Adding Some Multimedia Spice to The Patron Edge Online

PEO Labs: The idea behind the PEO Labs series is to bring you information or advice on items that are geared towards users who can take high-level concepts or sample code and run with them. Please note that many of the things discussed are not supported. That doesn’t mean that an item is a warranty-voider; it just means that the Support Analysts can’t walk you through it or troubleshoot it if it breaks.

Graphic design firms show off web portfolios; builders display photos of their finished buildings; even bands put up mp3 samples, wallpapers and screen savers. What kind of multimedia to you put into your PEO site to boost ticket sales? Are you currently using any at all?

Sometimes a photo is enough to get people interested when, say, a traveling art exhibit visits your musuem. But what if you’re a theatre or a symphony and you know that a single photo just can’t capture the spirit of what you are bringing to the world? If you want to get your patrons really interested in what’s going on, it’s time to add some multimedia and make your site really pop. Here are three great ways to give your patrons a more immersive experience on your site and a good taste of what they’ll see and hear when they come to visit.

Photo – This option is great for any organization, but museums especially can take advantage of some of the photo hosting sites out there that provide slideshow abilities. There are a couple of awesome tools I recommend that allow you to create a Flickr slideshow without any real programming knowledge. The first is FlickrSLiDR and is simple to use. If you feel like you need a little more flexibility, check out the PictoBrowser, which is also very Web 2.0 but has a couple more options than FlickrSLiDR.

Video – YouTube has made it ridiculously easy to upload video clips and even edit them on the fly to some extent. You can then use the provided URL to link from your PEO site to the clip, or even better use the Embed link and add the video directly into a show’s Long Description.

Audio – If you’re thinking about adding mp3 samples to your site, I recommend using Audacity. It’s free, open-source (I’m a big fan of FOSS) and easy to use.

Now get out there and put some cool multimedia onto your site, and be sure to leave a link in the comments so others can see what you’ve done!