A challenge for every organization that grows a year older is how to stay relevant with the technology of today. Museums are a hotbed of content by definition. Social media for museums lets you digitize all of that for online consumption and visitor interaction. This will keep you at the top of followers' minds.
The Broad Museum often shares photos from their exhibits with the accompanying information. It gives followers insight on the exhibit, entices potential visitors and reengages those who have already seen it.
In addition to finding new members, there are many people who visit museums while on vacation. Targeting people who plan for their trips and are more likely to post about it is an excellent strategy.
The Q4 2017 Sprout Social Index found that consumers share and include brands in their shares most often during holidays and travel/vacation. On vacation, 60% would share about it while 43% would include the brand. That’s a large percentage of people who would mention your museum if they visit during a vacation.
In terms of planning, Pinterest’s own studies found that 40+ million people in the US are on Pinterest every month for travel ideas. Furthermore, 49% who spend $1000 or more on travel are on Pinterest. Even just optimizing your website for Pinterest can go a long way.
We’ve divided this guide up into three parts. You can skip ahead if you’re looking more for strategies and inspiration.
Part One: The BasicsPart Two: StrategyPart Three: InspirationPart One: The Basics
This wouldn’t be a worthwhile guide if we didn’t take you through the basics first. Whether you’re starting from scratch on a new social network or taking over from someone else, it never hurts to audit your pages.
Profile Details
All the details matter in social media, especially when people are quickly perusing instead of methodically reading. If you can make information like your hours easier to access, then you won’t risk losing potential visitors. Why make them click through your website when you could easily display it in your social media profile where they already are?
Facebook allows a lot of room for customization on their Pages. We’re not going to go into every detail that the network allows you to do, so we encourage you to explore your Settings.
However, in your About section, you should list all the necessary information that a potential visitor would want to know:
Relevant categories: there are several different types of museums that you can set as a categoryAddressPricePhone numberOther social accountsMission statementMilestonesIf you have a special exhibition that’s happening, pin a post about it to the top of your profile. Events are a common occurrence at museums. Create event pages for them and encourage your Fans to be notified when new ones pop up.
In addition, here are some features you may have missed:
Add information about your Wi-Fi networkTurn your response hours on. Do you use Messenger a lot? Put up an automated away message during your closed hours.Turn your reviews on or add a TripAdvisor tabVerify your Page so it shows up higher in search resultsAdd a Shop so you can link your online gift store to Facebook
The New York Transit Museum added a lot of details to their profile. They’ve added a Donate call-to-action button, gave their hours and turned on reviews. If you click further into their About tab, they let you know they have street parking available and provide a few public transit options.
On Instagram, you should switch your account to a business profile. This gives you access to features like buttons for directions. In your Instagram bio, where you can give a snippet about yourself, you’ll be able to link hashtags and any other accounts. This is especially helpful if you have a brand that has multiple Instagram accounts. The final advantage of switching to a business account is that you can access analytics and advertise within the network.
Museum of Fine Arts in Houston switched their Instagram account to a business profile. In doing so, they were able to add more details about their museum, like giving a phone number, email and directions. Additionally, they added their brand hashtags into their bio so all of their followers know which ones to use.
On Twitter, your bio space is similarly condensed like on Instagram. It may take a while to get the right combination of words but you can fit hours into it. Alternatively, you can utilize your cover photo to include some necessary admission information.
Twitter offers a few more options in terms of branding. You can choose a brand color, change your cover photo and keep a Tweet pinned to the top. Keep in mind that Twitter offers a night mode, so your profile photo should look good against both white and a dark gray background.
The Reading Museum squeezes in information about both their admission prices and their opening hours in the biography section.
When starting out on Pinterest, you should switch your profile over to a business profile. This allows you to access analytics and set up advertising. Your profile gives you some space to enter a website, location, some text for your biography and how you want your profile cover to look.
For your Boards, you’ll want to make the names relevant to your brand and easy for search results. There’s additional space in the Boards’ description to add more keywords.
The Corning Museum of Glass linked their website to their Pinterest profile. On their profile, you see relevant glass Boards, and on the Activity tab, you see what people have Pinned from their website.
Audit Your Strategy
Set aside a few hours to focus on taking an unbiased look at how your networks have performed. A social media audit tool (template included in this post) gives you the opportunity to examine everything from your current demographics to your most-shared content.
If you’re reevaluating your strategy, an audit is where you should begin the process.
Part Two: Strategy
Your museum’s social media team is part of your marketing team. This means that your social media manager needs to be dialed into what’s happening in your events department, your research department and your special exhibitions. Depending on how your strategy is designed, you may find that your museum will use social media as a megaphone to all of the activities that are happening.
To have an idea on how to get started on designing a strategy, check out our handy post and checklist.
Set Up Your Goals
What are you hoping to accomplish with each network? If you’re using social media primarily as an educational tool, then your posts will be centered around your pieces with some sprinkling of promotions.
Every network can have its own goals. A media-heavy platform like Instagram may benefit from more educational posts whereas a quick platform like Twitter may be better for sassy meme references. Understand the limits of each network, too. Facebook and Twitter are great for links while in Instagram, you can only link in an Instagram Story.
To begin with, here are some common goals that museums may want from social media:
Increase brand awareness: You want as many people to know about you as possibleIncrease admission and membership sales: More people need to know what membership benefits are and you also want to capture those who vacation in your cityEducate: Museums are first and foremost places to learn. That means there’s an endless supply of content to post about.Promote other features: Do you offer event space? Will you be hosting an artist talk or collaborating with a community business? All the neat projects that your organization undertakes can be posted onto social media.Create an Internal Communication Strategy
The bigger your museum is, the more you’ll need a robust internal communication strategy. How will your social media team receive information about what’s happening around the museum? Chances are that the team is small and it won’t do them any good if every employee suddenly sends them the coolest thing happening in their day.
Instead, create channels of communication. What are the top three things happening in every department each week and can these be delivered by one person? The communication method can be as simple as an email or in-person meeting or as robust as a form.
One way you can make it easy for employees to tell their own stories about the museum is through Sprout’s Employee Advocacy platform. Employee Advocacy surfaces pre-approved stories that employees can then share on their social accounts with their own unique spin. This means your content will reach more audiences through employees’ networks, and you’ll be empowering them to relate these stories to their own experiences working at the museum.
The side benefit of having a great internal communication program is that you’re able to share important social posts with the team. Employee advocacy will only amplify the content that you post. According to the 2022 Sprout Social Index™, the most important business outcome of an employee advocacy program is increasing brand awareness. Knowing what’s happening in the company can help your employees be better at their jobs, and helps them share good company news with their networks, which increases your brand's reach.
Write Social Media Guidelines
Do you have a large, interactive audience online? It may be time for you to create and publish a set of community guidelines. Having this available will help guide how you moderate posts and comments. Community guidelines usually outline what you don’t tolerate and what can be grounds for being blocked or reported.
Take a page from the Guggenheim Museum. Their social media guidelines are linked to from all of their social pages.
Set Up or Link Related Brands
Your Events team may find it necessary and interesting to start their own social media accounts. Before this happens, ensure that everyone has an understanding of the museum’s brand guidelines and voice. Each department or account may take on a different tone but the overall feel of the accounts should remain similar.
If possible, utilize your bio’s space to link to other associated accounts. Or at the very least, include the parent account in the associated accounts’ bios. It ensures some continuity between accounts and lessens the confusion for followers.
all i wanna do is
*gunshots**gunshots**click**cash register noise*
Chase Jeff Goldblum
— SUE the T. rex 🦖 (@SUEtheTrex) July 18, 2018
This comprehensive guide, 'The ultimate social media for museums', offers a unparalleled insight into leveraging digital platforms to enhance museum engagement and outreach. It's an invaluable resource that every curator or marketing professional should have on their shelf.
