Archive for the ‘Trends’ Category

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 »

Museums on Twitter

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

The big social media success story of 2009 was Twitter, and as the number of people using the website has exploded so have the number of Museums using it to connect with new and existing audiences.

Country by county
This month my research has found 871 Museums using Twitter, and I would expect the real total to be over 1,000. The majority of these institutions are in the United States (542 museums), but there has been a lot of growth in Europe over the past few months with more Dutch, German and French Museums starting to tweet.

Below: Number of Museums on Twitter by county

countries

Top Museums on Twitter
The number of people choosing to follow the 871 Museums which I have found on Twitter is a massive 1,104,834 and the most followed institution is currently Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid with 81,573 followers (this is up from 1,547 followers in November thanks to Twitter suggesting the Museum as ’someone to follow’ to users in Spain).

Below: The top ten Museums ranked by number of followers

graph

This is the first time that I have been able to show that over 1 million people follow Museums on Twitter, and I feel that this is a great statistic to use when making the case for using Twitter in a Museum.

Number of followers
While the most followed Museums shown above each have over 10,000 followers it is worth noting that the majority of Museums on Twitter have less then 1,000 people following their tweets.

Below: Museums on Twitter by number of followers

follwers

It is disappointing that several of the Institutions falling in to the 100 – 249 follower category have not progressed past this. While I believe that the depth of relationship that Twitter allows a Museum to have with it’s audiences is more important then the number of people who follow it, a Museum must attract enough followers to justify the time that they are spending updating Twitter (these institutions may benefit from reading this piece on improving Museum tweets).

You can download an excel spreadsheet of all 871 Museums on Twitter, complete with the number of people following them here.

As always this research is a work in progress, if you know of any Museums which are not on my list, please leave a comment on this post.

Posted in Trends, Twitter | 30 Comments »

Museum marketing trends 2010

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

museumvisitors

Here is my look at the ten trends which I think will be big in Museum Marketing in 2010.

1. Get a seat at the big table
Larger museums and galleries are increasingly talking about the lines between marketing and programming blurring, and now is the time to make sure that your organisation is taking the input that you can give seriously, not just in developing marketing, but in the strategic direction of your organisation as a whole.

The future of the museum is audience focused, and who better to lead the museum of the future then the people who understand audiences best (that’s you).

2. The Big Idea
With marketing budgets falling it’s time to get creative, and I think this pressure will make 2010 the year of the big marketing idea, we need to forget about the status-quo, ditch the ordinary and strive for extraordinary.

We need to move away from exhibit focused advertising and think about how we can communicate the experience, we need to forget about just being on Facebook and Twitter and do something different with social media, we need to rethink marketing that targets everyone and use segmentation in more effective ways.

3. Become fanatical about effectiveness
How effective your marketing is at delivering the desired outcome is going to be more important than ever in 2010. You need to ask everyone involved to prove the value of the activities that they are delivering for you, and measure the results of everything you do.

4. Create experiences that can be shared
Crowd-sourcing and co-creation were big news in 2009 and I don’t see the trend towards audiences participation going away. ‘Create experiences that can be shared’ is something that I have heard people talk about at a lot of conferences in the past few months and I totally agree.

Make sure everything you put online can be sent to a friend, linked to on Facebook and posted on Twitter.

5. Real time reviews
People are increasingly sharing more of their lives then ever 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 search results.

How can you encourage people who visit your museum to post reviews and share their experience with others?

6. Choose your medium
Your museum doesn’t need to be on every social network, now you have had a chance to experiment it is time to prioritise what is working for you, and consider leaving websites which don’t seem to be adding much to achieving your goals.

7. Reinventing print
You know that your museum has several audiences who are motivated to visit your institution for a wide variety of reasons, but does your print reflect this. Most museums tend to have a generic leaflet aimed at everyone, but with cheap digital print, isn’t it time to segment your audiences and create leaflets aimed at each group.

8. Policy
A lot of people have been asking me about how they can create a social media policy for their museum, I think that a formalisation of the way that organisations are using websites like Facebook and Twitter is to be expected, this will also include how you’ll measure success.

9. Mobile Friendly websites
One of the stories which I think will be big news in 2010 is the mobile web, with 3% of internet traffic in the UK coming from mobile phones (and half of that from iPhones) it is time for Museums to start to think about a version of their website which will work well on a smaller screen.

10. Value
Value was a big trend in 2009 and I expect that to continue in to 2010. Museums are well placed to take advantage of the trend towards cheap days out and Institutions need to promote the value that they offer without cheapening their brands.

Do you agree? What do you think will the big museum marketing trends in 2010?

Posted in Trends | 12 Comments »