I recently read an article which described the changes that we have seen in the internet as the warning tremors before the earthquake hits, and the new version of Google which has started to roll out this week could be that earthquake for museum marketing.
Take a look at the screengrab above. At the top of this you will see that this says ‘Latest results’ this pulls the latest information from social networks and new channels (it’s call real time search). This means a major change in the information that people will get when they search for your museum.
In the old Google, you knew that if someone searched for your museum, the first result would be your website. With the new Google, the first result is more likely to be someone talking about you on Twitter or Facebook. This could be a favorable review or it could be someone complaining about bad experience.
A museum who is itself active in the social media space will have some control over what these results might be, while an institution which hasn’t entered Facebook and Twitter will be much more vulnerable to these changes.
I think this will force museums who are not yet in this social media space to embrace these technologies, even if that is by just actively listening to what people are saying about them on sites like Twitter (try SocialMention.com).
The new Google is rolling out at the minute, are you ready for it?
[...] before, and a big part of this is posting reviews of everything they buy, listen to, watch, visit. Changes to Google mean that any comments people make about their visit to your museum will appear prominently in [...]