Social media - who should I be talking to and how? A guide for museums that are not currently using social media looking at how it can help achieve marketing objectives and reach audiences online, what makes good content, challenges that may arise, and an overview of various different social media platforms. Presentation given by Rosie Clarke, Campaigns Officer at Culture24, at the Arts Council England / Museum Development Service training day "Doing Digital: Using Social Media in Museums", Lighthouse Arts, Brighton, 12 December 2012.

1. Rosie Clarke, Culture24
Social media – who should I be
talking to and how?

2. Your marketing objectives
• Community outreach
• Engagement
• Humanise your institution
• Touchpoints, shared stories

3. Audience
• Same as real world
• More frequent contact
• Experimentation
• Slow growth
• Ask them!
– Towner Connect10 audience suggestions

4. Let’s Get Real report
• Priorities
– 1) Fix SEO
– 2) Mobile-optimised website
– 3) Social media

5. Questions to consider
• What’s right for you?
• What can you manage – resources needed?
• Who will do it?
• Frequency – schedule?

6. What makes good content?
• Visual – images
• Quirky / random
• Unexpected
- custodians
• Storytelling
• Remarkable

7. The Horniman’s Cheese Horse
• Photo
• Twitter
• Unboxing video
• Puns
• Pinterest
• Cheese carving
• Answers
http://storify.com/Horniman
Museum/cheese-horse

8. Storify

9. Blogging
• Easy to update yourself
• Permanent record of ephemeral social media
– Storify
• Share a journey
• Guest posts – different audiences

10. Scheduling
• Friday fact
• Object of the week
• Lists – top tens
• How to …
• Resources
• Tips from …
• Interview with …

11. Twitter
• Tone of voice
• Immediate
• Can share images, video, have conversations
–@
– .@
– RT
– MT
– #ff

12. Facebook
• Algorithm changes – only 16% will see
– Recency
– Frequency
– Popularity
• Time of day – outside work hours
• Private sharing

13. Fabrica
on
Facebook

14. Images
• Flickr changes
• Instagram
• Instagram / Twitter changes
• More likely to be clicked
• Most blog traffic via
Google image search
• High-res media image library

15. Pinterest

16. Discover more

17. Tumblr
• Immediate shares
• Young demographic
• Professional?

19. Video
• YouTube most popular, good SEO
• Interviews
• Vox pops
• Curator’s Choice
• Unboxing
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knG6yZ5_aE0

20. Google+

21. Challenges
• Monitoring and controlling
• Management buy-in
• Updating too much / not enough
• Begging
• How to respond? Transparency
• Abruptly stopping

22. Growth
• Your team are your best advocates
• Email signatures, LinkedIn, business cards
• Online signup
• Competitions
• Social proof

23. Thanks very much!
Rosie Clarke
rosie@culture24.org.uk
01273 623336
http://museumsatnight.wordpress.com
@rosieclarke
@museumsatnight
@culture24