Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

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Facebook landing page

Monday, March 8th, 2010

seven_stories

In my guide to getting started with Facebook last month, I mentioned creating an html landing page to make your fan page more appealing to visitors, and to push events and exhibitions more effectively.

I also mentioned the landing page which my company had created for Seven Stories, the Centre for Children’s Books. One month on I wanted to report back on how the fan page has worked for the venue.

One month ago Seven Stories had about 370 fans, and today the number of fans has increased to 454 fans, that is an increase of over 20%.

We (and our fan page) can’t take all the credit for this success, Seven Stories have been actively adding lots of great content to their fan page over the past month. We are really pleased with the result.

Posted in Facebook, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Control

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

One of the questions I often get asked at conferences is how can people convince the management of their museum to give up control and jump into the social media space.

I think the question of control is really important, because while you have always been able to project a message through brand, advertising and PR (as well as everything else your organisation does), you have never had control of this once it has been released into the world.

While there is a perception that using websites like Twitter and Facebook reduces your control, in actual fact it can make it easier to ensure that your organisation is connecting with visitors, because unlike traditional media, the social media space talks back.

It would be naive to think that these conversations didn’t happen before social media, the only difference now is that you are able to listen to this feedback. This gives a museum more control, because it gives you the information you need to constantly improve as an organisation.

So when someone next tells you that they are worried about the lack of control you’ll have if you set up a Flickr account or start using Twitter, ask them how much control they think you have over traditional media, because having control over the look of an advert or the tone of voice of a press release isn’t the same thing as having control over how that is received by your audiences.

Posted in Social Media | 6 Comments »

Facebook Fans

Monday, February 15th, 2010

I came across an interesting piece on Seb Chan’s blog about a tool created by Pete Warden which allows you to analyze those who are fans of your museum (or any other institution) on Facebook.

FANPAGE

Above you can see the Fan Page Analytics for the Laing Art Gallery, a venue in my home town. This information provides us with rich data which could be really useful to the marketing team at the museum.

Firstly we can look at the other cultural organisations which those who are fans of the Laing Art Gallery follow, these include a theatre, cinema, festival and other museums. Could the Laing Art Gallery work with any of these organisations to cross promote what they offer? (see my post on  working together)

One of the fan pages which stood out for me is a bar THE FORTH. Are the people who drink at this bar especially interested in art, could this be a place to make sure that the Laing Art Gallery keeps stocked with leaflets?

As well using Fan Page Analytics to see which other fan pages your fans are following, you could also use this on other cultural organisations near you, to see who else their fans are following, what differences stand out? Could you be making links with any of those organisations too?

I think this could be really useful, what do you think?

Posted in Facebook, Social Media | No Comments »

Will Buzz change the social media landscape

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

On Tuesday, February 9th Google launched Buzz a service for sharing thoughts, conversations and links with your friends. Buzz has been widely described as the search giants latest attempt to take on Twitter and Facebook.

To launch Buzz, Google added it to it’s Gmail service giving it an instant userbase or 38 million people, and the result has been impressive with 160,000 posts and comments on the new service per hour in it’s first few days.

Because Buzz launched as part of Gmail, it already has more users then Twitter, though at present there are far more tweets on Twitter then posts on Buzz. While the service is unlikely to kill off either Twitter or Facebook, it is the most serious new social media contender to appear since Twitter.

I signed up for Buzz myself today, and I was pleased to find a number of museums already on the site, perhaps a sign of how serious our sector takes social media these days.

Will you sign up for Buzz on behalf of your museum? or if you have already, what do you think of the service?

Posted in Buzz, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Facebook for a Museum – Part 1

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

FACEBOOK

With over 300 million active users Facebook is the worlds leading social network, and has even ranked higher then Google as the world most visited website at times over the past twelve months.

The chances are that you are a member of Facebook, and as such you have a profile on the social network. Many museums also have a presence on Facebook, these aren’t profiles as you as an individual might have, but a Facebook page (something which is sometimes also referred to as a fan page).

Facebook groups v fan pages
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.

Getting started with Facebook pages
To create a fan page you will need to be a member of Facebook. Once you have logged in scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Advertising. Then click pages and then Create a Page.

Select the Museum choice of categories and enter the name of your Museum before clicking to create your page (be careful doing this as you can’t change it after you have selected a name for your fan page). You are given the option of keeping the page private, and I’d suggest that you do this until you have added content in to your page.

Related Posts:

Facebook for a Museum (part 2) – Creating a great looking fan page
Facebook for a Museum (part 3) – Creating engaging content
Facebook for a Museum (part 4) – How to promote your fan page
Facebook for a Museum (part 5) – Analytics for your fan page

Posted in Facebook, Social Media | 3 Comments »

Social Media : Short Term, Long Term

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I was reading the book Brandraising, How nonprofits raise visibility and money through smart communications last night, and it featured a diagram showing the difference between short term and long term views on communicating your brand.

I thought straight away that something similar could be used to describe the current shift I see happening in the way that cultural organisations are implementing social media:

2009

Do you think your organisation is moving from short term to long term activity? Do you see other changes happening?

Posted in Social Media | 4 Comments »

Cross platform Social Media editorial plan

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Managing the social media function of a museum can take a lot of time and effort, as I mentioned in my Step by Step Twitter Guide last week, I’d recommend an editorial plan to make your life easier, but one thing I didn’t cover in that article was how to manage a social media editorial plan across more than one social network.

Lots of museums have a presence on both Facebook and Twitter, and I think that it makes sense to look at the content that your putting on to these websites in one plan, with a lot of overlaps.

Lets face it, everyone has their own favorite social network and the only person who is going to be reading what you write on both Facebook and Twitter is you. This is good news for your workload, because you don’t need to think of cool stuff to write on each social network, just come up with one plan and then implement it across these websites.

So what is a social media editorial plan?
As I explained last week, a social media editorial plan is a diary of the actions you will take on your chosen social media platforms, this will cover the different activities which make up your social media activity.

- Listening
- Conversing
- Editorial / broadcasting

You might say that you will spend five minutes three times a day listening (checking what people are writing about your organization) and for answering questions or responding to comments and then ten minutes a day creating editorial or broadcast material.

It is this editorial or broadcast material which I believe you can save a lot of time on, by using the same message on your different networks.

You may for example say that every Monday you will post a picture of an object from your collection and ask you followers/fans to guess what it is. This could be posted to both Facebook and Twitter, saving you both the time and effort of creating different content for different networks.

Adding Hootsuite in to the process
Hootsuite is a website which allows you to broadcast to both Facebook and Twitter from one screen, allowing you can write one message and send it to both networks at once.

hootsuite

Hootsuite also lets you schedule these ‘tweets’ in advance, so you could plan your editorial posts for the month ahead and automate this, so that you only need to think about the listening and conversing functions day to day.

Planning your social media activity doesn’t of course have to stop you from posting more spontaneous tweets, but it can act as a backbone to your work on Facebook and Twitter, making it easier to manage and giving you the time to create interesting and engaging content.

Is your museum on more then one social media platform? How do you manage the content?

Posted in Facebook, Social Media, Twitter | 8 Comments »

Conversationalists?

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

ladder

Many of you will be aware of the Forrester Research ladder of social media participation, which categories the different ways in which people use the internet and more importantly, helps you to analysis whether your social media plans will work with your target audiences.

Due to the rise in micro-blogging, Forrester has added a new rung to it’s ladder for those they’ve dubbed “Conversationalists”. This group tweet or update their social networking status at least once a week and account for 33% of the online population in the US (compared with 70% who consume social content and 59% who use social networks).

Conversationalists are 56% female, more than any other group in the ladder. While they’re among the youngest of the groups, 70% are still 30 and up.

So what does Conversationalists mean to your social media plans?
The fact that Forrester have added this category really emphasises the growth in Twitter and the changes which Facebook have made in response to this.

Museums need to take advantage of the opportunity that Conversationists offer them, by becoming part of the conversation themselves. Hundreds of Museums are already on Twitter and these institutions are on the right track. If your thinking of joining them then this step by step guide to getting started on Twitter is a good place to start.

Posted in Social Media, Trends, Twitter | No Comments »

Foursquare for Museums

Monday, January 18th, 2010

marsh_cafe_flyer

I have been hearing a lot of people saying that Foursquare is going to be the next big thing, and I thought you might be interest in knowing about it, or if you are using it, you may wish to share your experience in the comments below.

What is Foursquare?
Foursquare is a location based game which encourages people to find and share interesting places (restaurants, museums, bars, etc) with friends.

People play Foursquare via Smartphones “checking in” or “leaving tips” about real world locations as they go about their everyday lives.

Information that you are putting in to Foursquare about the locations that you are interacting with is pushed out in to Twitter and Facebook for your friends to see and left on the Foursquare page for that location so if someone checks out your gallery, they may have written a review of an exhibition for other Foursquare users to see.

To encourage users to “check in” they receive points for visiting places, and the person who checks in to a location the most get’s made the Mayor of that location.

Museums and Foursquare
The Vancouver Police Museum is one of the institutions who have embraced Foursquare by offering incentives to the person who is Mayor on the game (and in doing so encouraging people to visit the Museum).

The Mayor of the Vancouver Police Museum gets free entry for themselves and a friend and 25% off in the gift shop.

foursquare_iphone

Brooklyn Museum also offers incentives to those who “check in” on Foursquare, offering a one year 1st fans membership to their mayor on the first Saturday of every month.

Looking at Foursquare a few Museums are offering similar incentives.

The next big thing?
Foursquare is being hyped as the next big thing, so perhaps now is the time to make yourself aware of what it is all about, even if it is just to see what people have written about your Museum in the game. Whether Foursquare makes a big splash or not, I think this kind of location based review will become popular in 2010 to some extent.

Is your Museum is using Foursquare in some way? I’d be interested to hear about your experience.

Posted in Foursquare, Social Media, Web 2.0 | 2 Comments »

Social Media policy for a Museum

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

As I mentioned in my Museum Marketing Trends 2010 blog post at the start of this year, people are increasingly talking about putting policy, guidelines or frameworks in place to help to set out how people in Museums are using Social Media.

I found these documents that may be useful to anyone looking to write a guideline for their organisation.

- IMA Blog Guidelines

- Powerhouse Museum Blog Policy

- BBC Guidelines for use of social media

- Red Cross – Social Media Handbook

- Smithsonian Web and Social Media Strategy

- UK Government Template Twitter Strategy

- UK Civil Service, Code of Conduct for online Participation

- Walker Art Centre, Blog Guidelines

If you have produced or seen a guidelines that you think it would be useful to add to this list, please leave a comment below.

Posted in Social Media | 5 Comments »

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