming more popular with
new social media sites and apps being released. Social media not only allows people to
connect with people; but businesses to connect with businesses and businesses to connect

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with consumers. Social media also allows businesses and people to “learn more from those
around you and discover new information from your extended network” (Brown, 2010, p1).

Chaffey for Global Social Media Research (2016) brought together statistics for social media
in 2016. These statistics state that there are over 2.307 billion active social media users world-
wide. There was a 10% increase in the number of active social media users around the world
in 2016. Although it could be said that the increase of new users to Facebook is slowing it
remains to be the most popular social media site. Facebook has gone from just over 400
million users in 2010 to over 1,600 million in 2016. Facebook is accessed by around 70% of
people in the UK. The average user of social media is 41 years of age. The second most popular
social media site in 2016 was WhatsApp with around 1,000 million users world-wide.
However, snapchat is the second most popular social media site for 18 to 34 year olds. Twitter
was the ninth most popular site in 2016 with only around 300 million users’ world-wide
meaning that only 24% of adults who use social media engage with Twitter. These statistics
could suggest that marketers should not necessarily use Twitter if they want to target the
most people.

Figure 2.5 below shows the overlap of the three elements that should be present for a social
media system to be in place. All the elements underpin a user’s practise of social media.

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Figure 2.5: Social Media Components (Dann and Dann, 2011, p345).

2.3.1 Social Media Marketing

As stated by Brassington and Pettitt (2006, p1184) “technology is having a big impact on
marketing. Two previously parallel technologies are now merging to create new
opportunities.” Mentor digital (2016) argues that “the new age of communication makes it
easier than ever to reach out to consumers.” All of this suggests that social media is becoming
a big part of the marketing world. Thus, many companies and organisations are incorporating
social media into their marketing strategies.

However, “little is known about how social media influences emotions and attachments to
brands, and whether social media-based relationships lead to desired outcomes such as
positive word of mouth” (Hudson, Roth, Madden, Hudson, 2015, p68).

Saravanakumar et al (2012, p4451) defines social media marketing as the “way of promoting
a website, brand or business by interacting with or attracting the interest of current or
prospective customers through the channels of social media.” Formic Media (2009)
strengthens this definition by stating that social media is, “an umbrella term that defines the
various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words
and pictures.” Brian Solis (2010) then goes on to state that “social media is the
democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers.”

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Armstrong et al (2015, p498) develops this by saying that “social media is used by marketers
for more than promotions and online promotions selected using the data volunteered by
users can be a powerful promotional tool.” The Internet Advertising Bureau UK (cited in
Armstrong et al, 2015) states that social media advertising increased by 71% from 2012 to
2013. Baines and Fill (2014, p624) states that “social networking requires a cultural shift for
marketers and has differing levels of engagement.” This is strengthened by Hudson et al
(2015, p69) who sates that “companies have generally embraced social media because of its
potential for engagement and collaboration with its customers.”

A blog writer for HubSpot, Julie Hong (2015) proposes that festivals are ahead of other social
media marketers and that they could teach them a lot. For example, how they use Twitter for
in-event promotion and how they use YouTube for advertising. Bowdin et al (2012, p434)
states that “that this area is evolving at a rapid pace” and the opportunities for events are
growing.

One of the characteristics of social media as suggested by Evens (2012, p38) is that “you can
listen to it, measure it, and track it over time.” Evens (2012) also suggests that you can use
what you learn to improve the service that you offer and give the customer what they have
asked for. Another aspect of social media as stated by Hudson et al (2015) is that companies
can “foster loyalty through networking.”

Sigala et al (2012, p2) suggest that social media is the “digital version of word of mouth, social
media represents the materialisation, storage, and retrieval of word of mouth content
online.” Anderson (2013) strengthens this by saying that “personal recommendations and
customer opinions are more effective than any other form of marketing.” Anderson (2013)
then goes on to say that “92% of consumer’s trust recommendations from people they know,
and 70% trust opinions posted online.”

Ryan (2015) says “social media is a primary communication tool” for both the organisation
and the customer. It allows people to “freely interact with other people” (Tuten and Solomon,
2013) and share comments, “reviews, ratings, photos, stories and more” (Tuten and Soloman,
2013). Tuten and Soloman then go on to suggest that people use social media to share both
good and bad experiences with their friends, family and colleagues. This could be at a festival
for example, where people could be sharing photos of who is playing and where.

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Chaffey and Smith (2013, p58) further support how customers use social media, and advertise
brands, without realising.

“Social media has changed everything. Generating

conversation on social media platforms enhance
the product experience (product), promotes the
brand (promotions), and spreads the accessibility of
the brand (place) and is totally dependent on well-trained
teams (people) who are given crystal-clear systems and
processed (processes).”

“How can you use word of mouth in your own campaigns? This question turns out to be
fundamental to the use of social media” (Evans, 2012, p20). Suggesting that social media
impacts on how consumers interact with an event.

As stated by Getz (2012, p29) “the event experience can be augmented by pre-, during and
post-event interactions to foster engagement and increase satisfaction.” Getz (2012, p29)
also states that “social worlds… offer the opportunity to co-create events interactively with
online communities.”

Furthermore, as stated in Bowdin et al (2012, p241)

“the internet now plays a major role in events, with
participants using it to research the event before
their arrival, keep track during an extended event and
re-live the highlights of the event after they have departed.”
Figure 2.6: The New Communication Paradigm (Mangold and Faulds, 2009)

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This is a model created by Mangold and Faulds, it shows how social media can start to be
incorporated into the promotion aspect of the marketing mix (7P’s). Mangold and Faulds
(2009) suggest that an organisations promotion mix should reflect their mission statement
and performance goals. Furthermore, the promotion mix should be coordinated so the
“information transmitted to the market place through these elements consistently
communicates a unified message” (Mangold and Faulds, 2009, p358).

2.4 Customer Experiences at Events

“People do not buy products, or even services; they purchase the total experience that the
product or service provides” (Morgan, Lugosi and Ritchie, 2010). Calder, Isaac and Malthouse
(2016) suggest that customer engagement is a major marketing objective and that having
customer engagement can increase advertising effectiveness.

“Managers have become increasingly aware of the need to create value for their customers
in the form of experiences” (Barry, Carbone and Harckel, 2002). “In the modern world it is
more difficult to impress an audience with an event because the public is much more used to
seeing events in the media and to attending events” (Shone and Parry, 2013, p263). Shone
and Parry (2013, p263) then go on to state that event organisers must also bear in mind that
at a “vast majority of events it is the guests or visitors themselves who will help create the
atmosphere and ambience… by their presence or by their participation and involvement, as
well as their enjoyment.”

Part of this is customer satisfaction as Armstrong et al (2015, p21) state “customer satisfaction
depends on the product’s perceived performance relative to a buyer’s expectations.” Getz
(2012, p197) strengthens this by stating that “people go to an event having some expectations
of the experience to be obtained.” Armstrong et al (2015) also suggests that if a customer is
satisfied with their experience then they are going to use the product or service again,
therefore, building customer loyalty. Yeoman et al (2004, p252) states that “this is especially
useful for recurring events where continuous improvement in the event visitor’s experience
is a desirable goal.”

“The media context of an advertisement can make it more of an experiential contact that
engages the consumer in a desired way” (Calder and Malthouse, 2005, p358). Therefore,
suggesting that the media that consumers engage in has an impact on their experiences.

29
“Visitors respond to stimulus of their senses of smell, sight, touch, hearing, and taste” (Shone
and Parry, 2013, p264). Shone and Parry (2013) then go on to say that “the physical responses
to a pleasant… environment are well understood, and much the same applies to an event
environment and to the experience a visitor receives while attending.”

2.4 Chapter Summary

In this chapter the key themes that have been discussed are: events and event typologies,
marketing and marketing strategies, social media and social media marketing, and customer
experiences at events; this includes pre-event, in-event and post-event experiences. This has
led to the completion of the first objective ‘to critically review the literature on social media
in relation to events’. As a result of this research into these areas it is possible to create a
theoretical framework on which to base the project.
Figure 2.7: Theoretical Framework (Sproul, 2017)

Events and Event Typologies

Marketing and Marketing

Strategies

Social Media and Social

Media Marketing

Consumer
Experiences at
Events

Shrewsbury
Folk
Festival

It was difficult to find some of the research on social media and social media marketing as
there is a dearth of research on this topic, due to it being a newer form of advertising. Thus,
presenting a need for this research as it shows how the use of social media effects the

30
marketing of events. Consequently, this research will be building on existing research while
also filling in gaps with industry specific research.
The next chapter will look at how the primary research was conducted and the ethical
processes that allowed the research to take place.

31
Chapter 3: Methodology

32
3.0 Introduction
The methodology chapter will explain the research framework that was chosen for this
project. It will look at what methods were chosen and why. These methods, techniques and
procedures will then be evaluated. The methodology chapter will then look at these research
methods in relation to the aims of the project. Moreover, this chapter will also identify the
amount of data that will need to be collected and the time frame in which to do this. The
techniques that will be used to analyse the data collected will also be identified.

This project uses both primary and secondary research methods. Primary research is “new
data specifically collected in the current research project” (Veal, 2011, p186). Whereas
secondary research is the “re-analysis of data for the purpose of answering the original
research question” (Glass, 1976, p3). This is further supported by Veal (2011, p186) who
states that secondary data is data that was “collected for some other (primary) purpose but
can be used a second time in the current project.” It will look at research that has already
taken place and bring all of this together with the primary research on SFF that took place
throughout January 2017.

This project will use a mixed methods approach for the research. This is a research strategy
that combines “methods drawn from different traditions with different underlying
assumptions” (Densconbe, 2007, p107). Alternatively, “a mixed methods strategy is one that
uses both qualitative and quantitative methods” (Densconbe, 2007, p107).

3.1 Case Study Research

Case study research is “one of several forms of social science research” case study research is
preferred in “situations when the main research questions are ‘how’ or ‘why’” (Yin, 2014, p2).

Yin (2014) suggests that case study research is one of the most challenging types of research.
However, the “primary purpose for undertaking a case study is to explore the particularity,
the uniqueness, of the single case (Simons, 2009, p3). Yin (2014) further proposes that there
are different case study reporting formats. The first of these is single-case study. This is where
a “single text is used to analyse the case” (Yin, 2014, p183). These can be anything from one
page to a whole book. The other type of case study reporting format is multiple-case study.
This is where more than one case study is looked at for a project.

33
This project uses a single-case study research format as it is only looking at SFF as a case study
and no other festivals or organisations.

3.2 Quantitative Research

Quantitative data is mainly numerical data that to most people will not mean anything until
“quantitative analysis techniques such as graphs, charts and statistics” (Saunders, Lewis and
Thornhill, 2012, p472) are used examine the “relationship among variables” (Creswell, 2014,
p4) and to help present the information and data in an easy-to-read format.

Quantitative data can be split into two groups, categorical data and numerical data.
Categorical data refers to data that cannot be measured numerically but can be categorised
into sets according to the characteristics that are identified in the data (Saunders et al, 2012).
Numerical data is data that can be measured and counted as quantities. As a result, numerical
data is more accurate than categorical data as “you can assign each data value a position on
a numerical scale” (Saunders et al, 2012, p472).

There are different sources of quantitative data; the research methods include:
questionnaires, interviews, observations and documents (see table 3.1).

Table 3.1: Sources of Quantitative Data (Denscombe, 2007, p254)

34
3.2.1 Methods
This will look at the quantitative methods that were used to conduct the primary research
that took the form of an online survey questionnaire.

Figure 3.1: Types of Questionnaire (Saunders et al, 2012, p420).

Figure 3.1 shows the different types of questionnaire. To collect the quantitative data
Qualtrics was used to create an online survey questionnaire. Qualtrics is an online platform
that makes “software to manage the entire customer experience – from surveys, to insights,
to action” (Qualtrics, 2017). “The popularity of the internet increases” (Wright, 2005) meaning
that there is greater access to a “variety of populations” (Wright, 2005). Thus, making online
surveys more accurate.

When thinking of ways to distribute the questionnaire, it was thought that to gain the most
accurate results it would be best to get a random sample of the festival’s goers as to include
as many types of people as possible. Random sampling “works best with a very accurate and
up-to-date sampling frame and is the preferred method if you intend to carry out any form of
statistical analysis” (White and Rayner, 2014, p77). The questionnaire (see Appendix A) was
distributed through the SFF social media sites by the PR and Communications Director of the
festival. The researcher was aided by a contact within the core team of the festival who helped
in the launching of the questionnaire (see Appendix B). The customers taking part in the
questionnaire had to consent that they are over 18 years of age before they could begin the
questionnaire.

It is said that it would be ideal “to cover the entire population of interest when undertaking a
study” (Altinay, L and Paraskevas, A, 2008, p98). However, for the purposes of a dissertation

35
the “sample size should be at least fifty and preferably nearer one hundred” (Mason, P, 2014,
p149-150). The sample size that was chosen for this project was between 100-150
respondents, as to produce results that are “more reliable and precise” (Veal, 2011, p192).
The questionnaire for many respondents took a maximum of ten minutes to complete.
Furthermore, to protect participant’s confidentiality there were no questions asking for any
personal details, for example, their name or email address. The questionnaire was launched
on January 4th 2017 and closed on January 31st 2017 so that the results could be analysed. In
total 126 questionnaires were completed, this is between the 100-150 parameter.

Web-based surveys can reach many potential respondents quickly, provide for the use of:
multiple-question formats and direct database connectivity. While also allowing for data and
guaranteed confidentiality. Suggesting the improvement in the reliability of the data collected
(Jansen, Corley and Jansen, 2006, p5 cited in Illum, Ivanov and Liang, 2010, p336).

The quantitative research was analysed using Qualtrics; this is the site that was used to
produce the questionnaire. However, it also analyses the results and puts them into figures
to be used in the project.

3.3 Qualitative Research

This section is going to consider what qualitative data is and the research methods that were
used.

Allen et al (2008, p536) state that qualitative data is based on

“individual perceptions and responses and are often

obtained through… interviews, focus groups, staff
feedback and participant observation. They can
provide valuable insights, but are often anecdotal…
rather than statistical analysis.”

This is supported by Denscombe (2007, p286) who states that qualitative “data takes the form
of words and visual images.” Qualitative research can be seen to be “subjective and does not
involve an objective way of looking at things” (White and Rayner, 2014, p206). Moreover,
qualitative data is likely to be more “ambiguous, elastic and complex than quantitative data”
as it is dependent on “people’s interpretation of the events that occur around them”
(Saunders et al, 2012, p546). The table below depicts the different sources of qualitative data.

36
Table 3.2: Sources of Qualitative Data (Denscombe, 2007, p287)

3.3.1 Methods
This will look at the qualitative research methods that were used to conduct the primary
research for this project; this took the form of a semi structured interview.

Figure 3.2: Forms of Interview (Saunders et al, 2012, p375)

There are three different types of interview:

 Structured interviews
 Semi-structured interviews
 Unstructured interviews

37
Structured interviews use a set of predetermined questions which often have pre-coded
answers. There is not much social interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee
other than explanations around the questions. The interviewer must keep the same tone of
voice so not to indicate any bias (Saunders et al, 2012, p374).

For semi-structured interviews, there is not a list of questions; it usually involves a list of
themes that need to be covered and some key questions. As a result, the interview is more
conversational and is more open to additional questions that may crop-up. The interview is
likely to either be recorded by the interviewer or the interviewer will take notes on the key
themes that were discussed (Saunders et al, 2012, p374).

Lastly unstructured interviews are an informal type of interview. There is not a predetermined
list of questions and they are used to explore an area in-depth. The interviewee is “given the
opportunity to talk freely about events, behaviours and beliefs in relation to the topic area”
(Saunders et al, 2012, p375). Thus, it is the interviewee’s opinion that guides the interview.

The interview method that was chosen for this project was a semi-structured interview with
the PR and Communications Director of SFF. The interviewer was prepared with general
questions based around key themes (see Appendix C) this was to give a general structure to
the interview. however, due to it being a semi-structured interview the interviewer could ask
additional questions that cropped up during the interview. Resulting in a more conversational
style of interview. The interview took place on January 4th 2017 at the home of the PR and
Communications Director. The interview was 50 minutes long. This interview came about
through a contact within the SFF organisation who assisted in the arranging of the interview.

3.4 Reliability and Validity

Validity is the “extent to which the information presented in the research truly reflects the
phenomena which the researcher claims it reflects” (Veal, 2011, 46). Whereas reliability is the
“extent to which research findings would be the same if the research were to be repeated”
(Veal, 2011, p46).

The validity of the interview response is strong due to the interview being with the PR and
Communications Director of SFF; resulting in the information coming from someone directly
involved and not a third party or secondary research.

38
The questionnaire could be seen to be less reliable as only 126 people responded to the
questionnaire and so this is not a true representation of the customers of SFF. However, as
this is a small project this is a good number of respondents. Although this does not make the
results any less valid. The questions flowed and were in a set order under headings as to give
direction to the questions and to relate them to the research that had already been done in
the literature review.

3.5 Analysis
3.5.1 Questionnaire Analysis - Theory
Questionnaires that are made up of mostly closed-ended questions can be analysed in a
quantitative manner. This involves converting the responses into a numeric form, often
percentages as to make it easy to compare responses (Mason, 2014, p212).

3.5.1.1 Application
The questionnaire analysis was a lot simpler as Qualtrics (the online survey software) puts all
the questionnaire results into charts and graphs (see Appendix D) making it quicker and easier
to analyse the information. Furthermore, this also means that all the information is being
represented correctly and using the right scales so it is less likely to be misinterpreted.
However, there were also some open-ended questions included in the questionnaire which
would be analysed with thematic analysis like the interview.

3.5.2 Interview Analysis - Theory

Mason (2014) suggests that when organising data, themes may emerge almost instantly when
reading through the material. This would then lead to the summarising of the information
and the comparison of it with what has already been found out in the literature review and
comparing the results of the interview with those of the questionnaire.

3.5.2.1 Application
To analyse the interview, it was transcribed by the researcher (see Appendix E) followed by
thematic analysis. Thematic analysis is “the most common type of qualitative analysis that
seeks to identify patterns in the contents of data” (Sgier, 2012, p1). The researcher printed
out the transcript to highlight and draw out the key themes of what had been said. These
themes were compared to the literature review and the questionnaire to see similarities and
gaps in the information.

39
3.6 Limitations
3.6.1 Questionnaire
The questionnaire was a great success with getting over 120 respondents in the first day. This
was due to it being posted on the Facebook page of SFF. It was decided to keep it open for
another couple of weeks to ensure that there were enough respondents for the research.
Having briefly looked through the results it is possible to see patterns and correlation with
the secondary research that was conducted. Furthermore, this showed that the right
questions were asked as initial patterns were easy to detect.

The questionnaire could have been reposted each week that it was open as to maximise the
number of respondents. Thus, meaning that the results would be more true for many the
festivals attendants.

3.6.2 Interview
The interview was also a great success, with the answers being in-depth and very informative;
because of this the interview lasted longer than what was first thought. The amount of
information became apparent when transcribing the interview later. Certain aspects also
showed correlation with the results of the questionnaire.

If the interview was to be conducted again then the questions would be sent out beforehand
so the interviewee could get some statistics ready as this was missing. Additionally, the
questions would be read out loud and practiced and gaps would be identified and potentially
add in or remove questions. In addition, the interview would not only be recorded but notes
would also be taken in case the technology failed.

3.7 Ethical Considerations

“Ethical considerations influence and relate to many aspects of the research process and help
researchers to decide whether a field of study… is ethically acceptable” (Behi and Nolan, 2014,
p2). Furthermore, there are several key principles that must be “observed and preserved.
These include freedom from harm, right to self-determination, right to privacy, and right to
anonymity and confidentiality” (Rogers, 1987, p456). The researcher had to go through an
ethics process (see Appendix F) at Cardiff Metropolitan University to ensure that the
questions that were being asked were not leading questions and to ensure confidentiality of
the participants. The questionnaire did not ask for any personal details from the participants

40
and the PR and Communications Director of the festival was given an information sheet (see
Appendix G) and had to sign to say if they want to be anonymous (see Appendix H). Only once
the ethics committee had approved the proposed research could the research be conducted.

Having gone through the ethics process there should be minimal risks, if any for the people
participating in the questionnaire as it was voluntary and it is confidential. Furthermore, there
should be minimal or no risk for other parties involved for example the university and the
festival as the research is just about the marketing strategies. There was a risk, in that not
enough people will fill out the questionnaire and the need to rely on the festival organisers
to post the questionnaire on their website.

3.8 Chapter Summary

This chapter helped to justify the use of the two chosen research methods; an online survey
questionnaire and an interview. It looks at how valid and reliable each of these research
methods are and how the results of the questionnaire and interview will be analysed.
Moreover, it details the limitations of each method. Lastly this chapter shows the ethics
process and considerations that the researcher had to undergo to be able to conduct and
complete the research.

The next chapter will present the findings and analyse the results of the interview and
questionnaire survey.

41
Chapter 4: Results, Analysis
and Discussion

42
4.0 Introduction
The results chapter will analyse and interpret the data collected in the questionnaire and
interview with Jo Cunningham. The chapter will discuss the results linking them together with
the literature that was reviewed in chapter two. The questionnaire will be analysed first
followed by the interview. The interview analysis attempts to not only link to the literature
but also back to the questionnaire survey to strengthen the validity of the results in both the
interview and the questionnaire.

4.1 Questionnaire
This section will analyse the results from the questionnaire. It will look at any trends and
patterns within the results and link them back to the literature that was reviewed in chapter
two.

4.1.1 About You

The first section of the questionnaire was to gather general information about the
respondents in relation to Shrewsbury Folk Festival.

Figure 4.1: Q1 - What is Your Age?

Figure 4.1 shows the ages of the respondents to the questionnaire. Most of the respondents
were aged between 40 and 60. Whereas the least number of respondents were aged between
25 and 40. Carroll (2013) states that the “average age of a festival goer is now 30+ year’s old.”
This is strengthened by Festival Awards (2015) who state “48% of festival goers are over 30

43
years old.” These statistics could suggest why many of the people who answered the
questionnaire were aged between 40 and 60. This is further supported by The Research
Solution (2013, p5) who state that “over three quarters (77%)” of festival’s goers in 2013 were
aged 45 and over. Moreover, 66.13% of the respondents were female while only 33.06%
were male.

Figure 4.2: Q3 - Have you attended Shrewsbury Folk Festival before 2016?

Figure 4.2 states that 109 respondents were repeat customers in 2016. Whereas 15
respondents were first time customers. This is supported by The Research Solution (2013,
p12) which suggests that 74% of people had been to the festival before and wanted to return.

Figure 4.3: Q4 - How many times?

Figure 4.3 is a follow-on question from question three. It shows that 47.71% of respondents
have attended the festival two to five times before 2016. It further states that 41.28% of
respondents have attended more than five times before 2016. While only 11% of respondents
have attended once before 2016.

44
Figure 4.4: Q5 - How did you first find out about the festival?

Figure 4.4 illustrates how respondents found out about the festival. Over half of respondents
discovered the festival through word of mouth. This is again further supported by The
Research Solution (2013, p14) which states that 47% of people found out about the festival
through word of mouth. Whereas only 7.38% of respondents found out about the festival
through social media. Furthermore, 19.67% of respondents found out in other ways which
include:

 When the festival moved from Bridgnorth to Shrewsbury,

 They live local to the festival,
 Parents introduced them to the festival,
 Traditional media such as, radio, newspapers and magazines,
 The following of a band or artist.

45
4.1.2 Social Media
This section of the questionnaire asked about what social media sites the respondents use
and their use of social media.

Figure 4.5: Q7 - What social media sites do you use? Select all that apply.

Figure 4.5 displays the different social media sites that the respondents use. It shows that
Facebook is the most popular social media site for the respondents with it being used by
97.54% of the respondents. This may not be surprising as Facebook is “used by half the world’s
internet users” (Buchanan, 2015). This could suggest that Facebook is the most popular social
media site used by respondents aged 40-60. This is because respondents in this age group
make up over half of the respondents that took part. Moreover, this is supported by Festival
Awards (2015) who state that the average age of a festival goer is 33 and the top social media
site that is used by UK festival goers is Facebook with 89.2%. YouTube was the second most
popular social media site with 64.75% of respondents using this. This was also the second
most popular social media platform for UK festival goers in 2015 with 82.16% using it (Festival
Awards, 2015). In addition, Twitter was the third most popular form of social media with
38.52% of respondents using it. Again, this matches the results from Festival Awards (2015)
with Twitter being their top three results with 59.19% of UK festival goers using it.

46
There were other social media sites that the respondents use, these include:

 God’s Jukebox,
 Flickr,
 Live Journal,
 WhatsApp.

Figure 4.6: Q8 - How often do you engage with social media?

Figure 4.6 shows how often the respondents engage with social media in general. 89.34% of
respondents said that they engage with social media daily. This is supported by Davidson
(2015) who states that in the UK people on average spend one hour and twenty minutes each
day on social media. This is further supported by Safko (2012, p31) who states that “more
than 50% of Facebook users log in every day.”

47
Figure 4.7: Q9 - Have you engaged with social media at Shrewsbury Folk Festival?

Figure 4.7 exhibits that 72.13% of respondents engaged with social media during SFF.
Whereas 27.87% of respondents did not engage with social media at the festival.

Figure 4.8: Q10 - How often have you engaged with social media at Shrewsbury Folk Festival?

Figure 4.8 shows how often the respondents engage with social media during the festival
period. It shows that 69.05% of respondents only engaged with social media some of the time
during the festival. Whereas only 22.62% of respondents engaged with social media at the
festival most of the time or always. These results could suggest that people only engaged with
social media to get updates on changes that were happening within the festival and not to
experience the festival through social media.

48
Figure 4.9: Q11 - What do you use social media for during the festival?

Figure 4.9 demonstrates what the respondents used social media for during their time at the
festival. It shows that 76.47% of respondents used social media to either post pictures or send
messages. The other aspects that people used social media for include:

 To find out about changes to the festival programme,

 To see what other people were saying about the festival, and
 To watch the festival online.

These comments back up what was previously stated about respondents using social media
to find out about changes to the festival programme.

49
4.1.3 Event Experience
This part of the questionnaire considered if and how the use of social media affects the
experience the respondents had at the festival.

Figure 4.10: Q12 - Does using social media have an impact on your event experience?

Figure 4.10 shows that for 59.76% of the respondents that social media does not have any
impact on their event experience. This could again be because they use it to find out about
changes in the festival programme which can be found out from stewards.

Figure 4.11: Q13 - In what way do you feel that the use of social media can enhance your
experience at the festival?

50
Figure 4.11 shows that 84.72% of respondents feel that using social media can enhance their
experience by keeping them up-to-date about changes at the event. Furthermore, 36.11% of
respondents said that it can enhance their experience by making them feel more involved in
the event. In addition, 13.89% feel that the use of social media allows them to experience
more of the festival. Moreover, respondents felt that there were other ways that using social
media could enhance their festival experience. These include:

 Being kept up-to-date with the outside world,

 Seeing different acts after seeing posts that have caught the respondents eye,
 To feel part of a community,
 To get a sense of what is causing a buzz at the festival.

Figure 4.12: Q14 - Does it make you more or less likely to attend the festival again, knowing
that you can interact more with the festival?

Figure 4.12 states that 69.51% of respondents are neither likely nor unlikely to attend SFF
knowing that they can interact with the festival. This suggests that these respondents do not
engage often with social media and they do not feel that it has an impact on their event
experience. However, only 21.96% of respondents said that they are somewhat or extremely
likely to attend the festival knowing that they can interact more with the festival.

51
Figure 4.13: Q15 - Do you want the festival to develop and/or change how they use social
media?

The figure above states that 67.08% of respondents either want the festival to develop and/or
change how they use social media or are unsure if they would like the festival to develop
and/or change how they use social media. Implying that the respondents want more from the
festival by the way of social media. However, 32.93% of respondents do not want the festival
to change how they currently use social media. Suggesting that they are happy with the way
in which the festival uses their social media sites.

Figure 4.14: Q16 - How would you like them to develop and/or change how they use social
media?

52
Figure 4.14 above shows that nearly half of respondents would like SFF to develop and/or
change how they use social media by enabling more audience interaction with the festival.
Additionally, 41.54% of respondents stated that they would like the festival to use Facebook
Live. This could be to make the use of Facebook more interactive for the respondents and
audience in general.

4.1.4 Post Event

Figure 4.15: Q17 - Do you use social media after the event?

This figure shows that 87.80% of respondents use social media after the event. This could be
to relive the festival and to share photos and messages about the festival. Whereas 12.2% of
respondents said that the do not use social media after the event; suggesting that they only
use social media to keep up-to-date with changes and news at the festival.

53
Figure 4.16: Q18 - What do you use social media for after the event?

Figure 4.16 shows what the respondents used social media for post-event. 80.56% of
respondents said that they used social media to post pictures of the event post-festival.
Moreover, 58.33% of respondents used social media to post messages. In addition, 22.22% of
respondents said that they used social media for other reasons, these include:

 Posting music of the festival’s artists,

 To keep up-to-date about next year’s festival,
 To play the YouTube concerts,
 To give feedback to the festival,
 To keep in touch with friends,
 To share posts about dancing groups.

Question 19 was a chance for the respondents to give any further comments about the
festival and how it uses social media. People say that having fast WIFI during the event would
make them more likely to engage with social media at the event. Another respondent stated
that it is “quite nice to take a break from social media for a weekend” as this allows them to
enjoy the music, performances and get to know people at the event. This is supported by
another respondent who states that they are “too busy enjoying the festival to be glued to a
phone.” Moreover, one respondent stated that “life can continue without social media” and
when people were filming on their phones it broke the atmosphere and it was distracting.
However, many of the respondents stated that they find “social media about Shrewsbury far
more useful before the event” than during as they use it to find out about tickets, camping
54
and the times that they should be arriving on and off site. Some respondents stated that they
do not use social media as much during the festival as they have limited signal, internet and
battery life for the whole weekend. In addition, someone commented that “this year’s
Facebook was fab!” another comment stated that “the live stream element of the festival
allowing others around the world to engage in the festival is brilliant.”

This is mixed feedback about the use of social media at SFF. Though, the general feedback
suggests that the festival’s use of social media is good however limited signal, internet and
battery life limits how much festival goers can use social media during the festival.

4.2 Interview
This section presents the analysis of the interview which draws out themes and trends within
the responses. These themes are:

 Marketing,
 Organisational use of social media,
 Impact of the use of social media,
 Customer experience,
 The future.

This section will relate the responses back to the questionnaire results and the literature that
has previously been reviewed. The interview was with the PR and Communications Director
of SFF, Jo Cunningham.

4.2.1 Marketing
The first part of the interview was about general marketing aspects of SFF.

This discussion initially centred around the nature of the festival’s attendees in that Jo
suggested that folk festivals used to be something that was mostly attended only by keen folk
fans. However, Jo states that “the world of festivals and events has changed massively and
people much more go to a festival for an experience.” Suggesting that the festival’s audience
has become much more diverse and this has made the way the festival advertises much more
important. Jo goes on to state that putting an advert in the Shropshire Star, a local newspaper,
or SongLines Magazine is very static whereas “social media has allowed us to target our
audience, which is quite diverse, far better.”

55
The discussion then moved on to ask if the festival looks at how their competitors use social
media; Jo stated that “we kind of do, to a certain extent” as there are festivals on and around
the same weekend as SFF, Towersey or FolkEast for example. However, not all of these are
folk festivals but they could potentially attract the same audience. Jo further states that
“Shrewsbury has grown quite organically in terms of its audience, in terms of its actual
programming as well.” This is a result of Shrewsbury not just doing anything and everything
that their competitors do; instead they try to “hone the experience that we give our festival
goers.” Jo develops this by stating that “we try to do something because it works for our
audience or works for what we are trying to create as an event” this is to help create the
festivals USP. The festival does keep an eye on their competitors as to not get out dated or
“miss the next big trick;” however, it is much more about creating a quality event for the
festival goers and “responding to their needs than necessarily competing with others.”
However, when having checked competing festivals social media they had only “Tweeted
perhaps once a day with what was happening” whereas Shrewsbury’s was completely “choc-
a-block with information and engagement.” As a result, the festival is building relationships
with their consumers. This is called consumer relationship marketing; which is “the values and
strategies of relationship marketing – with particular emphasis on customer relationships”
(Gummesson, 2002, p3). Jo goes onto state that “social media… allows you that level of
engagement that you would traditionally never have been able to have through static
advertising.”

4.2.2 Organisational Use of Social Media

This next section was about how SFF’s use social media and how it is managed throughout
the festival. SFF started to use Facebook about eight to nine years ago. This is around when
the network extended beyond educational institutions and the registered number of users
had reached 30 million, making it “the largest social-networking site” (Phillips, 2007).
“Facebook was our first foray into social media” although after a couple of years the festival
added Twitter to their social networks. Jo further stated that “in more recent years we have
added Instagram” and in 2016 they started to use Periscope. Instagram and Periscope are
only used during the festival Jo said that “Instagram is very, of the moment” and Periscope is
used to live stream elements of the festival. It is said that Periscope “lets you see the world
through the eyes of somebody else” (Periscope, 2017). These videos are then posted to the

56
festivals YouTube site so that people can revisit them after the festival. To manage the social
media sites, they bring in volunteers during the festival weekend, the volunteers get a free
ticket and operate from 9:00am to midnight. The volunteers “enjoy the festival but… Tweet
as they go… keeping people updated if there are any program changes.” The festival has found
that this has worked well for them as people enjoy engaging and having their pictures re-
tweeted. During the festival Facebook is used more for updates to the program and other
aspects that might have changed whereas “Twitter and Instagram and Periscope is about
capturing the moment.” For example, the Frumpton Guggenband started to play on a shuttle
bus to town and Jo “posted that on Facebook and Twitter and it just went crazy.” Moreover,
customers ask questions about changes at the festival via social media.

Jo’s response relates to what the respondents said to question 11 in the questionnaire. It
showed that many respondents use social media during the event to post pictures and
messages these could be both to and about the event. In addition, when the respondents
specified what else they used social media for at the festival, most said that it was to find out
about any news about the festival, for example changes to the program. Another element
that was discussed was that the two main stages were broadcast live and then the recorded
footage is played in the downtime of the festival. Moreover, people can email in and have a
message to their friends and family put up on the big screens in both these marquees. This
service has been available for about eight years.

The conversation then progressed into the demographics of who uses the different social
media sites. Jo stated that she finds that in the experience of the festival “Facebook… is very
much the older more traditional audience” this is supported by Chaffey (2016) who states
that the average social media user is 41 years of age. However, in relation to the festival their
Twitter has a much younger, instantaneous audience, “people who are perhaps slightly more
politically aware, politically active, more interested in current affairs.” This is supported by
Greenwood et al (2016) who states that 36% of Twitter users are aged between 18 and 29.
Being on different social networks “gives us the chance to interact with different sections of
our audience which would have been really hard to target before social media.” As a result,
social media has allowed the festival to spend their money in a better way.

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4.2.3 Impact of the Use of Social Media
The next area of conversation was about how social media impacted upon the use of other
marketing material. Jo states that:

“while there is still printed media there is always going

to be the need for a level of advertising spend on
traditional adverts… because it is almost as if you have
to be seen to still be there.”

The festival used to send mail shots out throughout the year to their customers to keep them
updated on the acts that would be performing and any other information about the festival.
However, as stated by Jo “people now expect more to be able to book things online.” This is
strengthened by Kemp (2016) who states “people now expect everything to be connected”
this is because “the internet is no longer just an information portal; it’s the ‘electricity’ of
modern society and commerce connecting us to the people and things we care about most.”
Furthermore, some customers “manage to use Facebook and then they’ll go, and how do I
book tickets?” strengthening the idea that it is an older generation that uses Facebook. The
reputation of the festival has been built up over the years and “social media has helped in
that as well, definitely.”

This then moved on to whether the festival spends money on their social media advertising.
Jo said that the festival does “spend money on digital advertising… which we tend to tie in
with, obviously, ticket sales.” SFF detail their marketing activity along with using Google
Analytics which tells them the level of interactivity that they get on their website each day
and it allows the festival to track ticket sales. As a result, allowing the festival to “really hone
our spending” so they are “quite flexible in our budget and if we don’t need to spend it we
won’t.” The flexibility of social media “is another positive for us” it means that the festival can
target specific groups of customers. Furthermore, Jo states that if the festival does not need
to spend money on an advert “that’s not actually going to sell…anymore tickets…that money
can be spent elsewhere on the festival and honing the overall experience of the festival goer.”
Moreover, a “large proportion of our festival goers are repeat visitors… so they would come
regardless of…an advert on Facebook or Twitter.” This is backed up by the results in questions
three and four of the questionnaire which showed that 87.9% of respondents are repeat

58
customers and 88.99% of these respondents have attended either between two and five
times or more than five times before 2016.

Jo then goes onto mention that “as much as social media and PR and marketing…can…help
you get that message out word of mouth is ultimately the best kind of marketing that you can
get.” Therefore, SFF works hard to “present the image of the festival that we do” because
they want customers to have a good perception on the event. Jo then states that “you could
have lots of pictures of bands on stage but it’s happy, smiley faces that make people think…
they’re having a brilliant time.”

The next aspect to be discussed is how SFF presents itself through social media because often
people think “Agh Folk it’s just old men, beards, finger in your ear…singing.” Meaning that
Shrewsbury have to think about how they present their festival to their ever-growing
audience “it’s not just a case of slap a photograph up and so be it; we want to explain the
diversity of the festival. Which can be hard to do in 140 characters sometimes.” Some festivals
have decided to change their name so that it does not include the word ‘folk’ as to sell more
tickets. However, the ethos of the festival and the

“ethos of Alan and Sandra, the festival directors,

has always been that they want to create a
quality event and quality is more important to
them than packing people onto the site.”

The next question asked if there has been an increase in the number of attendees since the
use of social media. Jo states that “the festival has consistently sold out in the last five to six
years and during that period we have coincidently been using social media.” Jo adds that
“social media certainly helps us to engage with our audience whether it helps us sell more
tickets, I don’t know.” Therefore, unless “you specifically said to every single person, how did
you book your first ticket… then it would be hard to say.” Furthermore, a lot of the customers
at the festival are repeat visitors and they may also follow the festival on Facebook and
Twitter. In addition, there are many people who follow the festival on social networks who
would never come to the festival but they are “interested in what we have to say and what’s
going on.”

The discussion further developed to ask if there has been a change in the demographic of the
people who attend the festival. Jo started by stating that the “demographic is always going to

59
be changing…because as that older audience gets older the younger audience…will be coming
through.” Jo further suggests that the general public’s perception of the event would be that
the audience is old because it is a folk festival; however, the festival “has a huge family
element” with the children and youth festivals expanding in recent years. Jo concludes this
point by stating that “it would be…hard to put…audience demographic or audience increase
down to social media but I think it certainly plays its role.”

The conversation then moved back to focus more on the social media sites and how regularly
they get updated throughout the year. Jo suggests that it is quieter from around September
to late November and then the festival has a “little peak in December when we first
announce” and then leading up to the festival the level of engagement just keeps increasing.
Jo tries to “keep it ticking over all the time… because I think people deserve a level of
engagement.” This is to try and increase the interest in what is happening at the festival so
that people “buy into the festival.” The festival runs projects throughout the year which are
posted on the social media sites as well as the information about the festival. An example of
this would be the festival’s All Together Now project which has been running in schools.
Though, there is “much more to say and…more engagement from the consumer side as we
head into the festival.” This is because the customers want to know all the details about
camping and what facilities will be available on site.

4.2.4 Customer Experience

This element of the interview talks about how the use of social media before, during and after
the event could impact on the customer experience.

Even post festival people are “desperate to know when the video replays are going to be up
and when the photos are going to be up because they…want to relive it and suck it all up.”
The festival broadcast all their webcast footage through YouTube in 2016 which meant that
people can go back and watch them and they get posted on social media as well. Jo goes onto
conclude by stating that “there are definitely quieter times but we never ignore them
completely.”

The discussion then develops to ask if being able to interact with customers has created
greater loyalty from customers. Jo starts by saying that before social networks people were
much more “reliant on… PR, your traditional articles in newspapers and magazines” however,

60
“you had no idea on those hit rates… at least you get that level of knowledge with social
networking,” how many people look at your social media sites, the likes and re-tweets that
the festival gets. Jo goes on to state that “it has probably helped; I’ve got no figures or facts
to base that on but I certainly think it helps us build that overall festival experience.” This is
because the use of social media as a marketing tool means that the festival uses experiential
marketing. “The experiential approach is focused on a two-way interaction in real-time, a live
brand experience and thereby a significantly deeper consumer bonding process” (Smilansky,
2009, p3).

4.2.5 The Future

The last element of the interview was about how the festival plans on using social media in
the future.

The interview then moves into asking about if the festival would consider using other social
media sites in the future. Jo states that:
“you could do all of these…not particularly well
or you could concentrate your efforts on where
the majority of your followers are…for us it’s
about providing a decent, quality service to people.”

Periscope was new to the festival in 2016; they did “nine broadcasts and got over 1,000
viewers.” Instagram was also added two years ago, so the festival is “not adverse to change.”
However, “unless you’re an organisation with unlimited resources you can’t be on all of
these…you don’t want any of them not to be properly serviced.”

The discussion concluded with a question asking if SFF will develop their use of social media
for example using Facebook Live. Jo responds by stating that “Facebook Live is certainly
something that we will probably use next year because Facebook is quite static and it’s very
hard to give that instantaneous engagement.” Whereas Twitter is “much more of the
moment.” You use to be able to link your social networks so that the same post would be on
each site but the festival has “never, ever done that and it’s been a deliberate policy because
they are such diverse audiences.” But we would look at other “things that exist in the
platforms that we’re already using” however, if thinking of a new networking site the festival
would have to think about the benefits to them and their customers.

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4.3 Chapter Summary
This chapter analysed and discussed the results collected from the primary research
conducted in the form of an online survey questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. it
draws out the key themes from both the questionnaire and the interview comparing the
results with existing literature.

The key themes from the questionnaire are:

 Word of mouth is the biggest form of advertising for SFF.

 Respondents mostly use social media to post pictures and messages.
 Most respondents feel the biggest way that social media could impact on their event
experience is to keep up-to-date on changes at the event.
 If the festival was to develop their use of social media, then nearly half of respondents
said that they would like more audience interaction.

The key themes from the interview are:

 The way the festival advertises is more important now as to be inclusive of such a
diverse audience.
 Social media allows more engagement with the audience that static advertising could
not give.
 The festival has social media volunteers who “enjoy the festival but…Tweet as they
go.”
 The two main social media sites used (Facebook and Twitter) are kept up-to-date all
year. It gets a lot busier the closer to the festival it is.
 The use of social media has helped to build the whole festival experience.

Furthermore, this chapter also looks at how the results from the questionnaire support what
was said in the interview. Thus, completing objectives two and three stated in chapter one.

The next chapter will make conclusions and recommendations based on the results analysed
and discussed in this chapter.

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Chapter 5: Conclusions and
Recommendations

63
5.0 Introduction
SFF is one of Shropshire’s largest annual events. It is held on the August bank holiday weekend
at the West Mid Showground. Last year (2016) the festival had over “240 musicians, 250
dancers and 100 workshops” (Shropshire Star, 2016). The festival attracts around 7,000
people each year. SFF has been using social media for the last eight years for marketing
alongside using traditional advertising mediums such as:

 Newspapers,
 Magazines,
 Festival Programs,
 Posters/ Flyers.

This project set out to evaluate whether the use of social media has had an impact on the
festival and if so in what way. The primary research took the form of an online survey
questionnaire and a semi-structured interview.

This chapter summarises the research and reflects on the research process by discussing the
key findings from the research conducted and the analysis undertaken, revisit the aims and
objectives and how these may or may not have been completed. Moreover, this chapter will
make recommendations to SFF and look at the limitations to the research conducted and
future research that could be conducted. Finally, this chapter will reflect on the whole
research process.

5.1 Revisiting Aim and Objectives

The initial aim of the project was to evaluate the effectiveness of social media as a marketing
tool in developing SFF as a major event. To achieve this aim certain objectives had to be met.
This section will look at how each of the objectives were achieved.

The first objective was to critically review the literature on social media in relation to
marketing and events management. This objective was achieved in chapter two, the literature
review; where different literature was reviewed to justify the topic and to see if there was a
gap in current research.

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The next objective was to evaluate and analyse the role of social media in the marketing
strategy of SFF. The objective was achieved when undergoing the interview with the PR and
Communications Director of SFF.

The third objective was to explore the use of social media before, during and after the event,
to assess the impact on event goers. This objective was achieved after having launched the
questionnaire, as questions based around these topics were included in the questionnaire.

Both objectives two and three were further developed and analysed in the chapter four, the
results, analysis and discussion chapter.

The final objective was to make conclusions and recommendations to SFF and other festivals
based on the findings from objectives two and three. This objective was achieved in the final
chapter, the conclusion.

5.2 Key Findings

5.2.1 Questionnaire
 The largest age group to respond to the questionnaire was 40 to 60 years.
 Word of mouth is the biggest form of advertising for SFF.
 The top three social media sites used by the respondents are Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube.
 Most respondents engage daily with social media sites.
 Respondents only engage with social media sometimes, at the festival.
 The respondents mostly use social media to post pictures and messages.
 Most respondents do not feel that the use of social media impacts on their event
experience.
 Most respondents feel that the biggest way social media could impact on their event
experience is to keep up-to-date on changes at the event.
 If the festival was to develop their use of social media, then nearly half of respondents
said that they would like more audience interaction.

65
5.2.2 Interview
 The way the festival advertises is more important now as to be inclusive of such a
diverse audience.
 People more go to a festival for an experience.
 Social media allows more engagement with the audience that static advertising could
not give.
 The festival has social media volunteers who “enjoy the festival but…Tweet as they
go.”
 The use of printed media is still necessary for advertising as it allows the festival to be
seen.
 Digital advertising allows the festival to hone their spending.
 Many of the festival goers are repeat visitors and so attend no matter what advertising
the festival does.
 “word of mouth is ultimately the best kind of marketing that you can get.”
 The quality of the event is more important than “packing people onto the site.”
 Not everyone who follows the festival has been, some people just follow because they
are interested in what the festival is doing.
 The two main social media sites used (Facebook and Twitter) are kept up-to-date all
year. It gets a lot busier the closer to the festival it is.
 People are still interested in the festival post event as they are looking at the photos
that are posted and the YouTube videos that get posted.
 The use of social media has helped to build the whole festival experience.
 The festival would consider using other social media sites in the future.

From these key finding aspects have been drawn out that relate and support the literature in
chapter two. The first aspect, which is mentioned in both the questionnaire and interview
responses, is word of mouth. As stated by Preston (2012, p112) “word of mouth is recognised
as being the front line of event choice.” This is supported by Sigala et al (2012, p2) who states
that social media is the “digital version of word of mouth.” Jo stated in the interview that
“word of mouth is ultimately the best kind of marketing that you can get.”

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Another key aspect that can be related back to the literature is that SFF appear to use the 7P’s
of service marketing for their marketing techniques. This is shown in how SFF’s marketing has
changed as to include their diverse audience. For example, how they use different social
media sites to target different audiences and how the festival is willing to include those who
do not use the internet.

Furthermore, the festival also uses the AIDA model that features in chapter two. The festival
use their advertising to grab the attention of their customers and to spark their interest. This
could also be through the posts on the festival’s social media sites. This then can spark an
interest in the festival. Especially through visuals. After these stages customers are likely to
take action and purchase their tickets.

These aspects have helped to achieve the aim ‘to evaluate the effectiveness of social media
as a marketing tool in developing SFF as a major event.

5.3 Recommendations
When going through the results of the questionnaire some respondents had made
recommendations of how SFF could develop and/or improve their use of social media.

One suggestion was that the festival released ‘sneaky’ previews of the acts and aspects of the
festival on social media sites before the festival weekend. This could also be throughout the
weekend, such as when artists are doing their sound checks. Moreover, on the last day of the
festival the children do a parade with the lanterns that they have made, previews of them
being made could be released as to create excitement.

Another recommendation was that the festival creates an app. This would be to release any
changes in the line-up to the festival or changes in timings. In addition, the app could also be
linked to the festivals Twitter and/or Facebook so people could see comments that people
had made about the festival. Furthermore, the app could also have a messaging service so if
people have any queries then they can have them answered.

Additionally, the festival could have better onsite WIFI so that their customers can interact
with the festival on social media without the risk of it costing them money or not having
service. This could increase audience interaction on social media sites during the festival
weekend.

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Lastly, the festival could have a stall which offers a phone charging facility. This could be a
cheap service as so customers are more likely to use it. Also, customers might be more willing
to use the internet on their phones to engage with social media if they could charge their
phone.

5.4 Limitations
There were a few limitations to the research process for example with the questionnaire, it
may not have been filled in correctly by respondents, for example they may have skipped a
question. This could have been prevented by not allowing respondents to move onto the next
question until they have selected an answer for the question they are on. Furthermore, the
questionnaire could have been reposted each week on the festivals Facebook page as to
maximise the number of respondents. However, the number of respondents reached 126.

Additionally, there were also limitations to the interview process, for example, the
interviewer could have set up a mock interview as to practice the questions, to try and reduce
nerves. Furthermore, the questions could have been sent out beforehand so that the
interviewee could make notes if they wanted to and maybe include some statistics. Lastly the
interviewer should have taken notes as well as recording the interview in case the technology
failed or became broken. This is because technology is not always reliable and can go wrong
sometimes so having a back-up plan would have been advisable.

5.5 Future Research

Although this research has come to some useful conclusions, as in many research projects
there can be ideas for future research; this could be in relation to bigger festivals in Britain or
festivals in other countries. Moreover, future research could also be done in relation to
different demographics, backgrounds, ages and ethnicity to name a few.

Another aspect that could be researched in the future is the marketing of disability access and
the provisions that festivals and/or other events make for people with disabilities. As a result,
the festival and/or event will be reaching out to a wider audience and not limiting themselves
to a certain type of customer. Consequently, not discriminating against anyone. This is
supported by Preston (2012, p38) who states that festivals provide “common and shared
experiences… festivals break down barriers, making it effortless to enjoy social congress.”
Social media can help to enhance experiences as they can say what people have posted rather

68
than having to read it. In addition, the text can be made bigger for people with visual
impairments. Thus, giving people more independence as they can find out the information on
their own and do not have to rely on other people all the time. However, SFF does not have
much influence over how social media sites present themselves and what features they have;
it is up to the individual social media sites. Hollier (2017) states that social media sites could:

 Provide text alternatives for non-text content.

 Provide captions and other alternatives for multimedia.
 Create content that can be presented in different ways, including by assistive
technologies, without losing meaning.
 Make it easier for users to see and hear content.
 Make all functionality available from a keyboard.
 Give users enough time to read and use content.
 Do not use content that causes seizures.
 Help users navigate and find content.

Some of this SFF could do, for example providing captions and subtitles for their multimedia
content, however as previously stated a lot of this is responsibility of the social media site.

5.6 Final Reflection

The research process for this project has been challenging, although enjoyable. It has been
challenging in that the researcher has never completed a project like this before and has not
had to conduct primary research in the form of an interview. Being able to conduct this form
of research has increased confidences for potential future research projects. The process has
also been enjoyable because it has been interesting to find out the responses to the
questionnaire and the interview and to be able to compare and analyse them against each
other and other examples. The researcher is interested in marketing and has found that the
use of social media can help to enhance an event experience and can allow organisations to
communicate with a much wider target market than other more traditional advertising
mediums. Finding out how SFF have incorporated social media into their marketing strategy
has been interesting. Also how the festival has developed their use of social media over the
last eight to ten years to allow them to interact with different demographics of their target

69
market is interesting and shows that the festival’s audience has become much more diverse
since it started in 1997.

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Appendices

71
Appendix A: Questionnaire Layout
Marketing Questionnaire
A Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Media as a Marketing Tool for Events: Case
Study of Shrewsbury Folk Festival. This Project has recieved the approveal of Cardiff School
of Management's Ethics Committee, Cardiff Metropolitan University. I understand that my
participation in this project will involve completing a questionnaire about how the use of
social media affects your experience at Shrewsbury Folk festival. This questionnaire will take
approximately 10 minutes of my time. I understand that my data will be stored on
password protected computers, anonymised after completion of the survey and that no one
will be able to trace my information back to me. The raw data will be reatined for five years
after which it will be deleted/ destroyed. If you are over 18 year of age, understand the
statement above and freely concent to participate in this study please tick the consent box
to proceed.

 Consent Box (1)

If Consent Box Is Selected, Then Skip To About you.What is your age?

About you
Q1 What is your age?

 18-25 (1)
 25-40 (2)
 40-60 (3)
 60+ (4)

Q2 What gender are you?

 Male (1)
 Female (2)
 Prefer not to say (3)

Q3 Have you attended Shrewsbury Folk Festival before 2016?

 Yes (1)
 No (2)
If Yes Is Selected, Then Skip To How many times?If No Is Selected, Then Skip To How did you
first find out about the ...

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Q4 How many times?
 Once (1)
 Two to Five times (2)
 More than five (3)

Q5 How did you first find out about the festival?

 Word of mouth (1)

 Social media (2)
 The festival website (3)
 Posters/ Flyers (4)
 Other, please specify (5) ____________________

Social Media
Q6Do you use social media?
 Yes (1)
 No (2)
If Yes Is Selected, Then Skip To What social media sites do you use? S...If No Is Selected,
Then Skip To End of Survey

Q7 What social media sites do you use? Select all that apply
 Facebook (1)
 Twitter (2)
 YouTube (3)
 Instagram (4)
 Pinterest (5)
 LinkedIn (6)
 Snapchat (7)
 Other (8) ____________________

Q8 How often do you engage with social media?

 Daily (1)
 4-6 times a week (2)
 2-3 times a week (3)
 Once a week (4)
 Less than once a week (5)
 Never (6)

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Q9 Have you engaged with social media at Shrewsbury Folk Festival?
 Yes (1)
 No (2)
If Yes Is Selected, Then Skip To How often do you engage with social m...If No Is Selected,
Then Skip To End of Survey

Q10 How often have you engaged with social media at Shrewsbury Folk Festival?

 Always (1)
 Most of the time (2)
 About half the time (3)
 Sometimes (4)
 Never (5)

Q11 What do you use social media for during the festival?

 To post pictures (1)

 To post messages (2)
 To tweet about or to the event (3)
 Other, please specify (4) ____________________

Event Experience
Q12 Does using social media have an impact on your event experience?
 Yes (1)
 No (2)

Q13 In what way do you feel that the use of social media can enhance your experience at
the festival?
 Makes you feel more involved with the event (1)
 Allows you to experience more of the event (2)
 Keeps you up-to-date on any changes at the event (3)
 Other (4) ____________________

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Q14 Does it make you more or less likely to attend the festival again, knowing that you can
interact more with the festival?
 Extremely likely (1)
 Somewhat likely (2)
 Neither likely nor unlikely (3)
 Somewhat unlikely (4)
 Extremely unlikely (5)

Q15 Do you want the festival to develop and/ or change how they use social media?
 Yes (1)
 Maybe (2)
 No (3)

Q16 How would you like them to develop and/ or change how they use social media?
 Use other sites such as Snapchat and Instagram (1)
 Enable more audience interaction with the festival (2)
 Using Facebook Live (3)

Post Event
Q17Do you use social media after the event?
 Yes (1)
 No (2)

Q18 What do you use social media for after the event?
 To post pictures (1)
 To post messages (2)
 To tweet about or to the event (3)
 Other, please specify (4) ____________________

Q19 Any further comments

(There is an automatic thank you at the end of the survey)

75
Appendix B: Interview Enquiry Email
R.E Interview Enquiry
Dear Jo Cunningham,
I am an undergraduate student at Cardiff Metropolitan University. The title of my research is
‘A Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Media as a Marketing Tool for Events: Case
Study of Shrewsbury Folk Festival.’ Its aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of social media as
a marketing tool in developing Shrewsbury Folk Festival as a major event. To assist me in my
research I would be very grateful to be able to discuss this in your capacity as the marketing
manager for the festival. I am writing to you because I feel that you would be able to
contribute greatly to this project. Before any primary data is collected this project will have
been approved by Cardiff Metropolitan University and all data collection will be in
accordance with the university’s ethics code of practice.
Therefore, my purpose in writing is to ask if you would permit me to undertake an interview
with you. Your participation would be entirely voluntary, I would like your permission to
quote and reference what you say in the project, but remain anonymous if you prefer.
The areas which would be covered in the interview include:

 Role of social media

 Use of social media with customers
 Social media as a tool to enhance the customer experience

I shall be very happy to make the results of my research available to you as a participant in
the research when it is complete. If you would like to participate in this project and or are
interested in discussing it further, please contact me.

Thank you in anticipation.

Yours sincerely
Eloise Sproul
[email protected]

76
Hi,
When do you want to do this?
Jo
■ Jo Cunningham - PR & Communications Director

Hello,
Sorry, I was hoping at some point over the Christmas Holidays as I am home then. However,
I am unsure of an exact date as I do not know when would be convenient for you; also I
do not have my work schedule yet.

Many thanks

Eloise

Just drop me an email when you know!

Jo
■ Jo Cunningham - PR & Communications Director

Thank you, I look forward to meeting you soon.

Many thanks

Eloise

77
Appendix C: Interview Questions
Interview Questionnaire

Marketing

What does your role involve?

Is marketing a bug aspect of how successful the event is?

Do you look at your competitors marketing strategy?

Organisational Use of Social Media

When did you start using social media?

Why do you use social media?

What types of social media do you use?

Why do you use the social media sites that you use?

Impact of Use

Has the use of social media had an impact on your other marketing material? For example,
is it less?

Has the use of social media had a positive or negative impact on your marketing budget?

Roughly how much of your marketing budget is spent on the use of social media each year?

Have you seen an increase in the number of attendees to the festival since you started to
use social media? (In what way?)

Have you seen a change in the demographic of people who attend the event since you
started to use social media? (What has been the change?)

Do you think that this is because of the use of social media?

How regularly do you update your social media sites?

 Around this time of year?

 In the run up to the festival?
 Throughout the duration of the festival?

78
Customer Experience

In what way the use of social media effects the customer experience? For example, more
customer interaction with the festival.

Before, during and after the event.

Has being able to interact with customers created greater customer loyalty?

The Future

Will you use other social media sites in the future? Which ones?

Are there any other ways in which you will develop the use of social media in relation to the
festival? (What are they?)

79
Appendix D: Questionnaire Results
Default Report- Qualtrics
Marketing Questionnaire

A Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Media as a Marketing Tool for Events: Case
Study of Shrewsbury Folk Festival. This Project has received the approval of Cardiff School of
Management's Ethics Committee, Cardiff Metropolitan University. I understand that my
participation in this project will involve completing a questionnaire about how the use of
social media affects your experience at SFF. This questionnaire will take approximately 10
minutes of my time. I understand that my data will be stored on password protected
computers, anonymised after completion of the survey and that no one will be able to trace
my information back to me. The raw data will be retained for five years after which it will be
deleted/ destroyed. If you are over 18 years of age, understand the statement above and
freely consent to participate in this study please tick the consent box to proceed.

# Answer % Count

1 Consent Box 100.00% 116

Total 100% 116

80
About you:
Q1 - What is your age?

# Answer % Count

1 18-25 11.29% 14

2 25-40 7.26% 9

3 40-60 55.65% 69

4 60+ 25.81% 32

Total 100% 124

81
Q2 - What gender are you?

# Answer % Count

1 Male 33.06% 41

2 Female 66.13% 82

3 Prefer not to say 0.81% 1

Total 100% 124

82
Q3 - Have you attended Shrewsbury Folk Festival before 2016?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 87.90% 109

2 No 12.10% 15

Total 100% 124

83
Q4 - How many times?

# Answer % Count

1 Once 11.01% 12

2 Two to Five times 47.71% 52

3 More than five 41.28% 45

Total 100% 109

84
Q5 - How did you first find out about the festival?

# Answer % Count

1 Word of mouth 53.28% 65

2 Social media 7.38% 9

3 The festival website 9.84% 12

4 Posters/ Flyers 9.84% 12

5 Other, please specify 19.67% 24

Total 100% 122

Other, please specify

When it moved from Bridgnorth to Shrewsbury - not sure how I found out though. Had been going
to Bridgnorth for many years
An online folk forum.

The Guardian

Live in Shrewsbury

It's in my town

Songlines Magazine

85
Local

Radio

I live nearby

Volunteer for a charity

Local press

Danced at Bridgnorth, been going ever since

Parent went before me

Internet search for artists

When it moved from Bridgnorth

Artist's website

31 days pamphlet

Hard to say as I live locally and everyone knows about it.

Via one of the artists appearing at the festival.

tour venue of multiple bands

Been going with my parents since I was a child

Not sure but followed it from Bridgnorth

Went to Bridgnorth before festival moved to Shrewsbury

Went to Bridgnorth beforehand

86
Social Media:
Q6 - Social Media. Do you use social media?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 99.19% 122

2 No 0.81% 1

Total 100% 123

87
Q7 - What social media sites do you use? Select all that apply

# Answer % Count

1 Facebook 97.54% 119

2 Twitter 38.52% 47

3 YouTube 64.75% 79

4 Instagram 27.05% 33

5 Pinterest 30.33% 37

6 LinkedIn 31.97% 39

7 Snapchat 12.30% 15

8 Other 5.74% 7

Total 100% 122

88
Other

God's Jukebox

Flickr

whatsapp. messenger

LiveJournal,

Whatsapp

Whats App

89
Q8 - How often do you engage with social media?

# Answer % Count

1 Daily 89.34% 109

2 4-6 times a week 7.38% 9

3 2-3 times a week 2.46% 3

4 Once a week 0.00% 0

5 Less than once a week 0.82% 1

6 Never 0.00% 0

Total 100% 122

90
Q9 - Have you engaged with social media at Shrewsbury Folk Festival?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 72.13% 88

2 No 27.87% 34

Total 100% 122

91
Q10 - How often have you engaged with social media at Shrewsbury Folk Festival?

# Answer % Count

1 Always 5.95% 5

2 Most of the time 16.67% 14

3 About half the time 3.57% 3

4 Sometimes 69.05% 58

5 Never 4.76% 4

Total 100% 84

92
Q11 - What do you use social media for during the festival?

# Answer % Count

1 To post pictures 71.79% 56

2 To post messages 61.54% 48

3 To tweet about or to the event 25.64% 20

4 Other, please specify 15.38% 12

Total 100% 78

Other, please specify

To find out what's going on and where people are

To find out what's happening & what other people are recommending

To check tme changes

I follow Shrewsbury Folk Festival on fb to get festival updates.

Read / see others comments

To find out about changes to Festival programme

Check for news about the festival - eg schedule changes

To see other people's tweets/comments

93
Nothing

See what others are saying about the festival and to get updates about the festival itself.

Watch on line

94
Event Experience:
Q12 - Does using social media have an impact on your event experience?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 40.24% 33

2 No 59.76% 49

Total 100% 82

95
Q13 - In what way do you feel that the use of social media can enhance your experience at
the festival?

# Answer % Count

1 Makes you feel more involved with the event 36.11% 26

2 Allows you to experience more of the event 13.89% 10

3 Keeps you up-to-date on any changes at the event 84.72% 61

4 Other 11.11% 8

Total 100% 72

Other
not essential to enjoying the festival

Keeps me up-to-date with the outside world, although that's not always a good thing!
I've been to see different acts when posts have caught my eye & really enjoyed something
different to what I would usually watch
Makes you feel part of a community of festival goers - shared experience of those attending.

Keeps others informed

Allows me to share with friends who can't be there

Exchange messages and comments with others at the festival... learn how good the thing you've
just missed was! A sense of what's causing a buzz.
Only really used it to show where my dance team was

96
Q14 - Does it make you more or less likely to attend the festival again, knowing that you
can interact more with the festival?

# Answer % Count

1 Extremely likely 9.76% 8

2 Somewhat likely 12.20% 10

3 Neither likely nor unlikely 69.51% 57

4 Somewhat unlikely 3.66% 3

5 Extremely unlikely 4.88% 4

Total 100% 82

97
Q15 - Do you want the festival to develop and/ or change how they use social media?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 12.20% 10

2 Maybe 54.88% 45

3 No 32.93% 27

Total 100% 82

98
Q16 - How would you like them to develop and/ or change how they use social media?

# Answer % Count

1 Use other sites such as Snapchat and Instagram 11.54% 6

2 Enable more audience interaction with the festival 61.54% 32

3 Using Facebook Live 51.92% 27

Total 100% 52

99
Post Event:
Q17 - Do you use social media after the event?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 87.80% 72

2 No 12.20% 10

Total 100% 82

100
Q18 - What do you use social media for after the event?

# Answer % Count

1 To post pictures 80.56% 58

2 To post messages 58.33% 42

3 To tweet about or to the event 18.06% 13

4 Other, please specify 22.22% 16

Total 100% 72

Other, please specify

To post music from the festival artists

To keep up to date about next year

To review and remover the event. Play you tube concerts

Feedback

Keep in touch with new friends

To share posts about our dancing group - Kickin Alice.

Review others comments/posts

To see reruns of artist performances I missed on youtube

Read / view others contributions

Look at others pictures

101
Continue to talk about the festival with friends once home. Also to watch re-runs on youtube

To keep up to date on upcoming festival and see post festival posts.

that question is a bit vague?

Keep up to date with the festival

Youtube

Surveys

102
Q19 - Any further comments

Any further comments

Sorry but life can continue without social media. I have been to events where people were filming
on their phones, it really spoilt everything, broke the atmosphere and was distracting
This year's Facebook was fab!
Only really use Facebook at the festival. Too busy enjoying the festival to be glued to phone and
limited mobile battery life limits tech use on a weekend festival!
Great festival!
The live stream element of the festival allowing others around the world to engage in the festival
is brilliant.
Not really
Not about Shrewsbury but I tweeted the line up for Cambridge a few weeks ago and a friend saw
it and retweeted to her friends and they are now planning to go.
I don't particularly find social media helpful during the event as phone signal/internet/battery is
all limited. I find social media about Shrewsbury far more useful before the event to find out
about tickets/change in prices/information/lineup
Should have an app. Need to inform us about changes to lineups via social media
Open, fast wifi at the event site would make me more likely to engage, however its quite nice to
take a break from social media for a weekend in shropshire with live music, performances and...
people
Cambridge FF release sneaky informal performances exclusively to those following on Twitter
during the festival- makes you feel it's worth following as they are sort of secret until they start
just to the tweeters

103
Appendix E: Transcript of Interview with Jo Cunningham
Eloise: What does your role involve at Shrewsbury Folk Festival?

Jo: Well basically my job is PR and communications director and that basically involves over
seeing all the PR and communications for the festival. Obviously, marketing, dealing with
the media, all the social media management, managing the website, looking at the brand of
the festival as well and how that is enforced. Dealing with photographers, dealing with
media reviews, everything basically that is how we communicate the festival to the public.
Apart from advertising, I don’t deal with advertising. As in I don’t deal with printed
advertising. As in traditional adverts in magazines, and that kind of stuff. But I deal with all
the online, digital advertising.

Eloise: And when the press is coming to the festival and things like that?

Jo: Yes

Eloise: Is marketing a big aspect of how successful the event is?

Jo: Gosh, it’s a million-dollar question, isn’t it? I think the marketing of the festival is a really
useful tool for us because the festival is many things to many people. Once upon a time a
traditional folk festival would have been something that would have been attended by keen
folk fans, and that was it. It wasn’t open to anything else. But obviously, the world of
festivals and events has changed massively in say the last 10-15 years. And people much
more go to a festival for an experience, don’t they? It’s like oh, it’s a mini holiday for four
days, chill out and relax. Rather than I’m going because I like ‘x’ band. So basically, the
audience of our festival has changed quite a lot over the years. So, we have to appeal to a
very wide market of people. So, for instance our audience probably breaks down into
people who are traditional folk fans and they come because they go to festivals every year
and they look at the line-up of different festivals and they decide which one they’re going to
because their favourite band is on or they like this group. It then also appeals to people who
would never describe themselves as folk fans and probably don’t go to any other folk
related events during the year. But they come because they come to Shrewsbury every year.
They got introduced by a friend or a family member a long time ago and they come they had
a great time and they just come back every year because that’s what they get. A great time
a great vibe and the music and the workshops and the dance and everything is kind of

104
incidental. You then have another crowd of people who would never particularly come but
it’s their local festival and their neighbour or friend went and had a great time so they would
come along as well. Then you’ve got people who are attracted families for example, that’s a
growing market for us. You know, the kind of the family element because we have the youth
festival and the children’s festival. So, those markets have developed over the years. So,
marketing is really important to us because we have such a wide range of people that we
need to target. It would be impossible certainly to do that with a traditional advertising
spend. Say we’re going to put an advert in the Shropshire Star or we’re going to put an
advert in SongLines Magazine; those are quite static. Social media has allowed us to target
our audience, which is quite diverse, far better.

Eloise: Do you look at your competitors on social media to be able to see what they’re doing
and what sites they’re using. So, that then you can kind of compete with them or do you
not?

Jo: We kind of do to a certain extent. There are several other major festivals the same
weekend of Shrewsbury. Towersey for example or FolkEast which happens the weekend
before and then there are other festivals which are none folk festivals but still would
potentially attract the same audience. But there is a big market but Shrewsbury has grown
quite organically in terms of its audience, in terms of its actual programing as well. So, we’re
not what people would necessarily see as a traditional folk festival. Rather than competing
with other people and going ‘oh they’re doing this so must do this.’ We just try and hone
the experience that we give our festival goers. So, whether that is, through our programing,
through the stuff that we put on and just the way that we speak to people and the way that
we talk to people in the marketing that we do. And we try to be really responsive to our
audience and to build our audience. Rather than doing something because somebody else is
doing it we try to do something because it works for our audience or works for what we’re
trying to create as an event. Festivals is such a mass market these days you’ve got to create
some kind of USP, or some kind of feeling for an event, you want people to have that loyalty
to your event. You know, one thing that people really like about Shrewsbury is that we are
really responsive. We do a survey for all our festival goers every year and we ask them what
they want to see, we ask them what they would really like. We really take notice of that. So
yeah, you have to keep an eye on what your people in the same playing field are doing

105
because you don’t want to get out dated and you don’t want to miss the next big trick. But
for us it’s much more about providing a quality event for our festival goers and responding
to their needs than necessarily competing with others.

Eloise: This is more on the social media rather than general marketing itself, when did you
start to use social media sites?

Jo: I would have to check the dates; I have to say because I wouldn’t know. I’m sure
probably on our Facebook and Twitter and all that kind of stuff it would tell us when we
started those accounts. But essentially we started Facebook, maybe eight-nine years ago.
When it was in its infancy and you have to have a presence and for us Facebook was our
first foray into social media. It was new for me like it was new for everyone else. And then
probably operated with just Facebook for a couple of years. Then we added Twitter to that.
In more recent years we have added Instagram, we’ve been running that over the last two
festivals. But we only tend to really run that during the festival, because Instagram is very,
of the moment take a photograph and post that up. So, we tend to use that much more
during the festival and keep it going every year. And then we also for the first time this year
used Periscope. We have a team of social media volunteers that we’ve developed over the
last two years. Essentially because I use to as well as doing this job during the festival
weekend I manage artist reception, which is the back-stage area. Dealing with all of the
artists. It’s completely full on and a crazy job for four days. So, it obviously makes it very
hard to then manage the media and also doing the social media. I can’t be in three places at
once. So, in the last couple of years we’ve developed a team of volunteers who operate
basically from 9:00am ish to midnight. Volunteers, they get a free ticket and they basically
enjoy the festival but kind of Tweet as they go. Or Facebook this, Facebook that, keeping
people updated if there are any program changes or any changes to the line-up or anything
like that. And that has worked really, really successfully for us because people love to
engage and love to be part of something and love to see their pictures re-tweeted and all of
this kind of stuff. And they actually come to us via social media for information during
festival. When’s this happening? What’s happening there? Or why isn’t this happening? The
one time actually when I have checked if competing festivals timeline post festival and they
had tweeted perhaps once a day with what was happening. Where as ours was just
completely choc-a-block with information and engagement. I mean that’s the big thing

106
about social media is that level, it allows you that level of engagement that you would
traditionally never have been able to have through static advertising, such as, radio or TV or
newspaper advertising. So they’ve worked really, really successfully for us and the statistics
in terms of how much we have engaged and how many new members and followers and all
that stuff have just been exceeded all my expectations. I mean the people that I use tend to
be, are predominantly of ex-journalists or PR people that I know or people that I know are
particularly kind of, tech savvy. They do get a list of things that we want to make sure that
people get across because obviously, we’re trying to promote the festival, the brand of the
festival and it’s worked really, really successfully for us. In terms of other platforms because
throughout the year it’s basically just me maintaining those platforms it’s kind of quite hard
to think about using any other platforms. There is nothing, because we are a really, really
small team, I’m freelance and only work three days a month. And the festival team generally
is very small. We think it’s better to provide a quality level of service on social media rather
than let’s do everything and let’s do this and let’s do Google that and follow all sorts of
different social network sites. So, we try and work really hard to provide good quality on
those ones we do and so Instagram and Periscope are really only active during the festival.

Eloise: I noticed in 2016 now, that you had definitely in the main stage tent, I don’t know if it
was in any of the others but there was tweets from family members or friends that couldn’t
be there, to friends that were sitting in there and they came up on the screens. Was that
just from 2016?

Jo: No, that’s part of our online webcast which we’ve done I think for about the last eight
years and has basically grown and grown. So, that is where there is live footage from the
main stage and this year we had both stages, main stage one and main stage two broadcast
live. And then there’s recorded footage that is then played in down time. The service has
always been that people can email in so people who are watching at home. It’s not linked to
Twitter or Facebook. But essentially they can, basically send in an email saying ‘Hi Auntie
Sue, hope you’re having a great time’ and they have been doing that for a while and that’s
really popular. But again, not traditional social media but again it’s a level of engagement via
digital use.

107
Eloise: I think you’ve sort of answered those ones really, you’ve answered all those
questions all in one. I think because they are sort of quite similar, you’ve answered about
social media.

Jo: The one important thing I would say about the social media sites that we use and
certainly our social media has developed over the years, is you know, traditionally once
upon a time, Facebook was it and that was the only thing that you could use, so everybody
used it but certainly as social networking has progressed the difference between the
audiences on those sites are just absolutely vast. Facebook is, I find, this is just in the
experience of the festival, is a very much the older more traditional audience, people in
their 50’s and 60’s who perhaps sometimes they log on every day, sometimes they log on
once a week, sometimes I’ll go on to check as an admin and there’ll be like 60 new likes and
I’ll be like going oh my God, what’s happened. But it will just be somebody who’s done their
weekly visit to Facebook and liked every picture that you’ve ever done. Twitter is a much
younger more instantaneous audience, people who like a conversation, probably slightly
more, there is no evidence to back this up, just the experience that I’ve had, people who are
perhaps slightly more politically aware, politically active, more interested in current affairs
and that kind of stuff. Because Twitter is a very kind of fast paced response, much more of a
conversation. Whereas Facebook is very static. And Instagram, everybody just lives on pink
fluffy clouds and post nice pictures of rainbows and food. The great thing about all of those
different social networks is that it gives us the chance to interact with different sections of
our audience which would have been really hard to target before social media came upon.
You would have just been like well we really want to target, people who are in their 60’s
who are into this, that and the other. Now we can say actually, do you know what, we want
to target males between 40 and 45 who are interested in reading the Guardian following the
levellers and who live in Edinburgh. The way that you can target your audience on social
media is manor from heaven for festival organisers and event organisers because it just
allows you to target and spend your money in a much better way. Rather than just oh, I’ll
put an advert in that paper and hope it works.

Eloise: Yeah I suppose even newspapers are more going online as well so everything is
becoming more online media, isn’t it?

Jo: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

108
Eloise: I notice that you do a lot with email as well, I get all the emails with the updates of
we’ve brought this in for this year or this is the artists that have been announced and things
like that.

Jo: Yeah, the whole point about social media is it helps you build your audience. I mean you
know, our stats are really good for Facebook and Twitter and they consistently go up every
year but you have to engage with those people and the one thing about festivals like
Shrewsbury, I’m not sure whether it’s the same for V Festival, that has an audience of
millions or even Cambridge Folk Festival, I don’t know because I’ve never worked with them.
But for Shrewsbury people treat Shrewsbury almost as a person. It’s got its own identity and
people love to feel like they’re part of that. And those people who come back every year
because they always come to Shrewsbury regardless of the line-up, they always come
because they’ve always come. 20 of their friend’s rock-up every year or they’ve been
coming since they were five years old with their parents. They want to be part of the family
almost and they love hearing those little things about, we’ve done this or we’re improving
the sound in marquee two or, this is the line-up and you can see as the festival year goes up
I mean, we use something called mail chimp for our emails and it gives us the stats so it tells
us, how many subscribers we’ve got, how many emails have been opened, how many
people have clicked on the link and engaged. So, from our point of view it gives us a real
indication as to what people are engaging in and how they are engaging. And it enables us
to build up the excitement about the festival share the information that we want to share
with people and they feel like they’re part of it. But as you watch it through the year,
obviously when we do the big announcement in December 1st about who our first artists
are. Obviously, masses of opens and engagement with that. And then you can see as we get
closer and closer to August the engagement and the excitement of people and the regularity
with which we engage with them. There is no point in us sending an email out to them
today telling them this is how you get onto the campsite this is the time you need to do it
please make sure you don’t take up too much camping. They’re not going to be interested
at this point and so obviously, I can keep a log of all the, different stuff that we do. And
obviously social media, so we’ve got that avenue where we know these are people who
physically subscribe to wanting information from us but then obviously, you could then
share that on Facebook and Twitter. So, you might have somebody who goes, oh yeah

109
what’s this Shrewsbury Folk Festival all about and then they can go back and they can revisit
and look on social media and see what we’ve posted and think oh yeah, this sounds quite
good, I’ll give it a go. So, there are lots of ways. Even on mail chimp you can section your
subscribers so for example, you can say right we just want to send an email out to all those
people who have bought tickets for children and we want to tell them all about what our
children’s festival is doing. People who have only ever bought tickets for youths we want to
tell them what the youth festival is doing. The level and the ability to target specific groups
through social media and stuff like mail chimp has kind of revolutionised, I think. For festival
and event organisers, how you can approach your audience.

Eloise: This is just a question that has come into my head, because also in 2016 the
Shrewsbury Fields Forever festival was cancelled wasn’t it, like completely. Quite a lot of
people thought that it was the Shrewsbury Folk Festival they thought that they were the
same festival, in the town. Mum was saying that I was volunteering at the festival and the
people that she was talking to were like, ‘oh isn’t that the one that’s not running anymore?’
So, did that affect you in any way?

Jo: Maybe a couple of tweets and Facebook engagement, very, very little really. There was
always I suppose some ability to confuse the two, you know, Shrewsbury Fields Forever,
Shrewsbury Folk Festival. There was a story in the local paper, and somebody phoned up the
festival office and was like ‘Oh my God, what’s happening’ and we were just like read the
story. Completely wrong, wrong date, wrong festival, wrong name. But obviously having
social media allows you to immediately get onto it and go no it’s not us, really sad news but
yes we’re still going strong. And that’s one of the good things about social media, it gives
you that instantaneous chance to respond and set the message straight as it were.

Eloise: Has the use of social media had an impact on the use of your other marketing
material? Do you advertise less in newspapers, or do you still put the adverts in those
newspapers as you would of but you also use social media?

Jo: While there is still printed media there is always going to be the need for a level of
advertising spend on traditional adverts. So for example, we have some that we list on our
feedback survey. Where have you seen this advert, where did you see… So, we do advertise
in traditional places where people like FRoots and SongLines magazine and places like that

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and some local smaller, and other folk festivals is another really good place. Often folk
festival programs. Things like the BBC Folk Awards program. While that media exists there
will always be a need to. Because it is almost like you have to be seen to still be there. But
yeah we’ve certainly changed the way, for instance we several years ago we always use to
do a mail shot every year. So rather than our online announcements and social media
engagement and PR that we do around the festival launch on December 1st. We do all of
that but then we also physically send out a printed D3, the kind of the folded things that
you’ve got. All the acts and everything on one side and then you’ve got your booking form
on the other side none of that happens now. So that’s been a significant saving. But that’s a
lot to do with the fact that people now expect more to be able to book things online. We
still do have a hard core of maybe a dozen people who are like I don’t have a computer, I
don’t have email, I don’t want anything to do with anything online. But they tend to be the
older section of the community, but they will physically phone up Gigantic Tickets and book
something over the phone. So, people are much more prepared to look for information
online and book things online. Going back to the audience on social media, on Facebook,
people manage to use Facebook and then they’ll go ‘and how do I book tickets’. Well if you
can use Facebook, if you can log onto Facebook and make a post, why can’t you just go to
Google and Google Shrewsbury Folk Festival tickets and it will come up. So it kind of
reinforces my idea that it’s an older section of the community that uses Facebook. So we’ve
stopped that since the advent of more digital stuff. Occasionally we use to do some national
newspaper advertising, but that just doesn’t seem to have the desired affect really. It’s
always a long game with building the reputation of the festival, unless you just happen to be
the very rare overnight successes. The whole point of Shrewsbury Folk Festival, it’s been
going for 20 years. The reputation that we’ve got and the reputation that we’ve built up has
kind of been bit by bit by bit by bit. And social media has helped in that as well, definitely.

Eloise: Roughly how much of your marketing budget is spent on the use of social media? Do
you spend money on social media or do you just use the free part?

Jo: We do spend money on digital advertising. We essentially do Facebook and Twitter

advertising which we tend to tie in with, obviously, ticket sales and I keep a document that
details all the marketing activity that we do along with Google analytics, which basically tells
us on our website the level of interactivity that we’re getting per day and also our ticket

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sales. So, that combination allows me to say, for example, oh right ok there was a peak in
our website, why was there a peak in our website, oh right there was an email sent out
yesterday. Or ticket sales suddenly shot through the roof yesterday why was that, was it
because we announced another artist. So, all of those things combined allow us to really
hone our spending so it’s not just a case of right every month we’re going to spend £100 on
digital advertising, because we don’t need to. There is no point spending money on a
Facebook advert if you’re about to sell out. That’s the thing about social media it’s the
flexibility that it gives us to be able to say, oh right ok well we’re about to announce a new
artist, for example. We know that that’s really going to appeal to people who like Americano
for example. So, you can say, do you know what we can do a Facebook advert and we’ll do it
so it just targets people who are interested in Americano or this particular kind of artist.
Social media allows us to be flexible in our spend. We are in quite a fortunate position in
that we don’t have to rely on advertising through social media ticket sales, because the
festival has such a reputation and has around, I don’t know the exact figure, but a large
proportion of our festival goers are repeat visitors. So, they would come regardless of
whether there was an advert on Facebook or Twitter. So yeah we’re quite flexible in our
budget and if we don’t need to spend it we won’t spend it. So, that money can be spent
elsewhere on the festival and honing the overall experience of the festival goer rather than
wasting a couple of hundred pounds on an advert that’s not actually going to sell you
anymore tickets. The flexibility is another positive for us.

Eloise: I have seen the festival gets its word out quite a lot through word of mouth from
other people. From what you’ve been saying as well that people tend to bring their friends
along the next year if they’ve said that they’ve had a really good time.

Jo: As magical and amazing and wonderful I think social media is ultimately that word of
mouth is always the best marketing that you’re going to be able to get. Because if you go
somewhere and you have a great time, at a restaurant, at an event, anything you just want
to tell everybody about it. And somebody goes actually they went, I really like that person
and respect their opinion and they had a brilliant time so let’s give it a go. For example, the
lady who won our, in our survey every year we give away two free tickets, and she had
come specifically to see the Levellers on Monday did our feedback survey, picked out at
random. She’s got two adult weekend tickets for this year. When I emailed her to tell her,

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she was just like, we came we just had a brilliant time, delighted to have won the tickets, we
will be back with friends. As much as social media and PR and marketing and everything can
really help you get that message out. Word of mouth is ultimately the best kind of
marketing that you can get and which is why we work really hard to present the image of
the festival that we do because it says so much about how we want people to perceive the
event. You could have lots of pictures of bands on stage but it’s happy, smiley faces that
people think actually that must be great, look they’re having a brilliant time. If people see
people having a good time and then they know their friend down the road has been and
said oh it’s fabulous I had a great time, I’m not a folkie but yeah it’s just a festival the music,
food, drink, dance what could go wrong.

Eloise: The first year I volunteered there it was for work experience to do with university
and over the weekend I had such a fantastic time. I didn’t really know what to expect from
folk music because I had never really been to anything folkie and I just had such an amazing
time and I absolutely loved it. I have told quite a few people about it and they were just like
‘oh really I didn’t realise the festival was like that’. It’s a very family festival as well and it
really wasn’t what I expected, I don’t really know what I expected.

Jo: It’s the age-old issue with the word Folk and people think ‘Agh folk’ it’s just old men,
beards, finger in your ear kind of singing. That’s just the image that they have and that is
changing to some extent which is obviously why we think really hard about how we
represent the festival. Because there is that element of people, of course there is; because
that is what traditional folk music is about but they’re as welcome as the next person.
Which is a large part of our audience is people who would never describe themselves as
folkies but they know they’re going to come they’re going to have a really good time. It’s a
safe, warm, welcoming environment. Nobody’s going to judge you, if you’ve got purple hair,
nobody cares and you can sit down in one of the bars and you would find someone to talk to
and it would be warm, it would be friendly, it would be approachable. That’s what we have
to try and get across which can be quite hard in social media terms. It’s not just a case of
slap a photograph up and so be it we want to explain the diversity of the festival. Which can
be quite hard to do in 140 characters sometimes; but the festival is very diverse and you’ll
still get people who are like, I’m not going to that it’s a folk festival. But you know folk is a
broad church these days and people are slightly more open to that. The folk festival is what

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we are and that name is never going to change. I spoke to somebody who organises a
festival in the north a little while ago and there is an element within the folk world of quite
snobbishness towards the slightly more contemporary folk music or the North American
artists and the Canadian artists that we book as well as the traditional folk artists. She took
the name of folk out of her festival title because people were like ‘oh I’m not going that it’s
a folk festival’

Eloise: Did people start to go then when she took folk out?

Jo: Yeah but it is a decision that every festival and event organiser has to weigh up. But we
are Shrewsbury Folk Festival and I don’t see any reason for that to change and the moment.
I mean, it’s all about what you want to do as well, if you want to grow your festival and you
want to sell another 10,000 tickets and pack people onto the site like sardines and turn it
into some huge amazing, money making commercial venture you would probably go oh you
know get rid of the name folk and re-brand it as Shrewsbury Music Festival or something.
And everybody who’s into rock, pop, country, whatever will find out about it. But our ethos
and the ethos of Alan and Sandra the festival directors has always been that they want to
create a quality event and quality is more important to them than packing people onto the
site. And that ability to relax and chill out and not feel like you’re squashed onto a site and
there is a massive que for this and a massive que for that we want to provide an event that
people want to come back to time and time again rather than something where they think
that they have been there done that and I’m never going to do it again.

Eloise: Have you seen an increase in the number of attendees since the use of social media?

Jo: It is really difficult to tell because unless you specifically ask every single person who
comes through the door and says do you come to us because you are a friend on Twitter or
Facebook or whatever? It’s very hard to tell. What I can say is that the festival has
consistently sold out in the last 5-6 years and during that period we have coincidently been
using social media. Social media certainly helps us to engage with our audience whether it
helps us sell more tickets, I don’t know. As an event organiser and as an event and festival
you have to have that level of social interaction with people these days; it is expected. If you
don’t have it how else are you going to communicate with your audience? I think that’s
about all I can say on that really. Unless you specifically said to every single person how did

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you book your first ticket originally then it would be hard to say. But again the festival does
have a very loyal following there are a large proportion of those people who are repeat
visitors who may just happen to have a Facebook and Twitter account and follow us. There
are lots of people who follow us on those social media networks who have never had any
intention of coming to us but they’re just interested in what we have to say and what’s
going on.

Eloise: Has there been a change in the demographic of people do you think? Or again is that
hard to tell?

Jo: It’s really hard to quantify that. Your demographic is always going to be changing anyway
because as that older audience gets older the younger audience we know will be coming
through and obviously with the festivals 20 this year but it’s the 21 st festival. It’s hard to say,
I’ve been working with the festival for 10 years now and I think the general public
perception is that oh it’s a folk festival therefore the audience are all really old. That’s not
the case it has a huge family element, over the last few years the children and the youth
festivals have both expanded so that might have attracted more families. It would be very
hard to put any kind of audience demographic or audience increase down to social media
but I think it certainly plays its role.

Eloise: I think you have sort of answered this, about how regularly you update your social
media sites is it less this time of year?

Jo: It’s certainly quieter this time of year I mean we do obviously have our festival year
tends to go that we have a little peak in December when we first announce and we then
keep ticking along for a little bit and as we go through and get closer to the festival it goes
up and up and up and up. My personal policy is that I try and keep it ticking over all the
time. I think that people want to engage with you and they don’t want to go back to your
site and find out that you last posted something three weeks ago because I think people
deserve a level of engagement as well. You want them to buy into the festival and you want
them to be interested in what’s happening. We are lucky that we have projects that are
going on usually throughout the year. We have just finished the two years of this all
together now project so there has been stuff going on in schools and things we have been
able to post with. Obviously we can share artist news. But obviously there is much more to

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say and more engagement as you get closer to the festival. What time can I get on the site?
People want to know is this caterer going to be there? I’ve heard that x is performing, what
time is it and when? There is probably more engagement from the customer side as we
head into the festival. May- June onwards people wanted to know all that kind of nitty gritty
but we do try and keep it updated on a regular basis. Where that might be several times a
week or once a day in the quieter months but as we head into the festival it could be several
times a day because you have actually got more information to impart to people about
arrangements or this or that. People on January 4th aren’t thinking about where they’re
going to get their loaf of bread from and if there is a festival shop onsite. That’s not the kind
of stuff that they are engaging with. During festival weekend we have the social media
volunteers who start on Friday morning and they finish on Monday night and they take over
control. They have set shift patterns they have a daily guide of what is going on. They
obviously keep in touch with me about if there is any changes of stuff that is going on that
they need to know about. That has worked really, really effectively and gives us the chance
to engage with people. The thing about social media it’s very much of the moment isn’t it,
and it’s very much about for instance, just because of the format of Facebook it is very
static, we do post stuff, nice pictures of things or anything specific that’s going on or a bit of
video. But it is very much more like, this has been changed or this artist will be on at x time
and that level of engagement. Whereas Twitter and Instagram and periscope is about
capturing the moments and sometimes those moments can just be, I don’t know whether
you saw but shortly after the festival somebody had taken a video on the bus to town on the
Saturday and the Frumpton Guggenband band were on there and were playing so literally
all these festival goers were sitting waiting to be bused into town and this really lively band
were playing and I posted that on Facebook and Twitter and it just went crazy. I don’t know
how many views the videos had now but because it really captured that joie de vivre of the
festival and what it was being and people. It’s really interesting that for 2-3 weeks post
festival people are still desperate for information, they’re desperate to know when the
video replays are going to be up and when the photos are going to be up. Because they have
had such a great time they want to relive it and suck it all up. YouTube has worked really
well for us because we broadcast all our webcast footage through YouTube this year. Then
we could then save all the videos so people throughout the year if they’re getting a bit oh I
really miss the festival, we do a playlist for each year so they can go back and watch this

116
video and you can post those on social media as well which is really useful. There are
definitely quieter times but we never ignore them completely because it is the way that we
engage with our audience. I personally check them daily and will update them certainly
Facebook and Twitter daily and several times a day during the run up to the festival.

Eloise: You have sort of mentioned this one a bit, how social media has effected the
customer experience. Do you think it’s made it better during the festival? For example, with
updates.

Jo: You would probably have to ask a customer.

Eloise: It is in the questionnaire.

Jo: I think they probably feel that they can, people who use social media that is; because
some people will just go an ask a steward or ask somebody on the door. But for people who
use social media as a means of communication and for finding the information out I am sure
they probably do find it quite useful. Because we’re quite a small team we’re quite
approachable and people are fairly reliant that if they message us or if they email us, well if
they message us on a social network site they’ll get an answer. They wont just get ignored.
But everybody has a different way. I don’t know how important that is to the customer
experience to be honest. I think it’s probably something that if you said to them oh you
know how important is it to you they would probably say oh well it’s not that important
really because I can just go an ask somebody. But if they ask us something on social
networking and want to know an answer to something straight away or they get ignored
then obviously it is going to affect their feeling of the festival.

Eloise: Has being able to interact with your customers crated greater loyalty with the
customers? For example, obviously throughout the year you post on social media, so do you
think that has kept more people coming back because you’re keeping them interested
throughout the whole year for the next year’s festival?

Jo: I would guess so, it’s kind of hard to know how and you kind of forget that there was life
before social networks. And thinking about it now, how did we engage with those people
when we couldn’t through social networks. You were much more reliant on things like PR,
your traditional articles in newspapers and magazines and stuff like that they all still have a

117
really important place because it’s that kind of independent verification of the festival
experience. But yeah I suppose you would have had to do a physical newsletter out to
people and you have no idea on those hit rates as to whether people open them or have
read them or lined their dog basket with them. Whereas at least you get that level of
knowledge with social networking and email outs and stuff, with how many people have
read it and how many people are interacting with you. So, I would say it has probably
helped, I’ve got no figures or facts to base that on but I certainly think it helps us build that
overall festival experience for people and that you’re part of the family. You know, you’ll go
to Shrewsbury and you wont necessarily know the person sitting next to you but you know
that they’ll be a pretty good sort and that they’ll be nice and friendly and approachable. And
people like to be, it’s human nature we like to be part of something, you like to be part of a
group of friends or a gang of people or a sports team. We’re not solitary human beings we
like to be part of something. I think that it probably has helped.

Eloise: You sort of said that you weren’t really thinking about other social media sites for the
future at the moment.

Jo: As I say you could do all of these things not particularly well or you could concentrate
your efforts on where the majority of our followers are. If somebody said to me oh there’s
this new social networking site and 90% of your audience are on it, of course we would do
it. But for us it’s about providing a decent quality service to people. As I say periscope is
something that we tried for the first time this year, which worked quite well. I cant
remember how many people we had who used it, I can probably find out actually. I did a
report: yeah so we did nine broadcasts and got over 1,000 viewers. For a first go, that’s
1,000 people who may never have heard of Shrewsbury Folk Festival, didn’t even know it
existed and oh my God potentially if one or two people know about it become aware of it
and buy a ticket. You know they are obviously opportunities that we have to explore and
look at whether it’s worth while doing it for the festival. Unless you’re an organisation with
unlimited resources you cant be on all of these places. Also you don’t want any of them not
to be properly serviced. You don’t want people to be going, I follow you on x and you never
post anything, it’s not what we want to do. As I say we have added Instagram and Periscope
in the last 2 years so we’re not adverse to change.

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Eloise: This is the final question: are there any other ways that you will develop the use of
social media in relation to the festival in any way? Do you think that you will use Facebook
live as that is quite a new thing now but it is still obviously connected to Facebook?

Jo: I think Facebook live certainly would be something that we will probably use next year
because Facebook is quite static and it’s very hard to give it that instantaneous engagement
but you’ve got to look at how people react with these things. People tend to visit Facebook
and it will be like oh right I’m on my lunch break or I’m home at night I’ll check my Facebook
and go through it. Whereas Twitter you know with ping, ping, ping, ping, the Twitter
moments and all that kind of stuff it’s that much more of the moment thing; but I certainly
think Facebook live is something that will do. The one thing that I would say is that a lot of,
and I don’t see that many people doing it these days, but once upon a time you could
obviously link your Twitter and Facebook and people were putting the same things on
Facebook as they were on Twitter. We’ve never ever done that and it’s been a deliberate
policy because they are such diverse audiences. We may potentially, say if we posted a
picture of an artist on Facebook we will do the same thing on Twitter but we would never
link the two together because they are just different audiences. But we would certainly look
at things like Facebook live, things that exist within the platforms that we’re already using.
We would have to think long and hard about any kind of new network or platform that
came along as to whether it would actually benefit us and benefit our visitors.

Eloise: I didn’t know that you used Instagram because it’s not on the website.

Jo: No the website being redone at the moment I think.

Eloise: I saw Facebook and Twitter

Jo: Because Instagram is one that we only use during the festival, I mean we do occasionally
post pictures throughout the year and stuff but we make it very clear that it’s only
something that we use during the festival and so it’s not something that we’ve had on the
website really because we don’t want people going there expecting it to be updated on a
daily basis. It’s like we wouldn’t put Periscope on there at the moment either because it was
a bit of an experiment this year we didn’t know how it was going to work. If it’s something
that we get to using on a more regular basis we will add it to the website I think but not at
this stage.

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Appendix F: Ethics Form

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Appendix G: Information Sheet for Interview
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET

The Effectiveness of Social Media as a Marketing Tool for Events: Case Study of
Shrewsbury Folk Festival.

Cardiff Metropolitan University Protocol Number:

Project summary
The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of social media as a marketing
tool in developing Shrewsbury Folk Festival. Your participation will enable the collection of
data which will form part of a study being undertaken at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Why have you been asked to participate?

You have been asked to participate in this interview because you are the PR and
Communications Director of Shrewsbury Folk Festival and this interview will allow the
researcher to develop her research from the organisation’s point of view. Furthermore, this
interview will mean that the researcher can find out about the effect that social media has
had on the festival’s marketing strategy.

Your participation is entirely voluntary and you may withdraw at any time.

Project risks
The research involves taking part in a semi-structured interview, which will be recorded for
later analysis with your permission. I am not seeking to collect any sensitive data on the
organisation or yourself; this interview is only concerned with how social media has affected
the marketing strategy of the festival. I do not feel that there are any significant risks
associated with this interview. However, if there are any questions which you do not wish to
answer then I will respect your decision. Moreover, you can withdraw from the interview at
any time.

How we protect your privacy

All the information you provide will be held in confidence. I have taken careful steps to make
sure that you cannot be directly identified from the information given by you. Your personal
details (e.g. signature on the consent form) will be kept in a secure location by myself. When
I have finished the study, and analysed all the information, the documentation used to gather
the raw data will be destroyed except your signed consent form which will be held securely
for 5 years. The recording of the interview will also be held in a secure and confidential
environment during the study and destroyed after 5 years.

YOU WILL BE OFFERED A COPY OF THIS INFORMATION SHEET TO KEEP*

If you require any further information about this project, then please contact:
Eloise Sproul, Cardiff Metropolitan University
Cardiff Metropolitan University email: [email protected]

125
Appendix H: Participant Consent Form for Interview

PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM

Cardiff Metropolitan University Ethics Reference Number:
Participant name or Study ID Number:

Title of Project: A Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Media as a Marketing Tool for
Events: Case Study of Shrewsbury Folk Festival.
Name of Researcher: Eloise Sproul
___________________________________________________________________

Participant to complete this section: Please initial each box.

1. I confirm that I have read and understand the information sheet for the above study. I
have had the opportunity to consider the information, ask questions and have had these
answered satisfactorily. [ ]

2. I understand that my participation is voluntary and that I am free to withdraw at any

time, without giving any reason. [ ]

3. I agree to take part in the above study. [ ]

4. I agree to the interview [ ]

Yes No

5. I agree to my quotes being attributed to me [ ] [ ]

6. I agree to my organisation being named in all publications [ ] [ ]

_______________________________________ ___________________
Signature of Participant Date
_______________________________________ ___________________
Name of person taking consent Date
____________________________________
Signature of person taking consent

* When completed, 1 copy for participant & 1 copy for researcher site file.

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Appendix I: Turnitin Report

127
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