Analyzing the relationship between social media usage and ticket sales at small nonprofit performing arts organizations

Ticket sales at performing arts organizations have decreased significantly since 2002. As donations by benefactors and grants from state and federal agencies are not primary revenue streams for arts organizations, falling ticket sales is a critical business problem. This quantitative correlational study used the Unified Theory of the Adoption and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as a framework to identify relationships between social media usage by arts audiences and ticket sales at small nonprofit performing arts organizations. A systematic random sampling technique was used to collect surveys from adult audience members (n = 260) at three participating theatres. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) identified four major components, and the final model explained 83.3% of the variance. Spearman’s Rank Correlation found statistically significant positive relationships between performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions and social media usage and a statistically significant negative relationship between social media usage and the season membership status of arts audiences. Ordinal regression of the moderating variables age, gender, education level, and previous experience with social media found no statistically significant effect on the relationship between UTAUT and social media usage. Binary logistic regression found age only had a statistically significant effect on the relationship between social media usage and season membership status. This study addresses a gap in the literature as both social media and arts audiences are relatively new areas for UTAUT research. Small nonprofit performing arts organizations may leverage the relationships identified in the research to incorporate social media into strategic plans, which may lead to increased ticket sales