Miami City Ballet has earned raves from performances in Miami, New York City and Paris, but it was a different kind of performance that brought the company mainstream fame.

“One of the things that I think helped us to start dispelling the image of what the ballet is was Alex Wong’s appearance on [Fox TV show] So You Think You Can Dance,” said Bill Miller, the company’s director of marketing and communications. “His appearance did more for us over last summer than maybe any other single initiative that we put into place and I would say that his appearance only helped us send our message out.”

That message has been aimed at demystifying ballet and making it accessible to the masses.

“I wanted the public in general to realize that the ballet and Miami City Ballet is a lot more than what I call ‘ballerinas in tiaras and tutus,’ ” Miller said.

The ballet, with an annual budget between $12-$15 million, has a fulltime social media coordinator now and plans to work more closely with tourism officials to promote the ballet as a destination.

Last year, the company found success with the LivingSocial daily deal site, selling out more than 600 tickets in hours. They plan to offer another deal, a two-performance package, on the invitation-only deal site Rue La La on Monday and Tuesday.

While new full subscriptions have dipped slightly from last year, renewals and mini-subscriptions are up.

Single ticket sales revenue last year far surpassed the company’s goal. Miami City Ballet brought in $1.2 million in revenue from single ticket sales last season, greater than its goal of $519,000.

So far this year, the company has brought in $50,000 more in total ticket sales than it had at the same time last year. Miller said he expects to exceed this year’s goals based on the strength of sales so far.

Miller said fundraising continues to be a challenge but not a crisis. Supporters Harriet and Henry Pownall provided hundreds of thousands in funding for the world premiere in March of Symphonic Dances, by choreographer Alexei Ratmansky.

With the recently announced decision of founder and director Edward Villella to leave at the end of the 2012-13 season, the new challenge will become keeping up support after the star name has left, said board chairman emeritus Mike Eidson.

“You have to bring in a world-class person to replace a legend like Edward,” Eidson said.

Hannah Sampson