Yesterday I looked at how you can create a great first impression with a landing page for your Facebook fan page, and while this will help you to attract fans, you need to have interesting content to keep them coming back.
Why does it matter if people come back to your page? Because the more that a person interacts with your venue, the more likely they are to visit in the real world.
Update your status:
The status updates are one of the most important things about your fan page, because once somebody has become a fan of your museum, these update will appear in their primary news feed.
These status updates should be used to create engagement with you fans, don’t just broadcast information, ask questions and invite people to share their opinion with you.
Coming up with original content 365 days a year can be quite stressful, but remember that you can always post links to other peoples content (including stuff on your main museum website). Creating content which engages, informs, entertains or just makes people smile will keep them coming back to your fan page.
Remember the social media editorial plan:
I’ve written before about having a social media editorial plan for your activity on social networks. Ideally you want to plan out your updates in advance and where possible use the same content to feed both your Facebook status updates and your tweets on Twitter.
Respond to your fans:
As well as creating good content, you also need to respond to your fans comments and show that your museum is ready to listen and that engage with them.
Encourage your fans to add content:
Encourage your fans to add their own comments, pictures and video to the wall on your museums fan page. This will make your fans feel more engaged with your museum and has the added benefit of virally spreading information relevant to your museum to all of their friends through their feed.
Share your photos and video:
Pictures and videos are a great way to give people a behind the scenes look at your museum, whether it’s a picture of your new dinosaur being installed or an interview with a curator.
Another good way for a museum to use photos would be to hold an exclusive exhibition preview for your fans and then post pictures of this on your fan page for people to tag themselves in. Each time someone tags themselves in a picture, this will appear on their news feed to their friends. This could virally spread the word about your museum to thousands of people.
I mentioned Apps yesterday, and Flickr and YouTube Apps make it possible to link your content on these other social media platforms .
Competitions:
Competitions are a good way to encourage your fans to keep coming back. The prize doesn’t need to break the bank perhaps a ticket to a new exhibition or an invitation to a preview night.
One idea which I like, is to ask your fans to create a new profile photo for your museum, this is very simple, but really allows your fans to effect how your museum.
Don’t forget your goals:
It is easy to get carried away with Facebook, but you need to keep in mind that your reason for having a fan page, this should be to help your museum to achieve its goals.
This is why I’d recommend a social media editorial plan, so that your content is (to some extent) planned out with your goals in mind.
Related Posts:
Facebook for a Museum (Part 1) – Getting started on Facebook
Facebook for a Museum (Part 2) – Creating a great looking fan page
Facebook for a Museum (Part 4) – How to promote your fan page
Facebook for a Museum (Part 5) – Analytics for your fan page
the challenge is always finding something interesting in one specifically has, like contemporary art.
hi Jim!
I would like to know if there are some studies proving that ” the more that a person interacts with your venue, the more likely they are to visit in the real world.”?
sorry if my english isn’t very good, I’m french
thx!