Do Broadway Box Offices Love A Good Tweet? Comparing Twitter Traffic With Ticket Sales

In less than ten years Twitter has changed the way the entertainment industry communicates with the public. Celebrities wanting to keep fans updated on their latest news, or even communicate with them during a performance, can just send out 140 characters of info that pops up on their phones in a flash.

Naturally, Broadway shows have entered the mix, keep playgoers entertained with backstage photos, casting news and any interesting tidbits that will grab regular attention.

But a Twitter tweet that lives and dies in a receiver's in-box hasn't done its job. What shows rely on are instances where fans retweet their posts to their own subscribers; a word-of-mouth personal recommendation. Even more valuable are instances where fans take it upon themselves to tweet their reactions and pics of them attending.

Does it work? Forbes has some interesting observations regarding Broadway's Twitter traffic.

Here are the fifteen most tweeted about shows of 2015, with approximate numbers for the top five.

1. HAMILTON (1 million)
2. BEAUTIFUL (670k)
3. WICKED (377k)
4. THE BOOK OF MORMON (280k)
5. FUN HOME (266k)
6. FINDING NEVERLAND
7. ALADDIN
8. THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
9. THE LION KING
10. SOMETHING ROTTEN!
11. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
12. HAND TO GOD
13. THE AUDIENCE
14. FISH IN THE DARK
15. IT'S ONLY A PLAY

Naturally, Lin-Manuel Miranda's HAMILTON, the show that has been, indisputably, the talk of the town since shortly after Off-Broadway previews began last January tops the tweet rankings, but how much does that account for the musical's average of taking in 116.98% of its maximum potential gross (MPG)? Judging by the productions that follow, not very much.

BEAUTIFUL takes the #2 spot in Twitter activity, but barely breaks into the top twenty for MPG average. Bradley Cooper's stint in THE ELEPHANT MAN ranked #2 in MPG but barely showed up on the Twitter radar. Star-driven hits like THE RIVER, CONSTELLATIONS, SKYLIGHT, AN ACT OF GOD and CHINA DOLL claimed similar results. Helen Mirren in THE AUDIENCE and LARRY DAVID in FISH IN THE DARK managed a decent amount of Twitter traffic, but it's possible that fans prefer to post about a show using a star's personal Twitter account rather than the production's. Lin-Manuel Miranda, for example, has 208K Twitter followers, compared with HAMILTON's 94.5K.

Of the top fifteen, only HAND TO GOD closed at a loss, but its Twitter account regularly put out fun original memes and videos featuring its foul-mouth hand-puppet star, Tyrone.

As opposed to film and television, theatre has always stressed the thrill of the live connection between performers and audiences members. This connection is also evidenced in social media, where it's more likely that a star who isn't nationally known, and even lesser-known supporting players and ensemble members, will personally send out communications and answer messages from fans.

Broadway is still feeling its way through social media, but as its audience becomes more tech-savvy, the need to give good tweet may soon become a marketing must.

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