Participants will learn about listservs, discussion groups, and wikis, including Google groups and Yahoo groups. This session covers the basics of using these resources to stay in touch with your museum's audience, including their differences/strengths/weaknesses. Presented at the Arkansas Museums Association annual meeting 2010.

1. Social Media and
Museums II
Presented by
Heather Marie Wells
Collections Assistant/Technology Coordinator
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Springdale, Arkansas

3. Introduction
 What are we talking about
 Arguments against & for access
 Choosing Platform
 Lists, forums, groups, wikis
 Features
 Shortcomings
 Scenarios
 What to use them for
 Hands-on
 Groups
 Wikis

4. What are we talking about
 Lists
 Forums
 Groups
 Wikis
Oh, MY!

5. Arguments Against Access
 Privacy - what if the employees talk about
us?
 Productivity - A 2009 Nucleus Research Inc.
showed that companies who allow full access
to Facebook suffer a 1.5% loss in
productivity.
 Network Security - We’ll get more bugs,
viruses, and hackers.

6. Arguments For Access
 You can create a social networking policy to
address concerns.
 University of Melborne study shows 9% increase
in productivity for those allowed to use social
media for personal use; imagine increase if they
were allowed to use it to gather information for
their work responsibilities.
 Security risks are no greater than when email
was first developed. Policies, education, and
following platform guidelines curtail most attacks.

7. Choosing a Platform
 What are your goals?
 Who are you trying to engage?
 Demographics
 How big a group
 Who is going to maintain the project?
 What do you want to say?
 How much time do you have?
 Policies regarding third party services

8. Listservs
 Features
 Easily accessible (email)
 Digest or real-time
 Most have searchable archives
 Can send attachments but considered bad form
 Admins
 Shortcomings
 It’s not threaded (everybody gets everything)
 Doesn’t handle attachments well
 Requires special software & server

9. Listserv if...
 You want to communicate primarily through
email
 You have restrictive web access

10. Forums
 Features
 Easily accessible (web browser & email notifications)
 Lower barrier to entry (lurkers can read)
 Allow threading based on topics/interests
 Everything remains on forum (no archiving)
 Can be private or public
 Admins and moderators
 Shortcomings
 Most don’t support media files (photos, videos, documents)
 Require more monitoring (flame wars, spam)
 Requires server (but there are free ones)

11. Forums if...
 You want to organize topics (threads)
 You want levels of privacy
 You don’t want to use email
 You want to keep it simple

12. Groups
 Features
 Easy to access (web browser & email notifications)
 Handles media files (photos, videos, and documents)
 Allow threading based on topics/interests
 Everything remains on forum (no archiving)
 Support for calendars
 Admins and moderators
 Shortcomings
 Best with small, semi-private groups
 Can’t host internally, but good free options

13. Groups if...
 You want to share files
 You want forum features
 You want to share calendars
 You want discussions

14. Wikis
 Features
 Easy to access (web browser & email notifications)
 Handles media files (photos, videos, and documents)
 Everything remains on forum (version archiving)
 Support for calendars
 Privilege levels
 Public or private
 Shortcomings
 Don’t handle discussions well
 Need maintenance or grow out of control

15. Wikis if...
 You want to manage a project
 You want to share files
 You want to collaborate on documents

16. What can you use them for?
 Communication with professional
organizations
 Internal communication
 Training for volunteers
 Outreach
 Sponsor as a research tool

17. Groups
 Google Groups
 Yahoo Groups
 Microsoft Live Groups
 Facebook Groups

18. Wikis
 Google Sites
 PB Works
 Wetpaint
 Wikispaces

19. Thank You for Coming
Heather Marie Wells
Collections Assistant / Technology Coordinator
hmwells@springdalear.gov
http://springdalear.gov/shiloh
479-750-8165
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Springdale, Arkansas