Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category

Ask a Curator

Monday, September 6th, 2010

Ask a Curator was a worldwide question and answer session with curators from some of the world’s leading museums and galleries, it took place on Twitter on September 1st.

The project followed the ‘Follow a Museum‘ day which Sumo developed earlier this year and which also took place on Twitter, with that event we simply encouraged individuals to look at the cultural venues which tweet and to follow a museum or gallery.

With Ask a Curator we wanted to do something which asked more of both the public and the museums, something that could create dialogue and real engagement. We hoped that this project could give the public unprecedented access to the passionate and enthusiastic individuals who work in museums and galleries and also break down barriers within these institutions, where all to often social media is still the remit of the marketing department.

The project was only promoted through Twitter, and over a few weeks those signed up to participate mushroomed from a handful to over 340 venues in 23 countries. Many institutions told us that this was the first time that their curators had used Twitter and some museums even set up accounts in order to take part in the event.

As well as the many institutions who signed up for the event, we also received enquiries from several individuals, but we took the decision to limit participation to museums and galleries as our aim was to promote these organisations.

As the event approached we struggled to keep up with the requests to take part, and if we were to do a similar event, we would certainly want to have a website which allowed each venue to sign up and upload their own information.

Another element of the project which we think we could have improved was the press releases. In keeping with the decentralised approach to the event, we asked each museum to see what press they could attract, but we provided no press release template and we may have had better results if we had done this.

The event started very well, with a surprising number of tweets from the launch in New Zealand. As daylight reached Europe the tweets increased and it started to become hard to follow the questions by looking at the hashtag. At around 10.30am the hashtag suddenly started to trend as the top topic in the world.

The range of questions and the speed of the answers was impressive, and the tweets kept on increasing. At midday UK time, the spam started. This seemed to be automated and started to drown out the real #askacurator tweets. Collectively those taking part reported the accounts responsible for spam and after an hour the spam seemed to dwindle.

Throughout the day we were constantly surprised by the press that we were getting. A radio interview in Australia, a television program in the Netherlands and a huge amount of coverage online. Wired Magazine, BBC, Culture24 and Fast Company were personal highlights.

A few hours after the spam had slowed down, it suddenly started again and it was impossible to ignore. We suggested that we move the hashtag to escape the spam and this seemed to solve the problem (this was reported by AOL). Though we appreciate that Twitter is a free service, it was a great frustration that they seem to have so little control over this kind of spam and we’d be unlikely to use Twitter again for this kind of event.

The feedback that we have received has been very positive, with many people asking us when the next event will take place. The public also seemed to have a good experience, with many messages of thanks appearing in the twitterstream. We are also very proud that by working together the sector managed to dominate twitter throughout the day.

We’ll now do some research with all involved to gain more feedback and think about what we can do next.

Posted in Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

AMA and Twitter

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

At the Arts Marketing Association Digital Marketing Day last week there were some useful points raised regarding creating Twitter content. I thought I would put together some of the main ones in a blog post.

1) The importance of re-tweeting

In our Managing Director Jim’s keynote speech he cited this great quote:
“When a blogger asks for comments but never replies back, it’s like beginning a conversation and then leaving the room when someone else starts talking.”
One of the best attributes of Twitter, in my opinion, is the fact that you can contact people so succinctly and directly. As the social media fan and CNN anchorman Rick Sanchez tweeted, ‘i twitter because i need as a journalist to get what viewers think and say. w/out them i’m just another talking head.they complete me, lol!”

2) Dealing with negative feedback

Susan Hallam in her talk regarding digital marketing strategies, suggested that the best thing to do when your organisation is given negative feedback on Twitter is to wait. Not for long enough that your silence is noted, but for long enough that someone else from outside the organisation will step in and defend you. Though you may want to reinforce this, it is a more powerful defence if it comes spontaneously from a fan.

3) Planning to speak to each of your audiences

Though it’s not a new concept to plan a schedule of communication, or for this to include social media sites, I thought it was a great idea of Susan Hallam’s to divide up your schedule by audience, not necessarily by event. So rather than just thinking of the messages you want to put out to each audience in the launch of an exhibition, instead set yourself the task of putting out one message for each main target group each week or fortnight. She also reminded us of the importance of aiming messages at journalists - they are often big fans of the blogosphere too.

4) Lovelinks

DK  from Mediasnackers introduced us to the term ‘lovelinks’. If you’re nervous about having a Twitter feed directly into your website, an alternative is to provide links to anyone saying positive things about you under a ‘What people are saying’ type heading. A Tweet from agency Redfront during the AMA event pointed out that sites like Trip Advisor should be included too.
It’s not the ideal scenario in my opinion but if you can’t persuade your organisation to set up an incoming feed then this is a good compromise.

5) Meeting your audience

In large venues, it can be difficult to get to know your audiences, particularly where you don’t have ticketing and the chance to gather data. Susan Hallam suggested starting by finding out who your main Tweeters are by using one of the tools like www.socialmention.com and searching for your organisation’s name (and your competitors) being mentioned in microblogs. In the left hand side bar you’ll get the details of the main authors mentioning you and in turn you can look them up and find out more about them.

6) The method not the result

DK overtly urged organisations to ‘come out from behind the curtain’ and be personable, as part of getting involved in social media. He suggested, ‘Stop writing press releases and show what you’re doing’ and explained how powerful it can be, and how interested people are, in you updating them on your process and progress rather than just announcing finished ‘products’ (events or exhibitions). Jim has often cited the Brooklyn Museum blog for how well they do this. This approach also gives people information in bitesize pieces but with links to more detail, a good general principle for online communications now.
Susan Hallam suggested a great, simple way to give loyal audience members added value and to give them a reason to read your e-bulletins and link to your website -  to generate some exclusive information in the form of an interview with an upcoming artist, curator, speaker or similar and to provide a link for signed up fans to find it first. This could be part of the strategy of keeping the audience involved in the development process.

7) Calls to action

The National Theatre of Wales website, presented by their Artistic Director, John McGrath, reminded me of the importance of calls to action. ‘Find out more’ is more impactful than just a Ning link and ‘Visit our social network for reviews, comments and more…’ (as used on the NTW website) is even better because the audience can understand the reason for clicking.

And one final point which is much broader than just Twitter but, I thought important enough to be worth mentioning here:

Jon McGrath said that ‘Can we do it digitally?’ has become a kind of mantra for them. They had a really brave (and successful) online launch and are now committed to this a continue this approach as widely as possible (although their performance content will, for now at least, remain in person not online). This inspired me and I think we need to look at more opportunities for our clients to transfer processes online. We are currently developing an intranet and online ticketing functionality so hopefully these will be first of many such projects.

Posted in Conference, Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

Tate and the power of Twitter

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

twittering_tate2

I recently mentioned the Robert Morris, BodySpaceMotionThings installation at Tate Modern on Twitter (you can see my posts above). I first mentioned it when I noticed the exhibition in the paper, then I sent a note to a friend who I thought would get a kick out of the exhibition and finally I linked to some pictures I had posted on photo sharing website Flickr. 

One of the cool things about Twitter is the Retweet. If someone likes something that I write on Twitter they can Retweet it to everyone who is following them. Basically rebroadcasting this information to their own network of readers.

Two people who follow me on Twitter did choose to retweet a link about the exhibition at Tate Modern, and interestingly both picked up on the message I sent to my friend. 

Between matwater213 and GettyMuseum my message to a friend about something I thought she would think was cool was rebroadcast to the over 10,000 people.

I think this demonstrates the power of Twitter, while I might have told a few people about the exhibition five years ago, social media amplifies word of mouth, connecting me with thousands.

Posted in Museum, Twitter | No Comments »

@brooklynmuseum

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

brooklyn2

I was in New York last week, and took the chance to visit the excellent Brooklyn Museum for the first time, it was nice to see this sign suggesting Twitter as a place for the public to leave feedback. This idea works brilliantly as a marketing tool as every comment will virally promote the museum and it’s exhibitions and will show up in searches.

Want to see just how many people are talking about the Brooklyn Museum on Twitter, click here 

Posted in Museum, Twitter | No Comments »