Paper given at the Barriers to Participation in Archaeology Online workshop at UCL, on 22nd May 2012

1. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
of Archaeology and Social Media
Doug Rocks-Macqueen

2. Survey of IT-Archaeologists

3. • Social Media is NOT free it costs time
• Social media = time, time = money, social media =
money. But how much?
• (Stelzner 2011)- 42% spend 0-5 hrs wk. 33%
spend 11+ hrs wk
• Time commitments increase:
– 59% (less then a year SM exp.) spend 1-5 hrs per
week.
– 47% (3 yrs or more expereince) spend 16+ hrs)

4. Not Everyone Benefits
• Generated exposure- 83%
• Increase traffic- 72%
• Improved search rankings- 62%
• Partnership- 56%
• Generated qualified leads- 51%
• Reduced marketing expenses- 49%
• Improved sales- 43%

5. What are the Costs?
% who saw $ Return by Time Spent on
Social Media Not instant gratification-
80%
70%
70%
60%
• Roughly 20% agree it
60%
50%
helps (just started)
50%
40%
30%
• About 75% (3 or more
20% years of social media
20%
work)
10%
0%
1-3 hrs 11-15 hrs 16-20 hrs 40+ hrs

7. Social Media as an Individual
• Archaeologists fired for blogging
• Blogged about publically available information
on ghost towns
– Commercial archaeology crew chief i.e. temp
worker. No reason needed to be given to let go of
employment.
• Happy ending- still has a great blog

8. This all leads to….
BUT this does happen
People quite here
Image from http://randomactsofscience.squarespace.com/

9. Not All Doom and Gloom
Non-social media: Top Journal
articles over 90 days Social Media
International Journal of
Historical Archaeology
380
346
• My blog- 17,000 views in
444
335
316 last 90 days
295 Journal of Maritime
291 Archaeology
237 1677
280
• John Hawks blog 16,000+
Journal of Archaeological
Method and Theory
276 subscribers
212
677 192
663
626
574
Journal of World Prehistory • @AFBurialGrndNPS –
911
510 493 62,000+ followers (11,000
Journal of Archaeological
472
471
tweets)
Research 438
1049
527

10. Facilitates Conversations that Would
Not Normally Occur
The good Barrier
• Heritage Business journal • How many conversations
– Contributors from around the can you have?
world most have never met • Social media is not a
• Wikipedia/Wikiloot newspaper?
• Social media is a bit like
• Projects were people have your family and friends
never met and might never when they speak you are
meet are now occurring obliged to listen

11. In Closing
• Social media is a tool that can removes some
limitations and facilitates interactions
• There are barriers
– For organizations it costs time/money
– For individuals- no protection, people know that
you’re a dog on social media
– Social media creates conversations but you can
only keep track of so many conversations at once
• ….. but there are also advantages as well.