Wonderbound, a contemporary ballet company in Denver, recently made a choice that would be unthinkable for many arts organizations: It quit social media. Cold.
Dawn Fay, the troupe’s president, said staff members were nervous about the decision. For a small, technologically literate company like Wonderbound, maintaining an active presence on social platforms might seem like a no-brainer. The group was an early social media adopter. It had spent years making imaginative short dance films for Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, earning thousands of followers.
But as social media algorithms and culture evolved, that work “started to feel less valuable,” Fay said. By 2021, fewer people were engaging with the company’s social accounts. Data analysis revealed that almost nobody who liked or shared its social content went on to buy tickets or make donations.
And something less measurable had soured. Social platforms — many of which had grown into huge, powerful corporations — no longer felt like creative playgrounds, places to try new things and connect with new people.
In August 2022, Wonderbound shuttered all of its social accounts. Since then, Fay said, the company has focused on personalized email and word-of-mouth campaigns — and seen its season subscriptions go up by 39 percent.
She believes leaving social media was not just a good business decision but also a good artistic one.
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