Salt Lake Comic Con

The Salt Lake Comic Convention was extremely successful in 2013. This was it's first year in SLC and it ended up being  the largest inaugural Comin Con in North America and the largest convention ever held in Salt Lake City. Many people consider this a success for the first ever SLC Comic Con, but will the success carry over? The SLC Comic Con's social media presence makes me believe it will continue to be just as successful as it was in its first year.

On Facebook the SLC Comic Con has just under 70,000 likes! At first glance you would think 'that is a ton for a convention that is under 1 year old'. But in reality they are just doing very well at leveraging other networks and information.

1. social networks—which other networks are they bridging or connecting rather than having to build their own?
• Salt Lake Comic Con has done very well at leveraging their name. Comic Con's have been very successful since about the 1970's and so the name 'Comic Con' has grown in popularity and interest. Salt Lake Comic Con has been able to leverage the popularity and interest in the general Comic Con world and use it to their benefit, like I said earlier they have 70,000 likes already, that is impressive!
• The Salt Lake Comic Con Facebook Page doesn't really use information/events/posts from other Comic Con's or from other networks, for the most part their posting content is original. But they do use their name to draw people into their social media networks. 
• The Salt lake Comic Con Twitter page is a little bit different than their Facebook page. They use twitter and twitter networks to their advantage by tweeting and retweeting other people's things that their own particular audience would be interested in. For example this past weekend they have been tweeting and retweeting about the Sundance Film Festival. By doing this they are informing their own audiences of current events they might be interested in as well as bridging the Salt Lake Comic Con's audience with the Sundance Film Festivals audience. This is a smart move because building a relationship with the Sundance Film Festival also means potential relationships with their audience, 349,970 followers!
2. weak ties & transitivity:—how are they leveraging weak ties and improving transitivity??
• The Salt Lake Comic Con is doing very well at leveraging their weak ties and improving the connectiveness among their unconnected audience. They continue to build their fanbase because of their success in these areas. In every post they announce that winners will be selected from the commenters. This is encouraging commenters and also rewarding commenters with tickets to the 2014 Salt Lake Comic Con. The rewards that they offer on every post encourages people to comment, like, and comment back to others and to be creative in all of their posts so they can win. This interaction among fans in the comments of their posts increases transitivity. Fans like other fans comments and through that one step the Salt Lake Comic Con's audience is becoming more transitive.
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3. memes—what existing cultural capital are they leveraging or twisting to their own purposes?
• The Salt Lake Comic Con's Facebook page is run by memes. Almost every post is a meme that is making reference to a movie/comic/character. They know exactly how to communicate with their audience because those are the types of posts they are seeking. They want humor-filled posts that refer back to or make jokes about previously existing content. In the past few days the Salt Lake Comic Con page has referenced Marvel characters, Sherlock Homes, Lord of the Rings, Mario, The Walking Dead, Star Wars, The Simpsons, The Matrix and the list could go on and on. All of their posts receive a lot of attention and conversation. Most posts even have people responding back with other memes that correlate with the first meme. Their strategy at reaching their audience on Facebook by using memes and references to past and current content has worked extremely well. 
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4. channels—what social channels are they using to communicate? How are they tailoring their communication to be specific to the conventions of each particular channel?

• The main social channels that the Salt Lake Comic Con is using is Facebook and Twitter. They have figured out very well how to respond to their audience in each location. The Facebook page, as mentioned previously, is mainly memes and other content that brings humor/wit to the audience. Their Twitter page also has memes but they also use their Twitter network to share current events in the Comic Con world, share other related Tweets, and keep their fans up-to-date on their own current information. Twitter seems to be used by The Salt Lake Comic Con as an area of information and Facebook seems to be used as an area of entertainment. They have obviously done a good job at making their fans feel a sense of belonging:
  

I have been able to brainstorm a list of clubs and groups that might be interested in networking with WesterCon67:

• 'Life, the Universe, & Everything' - The Marion K. "Doc" Smith Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy. This is a symposium held in Provo that might have a similar audience and interest level. 
  http://ltue.net/
• The BYU Quill and the Sword Club 
  https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Quill-and-Sword/180465045326918?ref=profile
• The Grassroots Shakespeare Company https://www.facebook.com/GrassrootsShakespeare?ref=profile
• The Dragon's Keep- a trading card shop in Provo
• BYU Arts: https://www.facebook.com/BYUarts?ref=profile
• The BYU English Society: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BYUEnglishSociety/
• BYU Creative Writing Professors: Margaret Young, Brandon Sandersen, James Goldberg

By looking at the successes that the Salt Lake Comic Con has had in their social media practices and by leveraging the networks and resources of the above list, I think the WesterCon67 will be able to attract more attention and bring fresh blood in the convention.