For a talk given for a class on collections at Tufts University, I outline why social media is relevant to museums, best practices for posting, and a handful of excellent examples of cultural institutions engaging their audiences online.

1. Social Media &
Museum Collections
Best Practices and Emerging Trends

2. Why Social Media Matters

3. ● Audiences are there

7. ● Audiences are there
● Social messages are worth 13x standard
marketing messages

11. ● Audiences are there
● Social messages are worth 13x standard
marketing messages
● Museum visits are social activities

14. Best Practices

15. Prioritize
1. Website
2. Email Newsletters
3. Social Media Platforms (in order of popularity and relevance)

19. Facebook
Post once per day or less.
Quality over quantity.
Don’t automatically cross-post.
Create events selectively.
Be visual.
Be responsive.
Videos are favored.

24. Pinterest
Start with 10 or boards or fewer.
Space out pins to your boards.
Link pins to your website.
Include a short description.
Use searchable terms.
Post timeless content.

28. Instagram
Share at least once per week.
Add hashtags and captions.
Use @mentions to engage users.
Follow, like, and tag others.
Use location tagging.

30. Twitter
Include a photo.
Don’t only post your own content.
Retweet and reply to others.
Limit hashtags to one or two.
Tweet up to six times per day, spaced out.
Include a link.

34. Tracking

35. Followers
Subscribers, followers, likes
Won’t necessarily see every message.
Quality over quantity.
Reach
Number of people who have seen your
content.
Typically 5–10% of followers are
reached.
Can exceed follower count when
content has high engagement.
Engagement
Likes, comments, and shares.
Number of people
interacting/endorsing the posts.
Most important metric.
Use to help guide content.

36. Tools

37. Scheduling
Buffer
Listening
Respondly
TweetDeck
Google Alerts
Google Analytics
Content Curation
BuzzSumo
Flipboard
Feedly
Digg

38. Examples

39. #LetMeLibrarianThatForYou
New York Public Library

43. VanGo Yourself
Culture24

48. 1840s GIF Party
Tate Modern

53. #PlayArtfully
SFMoMA

59. #MobilePhotoNow
Columbus Museum of Art

60. https://vimeo.com/122773527