With over 350 million active users worldwide, Facebook is the most popular social network on the globe. With such a large audience looking at Facebook, it isn’t surprising that many museums have chosen to set up pages on the website to try and promote themselves to the audiences using this social network.
Personally I haven’t really been impressed by the way that most institutions are using Facebook. The content they choose to post is often unimaginative and few organisations seem to realise the amount of work needed to create a successful relationship with audiences on this site.
A few museums are making good use of Facebook, and the following ten points are things which I think these institutions are doing to make the social network work for them.
1. Have a fan page not a group
Facebook allows you to set up two kinds of pages for your museum, either a group or a fan page. While the difference between the two may not seems obvious until you join the website, a museum will be better served by a fan page.
To view a group you need to become a member of Facebook, but anyone can view a fan page without logging into the website. This makes a museum choosing to set up a fan page more visible than one choosing to set up a group.
Secondly, if you send out any invitations or emails from a group, they actually come from the administrator of that group (complete with your picture), rather than the museum. If you instead choose to use a fan page then whatever you send to your fans will come from the museum.
Thirdly, a group is limited to 5,000 people whilst a fan page can have as many fans as you like.
2. Write in a conversational style
Facebook is a person to person network and you need to write your ‘copy’ accordingly. Be friendly, be down to earth and avoid blatant sales messages.
You should measure your success partly by how many people respond to what you’re saying. If you look down your posts and nobody has been interested enough to reply, then it’s time to think again.
3. Have conversations
Part of taking your organisation into a person to person network is having conversations. Be prepared to answer questions and make sure that you are seen to be making an effort to get involved in the community, not just talk at it.
I think the example above from the National Theatre Wales is a great example of an organisation answering a question from one of it’s fans. After all who will want to post something on your fan page if noone is listening?
4. Ask your Facebook community to send you pictures
This could be pictures of an event, an exhibition or a special preview.
This post from the British Museum struck me as being really good. It advertises the museums day of the dead activities brilliantly by asking it’s audiences to send them pictures.
5. Post videos of behind the scenes
Not every venue has exclusive Tim Burton interview’s (see MoMA screengrab below) but lots of museums and galleries will have video which features in exhibitions or behind the scenes footage which could be shared with audiences on Facebook.
This doesn’t need to be cinema quality, it just needs to tell an interesting story. Watch the number of people commenting and saying they like what you post to give you a guide to what kind of thing they respond to.
6. Have a competition
Having a competition which requires your audience to visit your museum or gallery makes a lot of sense to me. Any kind of exclusive Facebook based competition can make your followers feel special and create a positive buzz around your Facebook activity.
7. Ask your audiences to get involved.
If you’re looking for people to get involved in an exhibition, or just looking for volunteers, then your Facebook community is a great place to spread the word.
8. Give something to your fans
Nothing will make your fans feel special as giving them something for supporting you. This could be a special event for Facebook fans, or it could be a discount code or voucher for your museum shop.
9. Ask your audiences for input
The National Theatre Wales puts documents that you’d normally expect to stay in the boardroom onto Facebook for people to look at and comment on. What a fantastic example of an open organisation.
10. Be led by your community and monitor success
One of the great things about Facebook is that it is very clear when your community like something. This can be seen through them indicating this under a post, by the number of comments that you are getting and can be measured by the number of hits your main website is getting from Facebook.
Constantly monitor your success, not in the number of fans you have on Facebook, but by how engaged you are with them.
Through the stats on your website, you should monitor how many visitors come from Facebook and what they do when they get to your website.
