Arts Digital

ART, MUSEUMS & DIGITAL MARKETING

[artsdigital101]

Museums & The Web Asia 2015 recap (sort of).

Monday 6:15pm. Make my way to opening night drinks at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). A woman in the lobby hands me percussion sticks and points me towards the chimes hanging from the ceiling. I shrug, bang the instruments for a bit, become self-conscious about the noise I’m making, and shuffle off. Apparently I’m the first one to take up the offer… 

6:17pm. There’s nothing worse than walking into a conference reception on your own and not recognising anyone. Except maybe getting hit by a tram and dying - but that’s another story… Anyway, I scan the room, sigh, and grab the nearest drink before approaching a group of folks for some polite introductions and small talk. Note to self: You can always spot the Adelaide crowd. 

6:30pm. Mingle. Small talk. Drink wine. Decline food on sticks. Repeat. At some point I meet Titus, who’s helming this thing on behalf of Museums and the Web, and Tim from Museums Victoria, who I last saw in Hong Kong when I was still working for Qatar Museums and flush with oil money. 

6:45pm. Head outside to the garden area and daydream about smoking cigarettes again - it’s more fun than just randomly checking your phone every 30 seconds while the world drifts past.

7pm. The wait staff are busy topping up wine glasses, which means people are talking to each other. They should have a three drink minimum before they allow people to set foot inside these things. Three shots at the front door or you can’t come in. That should be the rule. 

Tuesday 8:45am. Am drinking a can of Red Bull on the way to the official opening because I am obviously some kind of caffeine monster with a death wish. 

9:05am. Grab myself a cup of watered down coffee at the conference reception before heading inside and grabbing a seat. Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle delivers the opening speech with the easy-going candour of a talk show host... or a monorail salesman. He takes several pot shots at Sydney, talks up the local coffee scene, receives his applause, and rushes out the door without so much as a look back. The guy’s a pro… 

9:45am. Keynote speaker Nik Honeysett from Balboa Park Online Collaborative is up. He starts by discussing magic... which immediately makes me think about John Higgs’ KLF book, in which he argues it’s possible for individuals to be guided by abstract magic forces that they might not even be aware of. This has nothing to do with Nik’s talk or museums, but it’s a very good book. 

10:30am. The ‘dietary requirements’ biscuits are hidden away in a corner so I eat one of those and drink another bad coffee. I do not have ‘dietary requirements’ but these look better than the ‘official biscuits’. 

11am. A number of talks are in progress, but I’m focusing on remembering my own upcoming lighting talk, so I have no idea what anyone actually said or did throughout most of the day. Sorry to the speakers, and Helen Stuckey from Flinders University I need to get in contact with you about retro games and that article I wrote about the education sector. 

2pm. I don’t like public speaking. My hands get clammy, my throat constricts, and my heart rate goes up. I once tried to get beta-blockers to nuke my public speaking fear but the doctor told me to ‘man up’. 

2:40pm. Relief. My talk seems to have gone well. I think the crowd appreciated my stories about Prada pop-up shops in the desert, hastily cancelled exhibitions, and Kanye cameos at launches. If nothing else they provided a contrast to the more instructional/useful talks from my colleagues. 

6:15pm. I have no idea what happened after my talk. My next memory is showing up at the David Bowie reception thing at ACMI. 

6:30pm. There is a lot of deep fried food at this reception and I am eating it all. I chat to people and try not to mention I’ve already seen the Bowie exhibit at the V&A in London (where the final room is much larger and more impressive).  

Wednesday 8:30am. I’m back at work. Nothing much happened the previous day, apparently. 

6:30pm. Catch a tram up to the Melbourne Museum for the final #MWA2015 function and the ‘Smart Bar’ event. Last time I was here it was on a weekend and filled with screaming children, so I never made it past the front door. 

7pm. There’s various talks and interactive displays and stuff, but all I care about is the table full of old retro junk. I actually had a Commodore 64 as a kid. And it’s always fun to look at laser discs and think, “Well that was a shit idea.” 

7:15pm. There’s a live snake here! He’s terrifying and cool at the same time. Also, he’s in a glass enclosure, and a python, so I don’t freak out. But I’m still deeply suspicious of snakes. 

8pm. I like to leave functions / parties / etc while things are still interesting, so I wait until no ones looking and do my Irish exit shtick. Also, three days of conference receptions is hard work. Big thanks to Museums and the Web for having me, and for all the people I met and had a chance to chat with. 

8:01pm. PS. I’m currently on the second draft of my book about living in Qatar. Anyone know a good publishers?

Mikolai @mikolai 

[artsdigital101]

10 Things Museums can learn from Buzzfeed

Whatever you may think of sites like BuzzFeed or Upworthy, they have mastered the art of clicks, likes, and shares – aka digital engagement. And in the process they’ve grown incredibly popular, powerful, and wealthy.

Following recent investment from Silicon Valley, BuzzFeed is now worth an estimated $850 million, receives approximately 150 million unique visitors per month, and is the 97th most popular website in the world. Upworthy isn’t in the same ballpark, but its ‘pioneering’ use of clickbait headlines completely transformed online content when it launched back in 2012, and it continues to grow.

While it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and lament the terrible content, mindless headlines, and that incredibly WRONG video about grilled cheese sandwiches that BuzzFeed posted, it ignores an awful truth - there’s a formula behind their success, and it’s obviously working.

Museums and art institutions could learn some valuable lesson about social media and digital engagement from these websites. Or they could just co-opt their approach wholesale. Either way, here are 10 things BuzzFeed and Upworthy can teach us…

1. Bored office workers make the world go round…

According to BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, the people who drive social engagement and send things viral are 1, bored office workers, 2, people fiddling with their phones while waiting in line. 

The ‘bored at work’ crowd number in the hundreds of millions internationally, spend a solid 15 minutes of every work hour on social media, and are looking for two things…

• A way to alleviate the daily tedium • Content that speaks of their frustrations

The ‘bored in line’ audience is an extension of this, and has grown with the advent of smart phones. Whether waiting for a bus, taking a cigarette break, or just mindlessly scrolling in bed, their boredom is now the driving force behind successful online content. 

Museums that can tap into this boredom, and provide content that promise to alleviate it, are off to a great start. But first they need a catchy headline…

2. Everything starts with a snappy headline

Site like BuzzFeed and Upworthy insist that their writes come up with 20 different headings for each post. While most of these will be terrible, the theory is that desperate writers will start to think outside the box by the time they’re on headline 18, 19, and 20, and that’s when you hit pay dirt. 

That said, there are guidelines, and the two most important are as follows –

• Don’t give it all away in the headline. • Don’t form an opinion for the user in the headline.

If museums want BuzzFeed level engagement, they need to stop treating their headings as an after-thought, and give them as much attention as the actual content they link to. And on that note…

3. Emotional triggers work

The best headings are ones that play on our emotions. You can shake your head all you want, but the reality is emotional language works. It stops people in their tracks, draws them in, and makes them share content.

And while the overwrought click-bait nonsense that Upworthy built its audience with has (thankfully) fallen out of favour, more nuanced, emotional headings and captions can have a huge impact on traffic. 

For museums, that means retiring social media posts that like they were cribbed from Wikipedia, in favour of more emotional, narrative driven text. Don’t tell your audience about the painting, artefact, or whatever – tell the story behind it. 

4. People share content that reflects their identity and beliefs

People like and share content that reflects their own self-identity, beliefs, and view of the world. The success of articles like ‘5 Things Introverted People Know’ and ‘10 Signs you’re an Extrovert’ reflect this.

Museums can adapt this simple formula for their own dubious marketing content by dividing up their audience into seemingly specific (but not really) categories, e.g. ‘10 Things Museums Snobs Know to be True’, ‘5 Lessons Kids can Teach us about Art’, etc, etc.

It’s cheap and schlocky, but it works. 

5. Mixing and matching different content is crucial

Buzzfeed has identified several specific categories that their content falls under. 

LOL: Self explanatory Win: Ah shucks, the world isn’t so terrible after all OMG: Such scandal! Cute: Fluffy bunny rabbits, baby goats, kittens, puppies, etc. Trashy: Let’s judge other people Fail: The world is going to hell, but at least we can laugh about it WTF: Whoa? Really? Did that just happen?

While all these different categories won’t necessarily apply to a museum or art space, they demonstrate the need to mix things up, and provide some general parameters to work within. 

Photos of artwork and profiles are all good and well, but museums need to look beyond these staples and find ways to incorporate humour, advice, and a little fun into their posts. 

6. More is always more

You know what’s better than one sugar glazed donut? Two sugar glazed donuts. This simple rule also applies to Internet content, and BuzzFeed has milked it with brutal efficiency, layering stories about a given topic or emotion until readers are left helpless.

One of the most successful posts on BuzzFeed remains ‘21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity’. Sure, one picture might have grabbed your attention for a couple of seconds, but 21 of them will have you weeping in front of the computer and hitting the ‘share’ button. 

The exact same principle can be applied to museums. Sure, one image by Monet is nice, but ‘The 10 Greatest Impressionist Paintings of all Time’ is a link worth sharing on social media.

7. Originality is overrated

If you can come up with one original idea in your lifetime you’re doing better than 99% of the population. In the meantime, feel free to repurpose, update, or reimagine other people’s ideas.

Museums have as much artistic license as anyone else when it comes to taking old ideas and giving them a fresh coat of paint. And if one of your competitors (i.e. another museum) does something innovative that works jump in as quickly as possible. 

Besides, your collection is entirely different to the museum across the street, which means the content will be entirely different, even if it is entirely similar. 

8. Going viral is a numbers game 

There’s a well known media company in Australia that will take down any social media post that doesn’t hit 100 likes in 4 minutes, tweak the heading and image, and upload it again. This drives the editors insane, but there is a method to this madness, and it’s about finding blockbuster content.

Despite everyone’s best attempts, ‘going viral’ is still a guessing game. All the algorithms and research will only get you so far, sometimes things just take on a life of their own. What organisations can do is identify the posts that are doing better than the rest and invest in these. 

We’ve covered Facebook’s organic reach in the past, and how the platform is largely pay-to-play these days. Investing ad spend in posts that are performing and promoting them across ALL your networks is like doubling down in poker, it’s playing the odds. Or in industry terms, it’s a ‘viral distribution strategy’.

9. Activism drives clicks

Making the world a better place is hard. Or at least it used to be. These days all it requires is a mouse click, and it’s the sort of cheap ‘slacktivism’ that helped propel Upworthy to success.

That being said, all those bored office workers want to believe they’re making the world a better place. And so any sort of content that has a broader, activist message is psychological clickbait. 

Whatever your views on all this, linking your museum’s images, posts, and content to broader social issues and things like ‘community activation’ can significantly increase engagement. A painting or a statue is all fine and good, but a painting or statue that helps raise awareness about children’s education, migrate rights, animal welfare, or similar is a click waiting to happen.

10. Failure is a crucial part of success  

Social media and content marketing is moving play field, and to stay on top you need to try new things, make mistakes, try again, and keep going until you hit big… and then realise it could be entirely different next time round.

The scattershot, one-size fits all approach used in the past is dead. Content needs to be optimised for different platforms, different audiences, and fired off with laser like precision to claw your way up the rankings. And even then, you’re going to see more failures than success – something like 65% of Upworthy’s contest fails to crack 20,000 views.

Ultimately, failure is going to play a big part of your success. All you can do is pay attention, and learn from it. 

[artsdigital101]

Bill Drummond and the KLF - 25 years later

Many, many years ago, I published a magazine called Team Evil, which was basically a poor-man’s Vice. But it had a lot of heart, and the articles were fun and stupid, and it was an outlet for content that no other media would touch…

None of which has anything much to do with this article about Bill Drummond from The KLF and his new art projects – except that I was totally obsessed with Bill back in those days and online stalked him to try and get an interview for my own magazine. 

Anyway, one night, around 1am, my phone rang, and it was Bill Drummond calling from the other side of the world, in reply to my various emails and interview requests. Bill didn’t have much to say, only that he was very sorry but he was no longer doing interviews about the KLF because it was so long ago and he was basically “all about the art” these days. 

And so that was pretty much it. You can read more about those art projects via this article from Jenny Valentish.

[artsdigital101]

No Hipsters plz, we’re British (a fashion retrospective)

The One Nation Under a Groove photo exhibition looks at 60 years of British Youth culture – from Mods and Casuals to Acid House, Rave, and whatever we’ve now ended up at… presumably ‘hipster’.

It’s part of The Southbank Centre’s Summer of Love line-up. Which is probably only relevant to people living in London. But if nothing else it allows a moment to pause and think about our own wardrobes as teenagers and how ridiculous those photos look these days…

[artsdigital101]

Toyota Museum in Japan more popular than traditional art museums...

Toyota’s Commemorative Museum in Nagoya, Japan, is attracting almost 400,000 visitors a year. Which is a lot, however you want to look at it. 

In fact, it’s the second most popular speciality museum in Japan, ranked only behind the Nikka Whisky distillery in Hokkaido.

And, while people might not usually associate cars with museums, they’re actually a very popular (and populist) attraction. Because, dare we say it - people ‘get’ cars and their place in society. No one really cares about old vases or tattered carpets aside from the people trying to make a buck from them.

[artsdigital101]

How to ‘Go Viral’ on social media (museum edition)...

Hey folks, are you sick of seeing your social media posts going unloved and unclicked? Do you want fame and fortune? Do you want lots and lots of followers? Do you want revenge? 

Of course you do. And the next 1200 words will help you achieve that dream! All you need is a museum, a weird looking cat (or similar), a smartphone, and a little chutzpah. Let’s go. 

You love me, you really love me… 

‘Going viral’ is one of the most legitimate and worthwhile things a person can do with their life in 2015. It’s the modern day equivalent of winning the Golden Lion at Cannes, and it allows you to live off the reflected glory until the end of days.

This is because viral campaigns are like the Bermuda Triangle – no one really understands how they work. Sure, there are theories. But there’s no surefire, can’t fail, 100% guaranteed formula (except for this one). And that makes the people who have stumbled through the viral vortex both highly sought after and imbued with a magical, totem like quality. 

I’m just here for the clicks 

You can be one of those totem people mentioned above! All you need is a cute baby animal and the mental fortitude for TOTAL SUCCESS… but mostly just the animal. 

Okay, here’s the deal. It’s a known fact that people will click on just about anything if it involves a cat doing something cute / dumb. Just look at the Maru videos and associated media empire. Some couple in Japan managed to turn videos of their cat being weird into online fame and bags of money - $180,000 annually just from YouTube. And don’t even get us started on Grumpy Cat. His owners earned an estimated $100 million in 2014. 

While the crossover ‘click bait’ potential of cats and museums has been explored in the past – plz see here, and here, and here, and of course there’s the Hermitage Museum in Russia – no one has gone ‘all in’. Until now… Follow the five steps listed below and begin your museum’s journey to fame, fortune, and followers… 

5 steps to Awesome 1. Adopt a kitten (or a puppy, or a baby goat, etc). This is the backbone of the whole scheme, so don’t just grab the first cat you see at the adoption center and call it a day. Ideally, you need a cat that’s both cute and distinct in some way. Any sort of unusual feature is a good start, this could be a squashed in face, excessive hair, amusing facial expression, etc, etc. The cat doesn’t have to be a pure breed or expensive, but it needs to have some sort of distinguishing feature which will (hopefully) become more pronounced and ridiculous as the animal ages. 

2. Give said animal a job at the museum. Feel free to be creative here, while an ‘ambassador’ is a safe bet, there’s no law saying you can’t make the cat a Chief Officer, your ‘social media ninja’, an SEO expert, or something equally ridiculous. Just keep in mind the position should provide opportunities to have the cat fronting press releases and talking up your activities. Also, the cat should ideally be living within the museum or art gallery. But if that isn’t practical, the owner will need to ensure the animal is brought into the office on a regular basis. 

3. Make it official. For added authenticity / web hits, you will need to update your website and official material with a bio and image of the new employee. Make sure there’s an accompanying Press Release about the position you can send out to media. The more photos of the cat (against a backdrop of your museum / collection) the better. If you’re serious about all this you’ll get the media team to produce a short video introducing your latest team member. Add some captions and suitably twee music. 

4. Create a personality for the animal. Since the cat is going to be presenting a bunch of material across various social media assets, it needs to have a consistent personality and tone of voice. This needs to align with its physical appearance, e.g. Grumpy Cat looks grumpy. Colonial Meow looks like a deranged military colonel. The personality that you present to the public doesn’t have to be particularly talkative or verbose. In fact, the simpler you keep it the better for all concerned. Ideally, you want a catch phrase that can be incorporated into almost any painting, function, or scenario. This is why Grumpy Cat’s “No” is such simple, understated genius. 

5. Get Creative. All the above has been setting the stage for the main event. This is the bit where you have to find a way to parlay the animal’s inherent online appeal into web hits. There are lots of ways of doing this, and what follows below is really more of a rough outline to get you in the right headspace. 

Social media ahoy-hoy...  A rough guide to web hits and social clicks with your new animal ambassador. • Create a Twitter account in which the cat discusses museum exhibitions and events from its unique perspective, e.g., “We opened a new exhibition last night. I vomited on the carpet. #cat #museum #vomit #launch”  • Create an Instagram account featuring photos of the cat with the museum’s artwork as a backdrop. Add plenty of #catstagram hashtags  • Launch a blog of the museum’s day-to-day actions from the perspective of the cat. It can be borderline ridiculous – “this museum needs more mice.” Or you can go the opposite route and be inappropriately intellectual, e.g. http://dog.gawker.com/  • How about a video diary of the cat exploring the museum? Don’t be afraid to incorporate some shaky handy cam action from the perspective of the cat.  • Launch merchandise which ties the cat and museum together. From postcards featuring paw prints to plush figurines or tee shirts, the world is your merchandising oyster.  • Get the PR team to sell the cat angle to local and overseas media. It’s an easy fluff piece any competent editor will jump at. 

Out for Fame All the above is obviously a very rough outline to get you in the right headspace. But the fact remains that cats + Internet = web hits. This is a huge market that the art and museum sector has being ignoring for far too long while focusing on boring things like ‘conferences’, ‘curators’ and the ‘the artwork’. There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But if you want the fame, and the fortune, and the money that follows, you’re gonna have to push the envelop a little. And hey, if you’d like a little assistance with your pet + social media takeover please get in contact. I’ve available for consulting gigs.

[artsdigital101]

Content Marketing for Museums                         (explained)

I can’t go five minutes without someone mentioning Content Marketing. What the hell is going on? Content Marketing is the new ‘big thing’ in marketing circles. Everyone is doing it. It’s like coke back in the 80s. Or watching Melrose Place for a brief period in the 90s. 

But what the hell does Content Marketing actually mean? The concept is actually pretty old, and simply means, “The creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers.” In other words, you provide content that’s so awesome and relevant to people they’ll come visit your website or social media page to find out more about “that thing.” It could be tractor parts, health insurance, it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re seen as an authority and the “go to site,” for it. 

That’s like something I read about while studying marketing. Well yeah, it’s an old concept. Back in the day it was something simple like printing cooking recipes on the back of pancake mix or something similar. It actually hasn’t changed all that much, really. Except now it’s all digital and much broader.  Melrose Place though?  Melrose Place was a really go show. 

So why is everyone getting so excited about Content Marketing all of a sudden? Because the sheer volume of ads / banners / promos / whatever floating around online makes it increasingly difficult for marketing people to reach costumers. The media has fragmented like never before, and whereas pre-Internet you had a pretty good shot at getting your message out via a mix of traditional media, it’s impossible to do that these days unless you have a marketing budget to rival Apple. The Internet gave marketers a way around this via targeted marketing, but even those channels are quickly becoming clogged up with billions of people trying to sell you billions of things. 

You still haven’t answered the question. Getting to that… The theory behind Content Marketing is that if you can supply content that people are looking for, they will find you themselves. Like, they’ll type, “What’s the deal with contemporary art?” into Google, and since you’ll already have a webpage explaining contemporary art, they’ll be directed to your website via Google. Once you’ve got them on your site you can keep them their with various other articles and useful information. The end goal of all this is to convert people’s visits into trust, and their trust into sales. So it’s nothing new then… it’s an old concept that’s simply been revamped, and repackaged for a digital audience. Why should I care about any of this? Because it allows you to communicate directly with an audience without having to pay a middleman. So rather than coughing up money to an intermediary such as Facebook, or radio, or television to get customers looking at your products, the strength of your content drives them their organically. It’s a long-term strategy, and it requires considerable investment, but it also has the potential for huge payoffs. If your website becomes the ‘go to’ source of information about “that thing,” it gives you a huge advantage over the competition. All of sudden people are coming to you, rather than the other way round. And that’s why every company with a pulse is jumping on the bandwagon. 

That’s great, but we’re a museum, or gallery, or whatever. How is this relevant to us? What separates content marketing from traditional advertising messages is it’s not selling a specific product. It’s selling information that the market is looking for. It’s the whole ‘long tail’ theory of content whereby ‘evergreen’ material will slowly bubble up and receive hits over an extended period of time. At the moment, the bulk of content posted by museums is about specific events and exhibitions. That’s great, and obviously it makes sense to promote that new thing you have coming up, but once the exhibit is over it’s quickly discarded and forgotten. A Content Marketing approach allows museums to ‘leverage’ that content and really make it work to their advantage. Once you have that audience you can try and convert them into ‘organisational goals’ such as increased attendance / membership numbers / merchandise sales, etc. 

Go on… Right, so instead of preaching to the converted with overly academic details, museums can gain a much broader (long term) audience by rethinking their content and packaging it up for an online market. This means reevaluating the typical curator lead approach to content, and instead looking at it from the perspective of your audience and what they’re interested in. So we should dumb it down? Well yes and no. What we’re talking about is content that ticks four key criteria. It needs  to be... 1. Useful 2. Interesting 3. Shareable 4. Evergreen (i.e. relevant in 6 months, a year, and preferably longer) Generally speaking people’s attention spans are short, so a long blog post is going to go unread and unloved. You’re going to generate a lot more interest if you can share a story via images, videos, graphs, animation, etc. So for example: Infographics about art history /// videos of staff talking about their favourite paintings from the collection /// Snapchats of museum items /// cliff notes about a particular thing /// pie graphs /// charts /// Twitter images /// Instagram stories /// artist interviews /// flow charts /// vines /// etc. We already do a lot of this. Exactly, but if you want to embrace content marketing you can’t simple create random, one-off pieces of content, post them all over the internet, and hope for the best. You need to create a long-term strategy that brings all this work together in some kind of organised fashion. Or in plain English – a website that acts as a hub for the content and links it to your daily operations / ticket sales / upcoming events / etc. That all sounds expensive and time consuming. It is, and if you want to do it properly (and reap the rewards) you’re going to need a team that specialises in this kinda stuff. Heaping it all on the interns or someone with a bunch of other jobs is pretty much a waste of time and resources. You either do it properly or you don’t do it at all. You mentioned rewards. Yes. Totally. The theory is content marketing will save you a fortune in the long term. Ultimately, it’s about getting rid of the middleman and therefore being able to speak to customers more often for less money. Drive people to your website via great content, get them to sign up for your newsletters, have them add you via social media, etc, and you’ll reach a tipping point where you can reach out to your audience on your own platforms without having to spend a fortune on traditional media. 

Sounds neat. But you just said “theory”? 

Well yeah, it’s very hard to accurately calculate the return on investment with this kind of stuff. It’s one thing if you’re selling tractor parts online, but when you’re selling tickets to a museum it’s much harder to gauge the impact of your content marketing, and figure out exactly how much a given post, share, click or like is really doing to lift attendance. It’s not an exact science. But looking at the numbers and metrics over a period of time allows you to set baselines, experiment with different approaches and see what works. Conducting surveys on site will help you fill in the gaps, and correlate the two for a rough idea of where you’re at. Is anyone else already doing this? To various extents yes. The Walker Arts Centre is often cited for its website’s content heavy approach, and various other museums and arts institutions have made innovative use of social media and their digital assets. But it’s not like any one organization ‘owns’ this space or ever will. Anything else? Yeah, one last point. If you’re undertaking Content Marketing it’s because you want to reach certain goals. Creating and sharing content for the hell of it is all very nice, but that’s not why we’re here. To paraphrase an old adage; ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there’. So make sure you sit down and work out what your actual goals are, how to plan to achieve them, and how you intend to measure success.

[artsdigital101]

6 ways museums can boost social media engagement

It’s nice to have a large social media following. It looks good on paper and can impress your boss. But stacking huge numbers is only half the battle. The whole point of social media is to communicate with the public and build your brand credentials. If your posts aren’t getting likes, shares, or clicks then you have a problem. Simply put - those followers you’ve acquired either aren’t seeing your content, or they aren’t much interested in it.

So how can museums and art organisations get around this and increase the level of interaction with their audience? Glad you asked. Here are six simple pointers to boost your social media engagement.

1. Don’t just promote exhibitions and events – build a narrative around them

Sex, drugs, murder, and deceit aren’t the sole domain of gossip magazines. Dig a little deeper and you’ll often find fascinating stories behind the objects in your glass enclosures.

These stories not only give the items context, they’re the perfect opportunity to build a broader, social media narrative around an exhibition or artist.

When asked to promote a conference on art conservation for the Orientalist Museum (Doha, Qatar), we focused the marketing and social media on one particular item – a vintage Dior dress – and its journey from crumpled op-shop basket to restoration. This narrative took the conference outside a stuffy academic domain, made it fun, and allowed us to bring contemporary fashion into the mix. Suddenly we could pitch articles to fashion magazines, ask readers about their own op-shop finds, and build a much broader campaign around the conference.

2. Involve your audience – make them part of the story

People love talking about themselves and their own experiences. It’s human nature. And social media is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of that.

Once you’ve found a narrative for your exhibition or event, you can ask your audience to share their own similar experiences. This could be something as simple as tagging a relevant photo online, telling a story in the comments, or nominating their favourite example of said ‘thing’.

Asking for audience participation is a great way to build grassroots interests. For theArt of Travel exhibition (which showcased paintings from a 16th century journey through the Ottoman Empire), we created a broader narrative around travel, then asked the public to upload their own travel photos to Instagram and tag them #ArtOfTravel for a chance to win international flights around the world. The campaign took on a life of its own, and helped us reach out far beyond traditional media channels.

3. Make it personal - showcase your staff

People build relationships with other people, not inanimate objects. Place your staff front and centre, and explain how they bring the exhibitions to life. This could be short staff profiles, Q&A sessions, or following The Met's lead and producing short videos where staff discuss their favourite items on display.

If the public feels like they know the people behind the scenes and their stories, they’re going to feel more obliged to like the content that gets posted up.

4. Have some fun - Museums don’t need to be stuffy affairs

Art and museums don’t have to be serious, stuffy affairs. As the Internet has shown us time and again, nothing is going to elicit clicks and likes faster than humour (and bonus points if it includes cute animals).

If you want to insist that your museums or institution is an entirely seriously and scholarly affair then that’s on you. Just don’t expect to have many followers beyond the cardigan crowd – who don’t use Instagram or Twitter anyway.

Being entertaining and funny isn’t something you can learn from a textbook, but if you want some inspiration then look towards the LA Museum’s Snapchat inspired images, or that Russian Museum that’s famous for having a staff of cats.

5. Tap into international museums days and media events – ride their coattails

There’s a bunch of semi official museum and art days scattered throughout the year, and they all come with their own hashtags. These provide an easy bandwagon to ride into social media relevance and web clicks. Museum Day and Ask a Curator Day are two obvious examples. Plan ahead and have some campaigns in place to coincide with these.

6. Provide exclusive events and photo ops for your audience

Anyone who has spent time working with museums and art institutions knows that what is shown to the public is only a tiny percentage of the actual collection.

Allowing the public to access some of these ‘secret’ objects or areas and inviting them to document it is a great way to use other people’s social media presence to drive traffic back to your accounts.

At the very least you can invite people to take photos at a launch and then provide some sort of incentive for them to upload these, e.g. a bookshop gift voucher for whichever #hashtagged image gets the most likes. It’s a cheap shot, but it works.

…and finally - Spend a little money

Yeah, yeah, we know. But there’s no getting around the fact Facebook is essentially ‘pay to play’ these days. Unless you actively hand over money to ‘boost’ your posts only a tiny fraction of your followers are going to see that thing you just uploaded. And if they don’t see it then it doesn’t exist. Which means it doesn’t matter if you have 1 million followers or 10,000 followers.

Setting aside a little money from the budget to boost key Facebook posts can work wonders for your overhaul engagement rate. After all, Facebook remembers what you click on (which is why all those Buzzfeed quizzes keep popping up in your feed).

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10 Social Media Trends for Museums in 2015

Social media is barreling towards the future at an accelerated pace. According to recent studies, there are over 2 billion people around the world sharing content. And somewhere in amongst all that are museums and arts institutions trying to navigate this constantly shifting medium.

While no one can predict the future, one thing is abundantly clear as we head into 2015 - organisations can no longer afford to simply collect followers and pat themselves on the back for it. As social media grows increasingly complex, fractured, and expensive, it requires specialist knowledge and a gameplan that converts numbers into broader organisational goals.

1. Facebook will become ‘Pay to Play’  

Organic Reach - the percentage of followers who see a given post without spending money to ‘boast it’ - has reached depressingly low numbers on Facebook. For larger organisations, as little as 2% of followers might see a given posts. This is only going to get lower as more and more content floods the network.

The only effective way around this is for organisation’s to pony up the money to extend their post’s reach and make sure people actually see them. Museums aren’t immune to this. Which means they're going to have to find some money in the marketing budget to accommodate this.

Even them, a scattershot approach simply isn’t going to be cost effective. Museums will need to pay a lot more attention to metrics and find the sweet spot that balances cash spent vs. return on investment.

2. Management will want to see a tangible Return on Investment

As the cost of being active on social media increases, management is going to be paying more attention to Return on Investment (ROI). Building up a fanbase will no longer be enough, organisations need to find ways to convert their followers into business goals such as sales, visitors, or brand advocates.

In other words, Museum need will need a fine tune their social media objectives. They’ll need to figure out exactly what is it they’re trying to achieve via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. ‘Community engagement’ is all fine and good, but unless it actually results in tangible benefits and people through the door, your throwing money into a bottomless pit.

3. As costs spiral, campaigns will become increasingly specific and targeted

Organisations are going to increase their level of investment in social media in 2015. According to SocialCode, one of their clients spent $20 million around the World Cup. While that’s great for social media networks, the injection of serious money will drive up the costs of clicks, and that will make it more difficult for smaller organisation’s to reach their audiences.

Which means Museum’s are going to have to take a long hard look at who they’re trying to target and create hyper specific campaigns for different market segments. If you’re currently running one or two ads on Facebook you’ll need 4-5 targeted ads in 2015.

4. Mobile will rule, and content will be need to be optimised 

The numbers speak for themselves; people spend more time accessing social media via their phone than desktops. Which means organisations can no longer afford to look at mobile devices as an after thought and hope their web sites translate to a portable screen.  

Marketing messages will also need to be tailored to an audience that’s more likely to be looking at your content on their mobile or tablet than a computer screen.

A simple experiment for all museums - access your website via a smart phone and try to navigate your way around it.  If you can’t find what your contact details or opening hours then no one else can.

5. Content marketing will force museums to revaluate their social output   

One of 2014’s biggest buzzwords was Content Marketing. It simply means the creation and sharing of media content in order to acquire and retain customers. Common examples include blog posts, videos, inforgraphics, photo, how-to-guides, etc.

What it does is turns organisation’s into digital publishers. And that means developing an effective language to communicate with your target market, and ensuring quality control. As Ann Handley from MarketingProfs points out, words are currency, and the significance of your writers and the people that publish digital content is only going to increase.

To stay relevant Museums will need to pay a lot more attention to the quality of their output. Not just what they’re communicating but how they’re doing it. In other words, your curators shouldn’t be writing long-winded Facebook posts in stuffy academic language. Hire a specialist. Or at least an intern who knows what they’re doing.

6. Digital will become fully integrated into campaigns

Social Media and digital can no longer be considered an after-thought tagged on to traditional marketing methods. While this isn’t a new trend, it will continue to gain traction in 2015.

Simply put - successful campaigns will integrate digital into their core. And that doesn’t just mean posting some Facebook updates or Tweets. Museums and art organisations will need to integrating social aspect into the initial planning stages and allocating funds to support this.

7. Twitter and Instagram will offer new advertising opportunities

While Facebook has long provided targeted marketing options, this will extend to Instagram and Twitter in 2015. Whether Museums need to start throwing money at other social media platforms in order to reach an audience is debatable, but it’s clear that the monetization of social media is only going to grow.

Instagram is currently testing out paid advertising, but is limiting it to a handful of large multinationals. Expect this to broaden in 2015 and allow anyone with a credit card to get in on the action with targeted ads.

Twitter has offered advertising options for a while and has specific campaign options to help you grow your followers, encourage engagement, or drive people to your website.

8. Social media platforms will continue to mutate, die, and spring up

Social media is constantly growing and mutating. The most notable addition in 2014 was Ello – which promised users a ‘Simple, beautiful & ad-free’, interface.

The problem (as always),  is reaching a critical mass of users. A lack of community activity quickly relegated the once hyped Google Plus to also-ran status.

Ultimately, an organisation only has a finite amount of resources to devote to social media, and you’re better of with great Facebook and Instagram accounts than average accounts spread across every available network.

Museums who want to do social media right in 2015 will either need to ramp up their staff, or focus on a handful of core sites best aligned with their objectives. 

9. Response times to current events and trends will accelerate

In case you haven’t noticed, the world is getting faster. Smart Phones in pockets mean everyone is ‘always online’, news breaks in seconds, and we’ve lost the luxury of a timely measured response to a barrage of Tweets.

Large media companies are creating rapid-response teams that can shoot out relevant social media content in the space of an hours in order to stay on top of this constant influx of events / scandals / and news. Which is exactly what Oreo’s did when the lights went out at the Superbowl. By being able to tap into the moment and get a response online within 10 minutes, the company was able to capitalise on a huge audience and generate considerable goodwill.

No one is suggesting that museums need to respond to breaking news, but being able to integrate breaking pop culture trends into posts is something that effective media managers will increasingly look towards. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's use of Snapchat is a great example.

10. Direct purchasing options via social media will become a reality

Both Facebook and Twitter have been testing ‘buy-now’ buttons, which allow users to make instant purchases. This obviously has huge implications for businesses, and Burberry were one of the first to get in on the action with their new eyeshadow campaign.

While there are still plenty of kinks to iron out, the ability to combine vast troves of personal data with timely sales promotions seems like a forgone conclusion.

That being said, it’s still uncharted territory, and no one knows exactly how it will work (and how it might not). For museums, this could be particular useful in selling tickets and / or memberships. It’s certainly the most ambitious change to appear on the horizon, but when it will become a reality remains to be seen.

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Hong Kong Job Hunting Tips (for digital and media experts)

Most people have a plan before they move overseas to hunt for a job. They will have researched the local job market, looked at potential employers, taken into account visa restrictions and suchlike…

My plan was a whole lot simpler than that – Get out of Qatar.

I’d spent three years in the tiny Gulf state helping to develop an art and museums hub. As 2014 came to a close the allure of the desert was starting to wear thin, and I wanted to live in a real city again.

So I did what anyone with more bravado than common sense would do. I picked a spot on a world map, sold all my possessions, rented a place via AirBNB, and booked a one-way ticket. As far as I was concerned I was a seasoned professional who had created marketing miracles in one of the world’s most challenging regions. Landing a high paying job in Hong Kong was a given…

A few weeks later, sifting through the morning’s new job posts, I realized that fortune may favour the brave, but having a plan of attack and a little local knowledge also goes a long way.

So for those thinking of following in my footsteps, here’s an abridged guide to job-hunting in Hong Kong.

Also (and let’s be honest), this is a glorified resume for anyone reading this and in a need of a marketing / digital / comms guy who can explain things in plain English.

 Expat jobs

 If you work in banking most of what follows will be null and void. Hong Kong is one of the world’s leading financial hubs, and you really shouldn’t have too much trouble landing a position. Same goes for any lawyers with a finance background.

For everyone else it’s a little more difficult. Hong Kong is home to approximately 7 million well-educated people who know the local market and are generally bilingual. The local economy is not in desperate need of western expats.

If you want to land a job out here that earns a decent salary you need an angle; a specialist skill that is going to make you stand out against a local hire. I don’t know what your shtick is, but you’re going to need one.

I’m going with ‘digital marketing creative’.

Language Skills

As far as local employers are concerned you either speak fluent Mandarin / Cantonese or you don’t speak the language at all. “I’m taking classes,” means exactly zero. It will take you at least a couple of years to get to a point where you can utilize local dialect in a professional situation. If you want to learn the local language that’s great, but don’t expect anyone out here to care.

That being said, you can get by just fine without a word of Mandarin / Cantonese. Hong Kong was under British control for over 150 years (ending with the 1997 handover), and English is widely spoken.

Finding a job without local language skills comes down to industry and company. As mentioned above, banking and associated fields are full of foreigners and English is the day-to-day office language. Most of the larger ad agencies are also happy to use English in-house.

Things get murkier when it comes to marketing and digital roles. If a role requires you to meet with potential clients (and especially if it crosses over into the Mainland market) you’re going to be at considerable disadvantage with just English.

Social media is also tricky, while larger organisations such as Cathay Pacific have a global focus and use English across their social media, more regional organisations will usually have bilingual posts. Which means you’re going to need a local counterpart – which means an organization will have to employ two people rather than just one. That’s a tough sell.

Ultimately, you don’t need local language skills to land a job, but you’re going to have to bring considerable expertise in your field to stand out amongst bilingual candidates.

Applying for jobs from overseas.

You can apply for a job from anywhere you like. And the smart move is to have something lined up before you move halfway across the world. That being said, local employers and recruiters are unlikely to take your application seriously if you’re overseas.

Think about it from their perspective, if you’ve got five potential candidates, four of them based locally, your going to be at a considerable disadvantage if you’re the one person who’s overseas.

Again, this is less of a concern if you have a highly sought after specialist skill, but unless you actually know someone within a local organization and they have to power to hire you, you’re not going to have much luck making the shortlist from overseas. Yeah, there’s Skype. But realistically, you’re going to have to be on the ground in Hong Kong.

Work Visa

If you have a western passport then arriving in Hong Kong on a tourist visa is basically a formality and you have three months to schlep around before you need to leave the country. Even then, a quick visa run to Macao will enable you to start over and get another three month.

While that’s great for getting over here and talking to recruiters, in order to actually land a job as a foreigner you will need a work visa. These are organised by your employer and can take between 4-6 weeks to be finalized and approved.

While work visas are not particularly expensive or difficult to organize, they do require some administrative paperwork. An employer can avoid the headache by going with a local who already has all their paperwork sorted.

Recruiters

You can go your whole life and never need the services of a recruiter. But if you’re new in a job market and looking for opportunities it certainly doesn’t hurt you introduce yourself over an informal coffee.

A recruiter’s job is help employers whittle down all those applicant emails, CVs and cover letters to a manageable shortlist. If you’ve met with a recruiter face-to-face and they know your background and story they’re going to be far more comfortable adding you to the shortlist when something comes up.

That being said, recruiters don’t owe you a damn thing – they’re employed by HR departments to find the best candidate for a position. If you’re relying on a recruiter to land you a job you could be sitting around waiting for years.

 Word of Mouth

 The best way to land a job is via personal recommendations and word-of-mouth.

Hong Kong is no different. So if you’re new in town your first course of action should be to meet with as many people as you can, let them know you’re looking for a job, and hand over a business card.

Basically, you’re going to have to drag yourself out and be social. Now maybe you don’t want to go to that thing everyone else is attending because you’re tired / sick / incredibly hung over / anti-social or whatever other excuse you have.

Don’t think of these things as frivolous social functions, think of them as your temporary job until you find one that pays you actual money.

Business Cards

Yes, you should have a business card. I know they’re kinda quaint and everyone has smart phones, and yada, yada, but it’s a cultural thing in Hong Kong. If you don’t have a business card you can hand someone in a meeting then you basically don’t exist. Get some printed ASAP. Always keep a few with you.

Oh, the other thing about business cards is you need to hand them over and accept them properly. That means holding the card in two hands and presenting in an official kinda way. And if someone hands you a card make sure you accept it with both hands and take time to look at it. It’s a small thing, but out here it’s a mark of respect and shows your not some barbarian outsider with no social graces.

Local market knowledge

You’ll often see the term ‘local market knowledge’ pop up in jobs ads, especially for marketing positions. What they really mean is how good is your network out here and how well do you understand the business landscape.

As a new arrival you’re basically out of luck in this regard. You can try and cover this up and talk up your other credentials, but there’s going to be several other local candidates you who do know the market better than you, are bilingual, and have a residents permit. Which pretty much sends your application to the bottom of the pile.

 Job Sites to try

Ultimately, you’re going to find yourself spending a lot of time on job sites looking for suitable opportunities. If your work encompasses digital / creative / communications industries here’s a number of HK sites to get you started.

Cogs Agency / Become Recruitment / Indeed / Nakama / JobsDB

Should I move to Hong Kong?

So, bottom line, should you move to Hong Kong? Well unless you work in finance and /or are fluent in a local dialect then the answer is probably no. You’ll have a lot more luck in other job markets. But hey, where’s the fun in being practical?

If you have your heart set on Hong Kong and have enough money saved-up to support yourself for at least a couple of months there are worse things to blow it on than what amounts to a working holiday.

And on that note, anyone looking for a digital / social media / marketing / creative please visit www.mikolai.co

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Your social media numbers are meaningless (or how I learned to stop worrying and love content)

It’s nice to be popular. And when it comes to social media, popularity is easy to measure - the more friends or followers you have, the more popular you are.

At least that’s how it used it work… But social media is evolving. And organizations are realizing that their social media metrics need to go beyond a simple popularity contest. In other words, the quality of your friends and followers is just as important as the quantity.

That’s where engagement rates come in.

An engagement rate is the percentage of people who saw a post and responded to it by either

liking it,

sharing it,

clicking on it,

commenting on it.

It’s important because it helps us measure public interest in the content we’re publishing. Simply put, do your friends and followers actually care about the material that you’re posting and are they interacting with it?

Engagement rates vary across different social media and depend on the size of your audience. There is no ‘magic number’ that you should be aiming for, but being aware of your engagement rates helps an organization

Track their content’s reach,

Provides a baseline against which other posts can be measured

Helps gauge your organisation’s social media success relative to other, similar organisations

So what does it say about your social media output if you have a whole load of followers and only a handful of ‘likes’ per post?

Well it can suggest that your friends and followers suck (because you purchased them with cheap clickbait ads). Or your content sucks.  Or maybe a mutant combination of both.

Either way, it means you’re not getting the most out of your social media presence.

Telling stories and building a brand narrative

So how do we get around this? How do we ensure people not only see our posts but also engage with them? There’s no simply answer, but there are some basic principles to consider

Firstly, organizations need to forget about numbers. Social media isn’t a Cold War arms race.

Real value comes from building a community and engaging with it. And the best way to build long-term engagement is via worthwhile content. That mean content that is

Interesting

Useful

Unique

Organization’s wishing to increase their engagement levels need to look beyond simply promoting their upcoming events and exhibitions, and create a broader dialogue based around their area of expertise.

But here’s the good news - Museums and Art institutions are uniquely placed to offer the public exclusive content. By their very nature, they have access to material that is rare, historic, and important. But what they sometimes forget is that each artifact has its own story – and it’s often more interesting than the actual item on display.

Social Media is the perfect medium to explore these stories and provide a narrative that goes beyond exhibitions and events, and builds a much more interesting, much broader conversations with your followers.

The Facebook content feedback loop

Okay, here’s where it gets interesting. Great content and insightful narrative can actually take on a momentum of its own and significantly boast engagement rates.  

Facebook uses complicated algorithms to determine which posts ended up on your wall. The sheer volume of content getting uploaded means it has to somehow be ‘curated’, and only a tiny percentage of an organisation’s followers will see a typical post.

So what Facebook does it is it ‘farms out’ posts to a small percentage of an organisation’s followers to see how they respond. This can be as low as 2-3%. If they click on it, like it, etc, Facebook assumes the content is worthwhile and sends it out to a broader circle of users.

Now obviously the more people see something on their FB wall, the more likely they are to click on it. And so this creates a self-perpetuating circle of engagement, where Facebook will promote posts to a much larger group of followers, they’ll see it pop up on their wall, and if they engage with it Facebook will boast it even further.

Three simple rules

Even if your content is great, it’s worth being aware of certain technical aspects when it comes to Facebook and engagement rates.

Images get far more likes and comments than any other kind of content

Different days of the week have varying levels of engagement – Thursdays and Fridays are the most popular

Since Facebook engagement is reliant on LIKES, COMMENTS, SHARES and CLICKS, you should try and create posts that encourage these actions. As a very basic example, end your posts with questions, ask for feedback, try and create dialogue with your followers.

In summary

Of course all this talk of engagement glosses over Facebook’s dwindling organic reach (the percentage of followers that see a post without you having to pay money to ensure your followers see it).

That’s a whole other topic. But it doesn’t change the fact that great content is still at the heart of effective social media.

Or to summarise - Great content creates engagement. But engagement rates will help you better understand what great content actually means.

Mikolai Napieralski

[originally presented as a talk at the Museums and Web Asia 2014 conference in South Korea]

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A 5-step checklist for your next online contest

Launching a social media contest is a great way to promote an upcoming exhibition or event. It can accompany traditional marketing campaigns and help you reach a broader, international audience.

That said, the most successful digital contests follow 5 basic rules.

Immediacy – a successful campaign needs to have a central idea that is easy to understand and act upon. This is ideally something that can be communicated in a single sentence, such as “tag a holiday photo” or “win a vacation”.

The simpler the message, the easier it is to communicate, the more likely people will act upon it.

Personalisation – a campaign needs to be relevant to peoples’ interests for them to take part. But to make them care you need to provide them with a sense of ownership. In other words, they need to feel that their personal involvement has some impact on the outcome. When people can add their own photos, stories, illustrations, or suggestions to a campaign, they feel that they are adding to the experience. That makes them care about the end result.

Easy of entry – a campaign needs to be easy to access. The more steps involved in entry, the more people you’ll lose. While hitting ‘like’ on a Facebook image can be the simplest option, a truly effective campaign needs some level of contribution from the public. Hashtags are one of the easiest ways to get people involved and sharing their own content. They allow organizations to group content together and are an easy way for people to register (e.g. ‘use hashtag #MuseumDay to enter the competition’). More elaborate competitions may need entry forms, but keep the details to a minimum. Encourage people to register via their Facebook or Twitter accounts – this is an effective way to ensure you can communicate updates to people who have entered.

Viral element – to maximize a campaign’s reach, it should provide a way for people to share it on social media. In other words, it needs a ‘viral’ element. This will vary depending on the campaign, but popular ways to generate social media shares include:

Votes – any contest based around votes will encourage people to share the details with their friends as a way to up their vote tally;

Entry – requiring people to share content on their social media page as a condition of entry can build access to a broader network;

Exclusive content – offering people early or exclusive access to a product;

Charity donations – offering to make a contribution to charity for every share (so long as you have a wealthy corporate benefactor!)

The point is, there should be some incentive or reason for people to share details about the campaign with their friends. This is most successful when the items you ask them to share are in some way personal or specific to them, e.g. stories, pictures.

Reward – Finally, and most obviously, a contest needs a suitable reward. This reward doesn’t have to be monetary or physical. Having your name attached to an art show, or having exclusive access to a person or event, is the sort of intangible prize that’s even more likely to motivate people than a cheque.

Article originally appeared on the Arts Marketing Association website...

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Jim Richardson from Museum Next talks digital content (and the museums doing it right...)

Jim Richardson founded MuseumNext as a blog about museums and technology. Several years later it’s an international conference series, and a chance for industry professionals to come together and discuss how new media can be used to reach audiences. 

We spoke to him about the highlights from the 2014 edition, digital content, and why everyone needs to stop with the Phone Apps.

Museum Next started as a blog, right? Can you tell us how the initial idea came about?

Museum Next started as a blog about museum marketing, which relates to my work promoting some of the UK's leading museums and galleries. The main challenges which museums seemed to be facing was adapting to the changing technological landscape, and over time what I wrote about became broader than marketing. I built a great community around what I was writing and it seemed a natural next step to try and produce some kind of event which would bring those people together in the real world.

What about the conference series, when it started in 2009 it was pitched as an ‘unconference’, how has it evolved over the years?

The first event was a two day workshop with seventy delegates, and the event has grown from there. We expect over 500 delegates for our next event which will take place in Geneva in April 2015, and the format has evolved to include presentations, workshops and lots of networking.

What were your personal highlights from the 2014 edition?

Koven J Smith opened the conference with an excellent keynote which suggested that those responsible for managing digital media in museums would be out of jobs in ten years time. He said that just like electricity, digital will flow through everything that a museum does and everyone will take responsibility for it.

With the event in its sixth edition MuseumNext is also a big social occasion, so a big highlight is seeing people who I have been fortunate to meet at previous events or exchanging ideas with someone working in a museum on the other side of the world. It's a great chance to exchange knowledge.

You believe that art institutions need to ‘be brave’ in order to stand out – but when it comes to digital content, most museums still tend to be cautions. Can you name any institutions pushing the envelope in that regard?

Walker Art Centre really made a bold step a few years ago by changing their approach to the web to one which is very editorial. I may never visit their institution, but as someone with a passion for modern art and design I find the content on their website really worth reading.

They have gone beyond thinking that the web has to be all about marketing their venue and instead concentrated on their mission to 'be a catalyst for the creative expression of artists'.

I am actually shocked that no other museums have tried to emulate their brilliant approach. You can see the keynote that Robin Dowden (Director of New Media) and Nate Solas (Sr. New Media Developer) from Walker Art Center did at MuseumNext Barcelona here - http://vimeo.com/44162636

What about social media; simply having a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc isn’t enough these days – what can museums and art institutions do to make their content stand out?

I think content is key. Too often we see museums that want an app or want to use the next big technology, but what matters is having great content and then thinking about how they can use that.

The RijksStudio project from the Rijksmuseum comes to mind as a great example of a museum taking their collection and inviting the public to do exciting things with it. The public have remixed their artworks into films, jewellery, fashion and art. In the process they have made the museum relevant to a whole new generation of artists and makers.

What are you greatest challenges that museums face when it comes to the digital realm – is it simply a case of ‘but we’ve always done it this way’ – and how can they be overcome?

I think funders have a key role to play in pushing museums to think differently, and hopefully as digital skills become more common in museums, things will change.

There was a lot of talk about Apps at the conference; do you think we risk a saturation point in the museum space? At the moment it almost feels like museums want apps because ‘it’s the done thing’, rather than serving a legitimate need.

I think that is exactly right, museums are building apps to have an app and not thinking about what they could help them to achieve. It was telling that at MuseumNext when a speaker asked a room full of museum people how many apps they had from museums on their phones, most people didn't have any.

If a room full of people who work in museums haven't got phones full of museum apps, why would the public. We just aren't creating compelling experiences for mobile.

What’s the most common mistake you see Art Institutions make when they try and revamp their digital presence?

I think that too often museums copy other museums websites, and as such they all become pretty similar. Instead I think that they should as Walker Art Centre did, consider their missions and think about how digital might best help them achieve that.

I think the web should be more than just a marketing tool for the next blockbuster exhibition.

Any last words of advice

Dutch digital consultant Jasper Visser and myself have written a 60 page book about how cultural organisations should approach digital media. It's free to download, and I think it's a good place for those looking for digital advice to start - digitalengagementframework.com

MuseumNext 2015 will take place in the Swiss city of Geneva between 19 – 21 April 2015. 

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Marketing fine art to a young, international audience (a digital guide...)

How do you make a fine art exhibition about the Ottoman Empire relevant to a young, international audience? That was the question we were asking ourselves as the Orientalist Museum prepared to launch The Art of Travel: Bartholomäus Schachman (1559-1614).

Held at the ALRIWAQ Art Space in Doha, Qatar, the exhibition introduced visitors to the story of Bartholomäus Schachman – a Polish mayor who travelled throughout the Ottoman Empire during the late 16th century. A renowned diplomat, explorer, and art patron, he commissioned over 100 watercolor miniatures during his travels and compiled them into an album.

Although the exhibition featured wonderful artwork, we were concerned that the themes and concepts would be difficult to communicate to the public. Especially in a region without an established museum heritage. To overcome this, we decided to look for ways to make the exhibition more accessible and relevant to the general public.

Concept

The subsequent Art of Travel Instagram contest was based on two principles:

Travel is a universal theme that is relevant to both the exhibition and a general audience

The most common way for people to record their overseas holidays and travel is to take photos and upload them to Instagram.

Launched alongside the exhibition, the contest asked people to share their travel photos on Instagram and tag them #ArtOfTravel. The best images were then reposted on our own account where people could vote for their favourites. Qatar Airways agreed to give away two international flights to the most popular entry at the end of the campaign.

By emphasizing the travel aspect (and moving the focus away from the Ottoman Empire), we hoped to start a broader conversation about how people capture and share their travel memories.

As the campaign progressed, we gradually incorporated more elements from the exhibition into our media output, subtly linking contemporary Instagram travel photos with the 16th century Ottoman empire paintings on display.

Results

The campaign ran for five weeks and was supported by our other social media pages. The response far exceeded our expectations…

Over 6000 entries were submitted

Approximately 2000 people participated

65 photos were shortlisted for the competition (which people could vote on)

15,397 ‘likes’ were generated on our Instagram page from entries posted

265 comments were posted about the 65 featured photos

Over 400,000 people reached via Instagram

The winning entry was taken by local resident Mohamed Ihab (pictured below). You can view it, and all the other entries to the contest, on the Art of Travel Pinterest page.

Broader takeaway

The Instagram contest was more successful than we anticipated. It took a niche art exhibition in the Middle East and introduced it to an international audience without spending a single marketing dollar. More importantly, it allowed the audience to participate, spread the word, and be part of the campaign.

The accessibility of the contest, the social media focus, and the universal themes that underlined it all, meant that even people who had not previously heard of Orientalist art were motivated to take part. More broadly, the campaign showed that there is a wider market out there that fine art museums can tap into. This is relevant to both our future exhibitions and the wider fine arts community.

[This post was first published on the Arts Marketing Association website]

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Lushsux gets paid (via social media and petty crime)

Melbourne graffiti guy Lushsux has been traveling the world, subverting Instagram and art conventions. With graffitiforsale.com and his crowd-funded work, he’s found a way to cash in on a unique mix of petty crime and irreverent humour.

Who are you and what do you do exactly (for those who don’t know)

I'm just your unfriendly, un-neighbourly graffiti jerk.

Your work is known for its humour – something that the graffiti scene isn’t exactly renowned for. Do people get what you’re about, or do they just line-up to insult you online? The current demographic for insult towards me generally includes 18-year olds and below who haven’t yet gone through a few years of doing graffiti, and the realisation after that it’s kinda pathetic. Then there is the older crowd of graffiti guys who have breathed in so much paint fumes the insults they formulate to send you read like an alien language. They have done something for so long its the only thing they hold dear to them in between driving a forklift or stints in jail for minor drug related crime.

I wanted to ask you about your use of social media. One of the ideas I really liked was your graffitiforsale.com initiative. How did that come about, and how successful was it?

I was pondering with a friend in Spain about how I could "sell out" in an interesting way. I previously had individuals interested in having something painted for them but I never really had a way to make that fun. Then when the graffitiforsale.com idea came about it was a perfect way to get people to give me money to go and commit a petty crime.

It worked well but I have a short attention span, I plan to revisit the site with some new ideas for it. Like having a guest graffiti writer for example instead of me. Then we can milk his fan base for cash.

What kinda people where giving you money? Was it a weird cross section, or like bored yuppies? Any idea about that.

It was a cross section of people; a lawyer for example was someone who paid to have his name and business up on a wall. I thought that was the best one from the lot obviously.

You’re all over Instagram, do you think it’s changed the way people interact with graffiti (I guess both the writers and the public)? Do you feel like you need to provide new content / ideas to keep people’s attention?

I use the Internet as another place to get up, if you aren’t up on the Internet you would have to be living in a New York for example where there is a legion of photographers doing all that work for you, uploading photos of everything you do.

I don’t live there, so I gotta put in the extra work. But I play with it, take the piss and try to interact with followers, mostly for a laugh.

Graffiti and street art is at a boring low right now in my opinion, but its nice to see a gem from time to time via the Internet superhighway. Then steal the idea for myself.

Google has just announced its Street Art Project (where they upload street art from around the world for people to view online). What do you think about the concept?

Sounds corny, but ill most likely try get in on it, hahaha. Do some big fuck off 20-story mural of a banana or whatever street artists do these days.

Follow Lushsux via Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram

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...and here's yesterday's Museum Next review in Emoji form...

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Museum Next 2014

(...a sort of alternative review) 

Day 1

Arrive at Heathrow at 9am after an overnight flight. Head is swimming from sleeping tablets used to drown out the screaming babies on the flight. Note to self: can airlines create soundproof baby areas?

Opt to take the tube to Kings Cross and then a three-hour train trip to Newcastle. Figure it will give me a chance to, “see the English countryside.” After almost three years in the Gulf I’ll take all the rolling green pastures I can.

It’s hard to take a satisfying photo of the countryside from a moving train. Several attempts are made but none of the photos look ‘right’, even when dragged through several Instagram filters. Decide to revisit the photos later.

Newcastle isn’t much too look at as the train approaches the station – especially compared to the castle in the previous town, Durham. Get it together Newcastle…

Hotel room is ‘okay’. It’s also a short walk from the conference venue… Distraught to find the mini bar is empty. What kind of Stalinist nightmare is this? *tears*

Knock back a couple of quick Vodka & Red Bulls to ‘pep’ myself up for the opening night drinks. Figure it will help with the awkward networking shtick / attempts to talk myself into a new job - suggested title: Chief Emoji Officer.

Jim Richardson (conference organiser) greets me at the bar and hands me a tote bag with my lanyard and conference paraphernalia. I attempt to draw a face on the lanyard to ‘represent me’, but the end result is just a mess of squiggly lines. I use my drink vouchers to order more vodka and Red Bulls.

Day 2

I have not read any of the conference notes and have no actual idea where the venue is or who I’ve signed on to see speak. I’m saved from days two days of wondering Newcastle in circles when I spot some people with Museum Next tote bags and follow them.

The main hall used for the conference is three levels high with circular mezzanines looking down on a stage lit up in blues and reds. It could double as a movie set for a 90s rave - only everyone is seated, there’s no ecstasy, and lots of people are typing into MacBook Pros.

Seriously though, it’s 100% Macbooks in the audience. You’d probably get lynched if you tried to take notes on a Toshiba laptop.

Koven J. Smith is the opening speaker. He’s talking about how Museum’s should incorporate ‘digital’ into their fabric and not just lump it in at the end… he’s planted a baby in the audience as some sort of prop, I think. 

#Everyone is talking about ‘skeumorphism’. Like, “OMG, that’s so skeumorphism.” I have no idea what the term means [poor concentration skills], so I tweet an image of Skeletor instead. I am an idiot.

Doing things sucks. Amirite? Tijana Tasich from the Tate has provided a nice diagram to make us all feel better.

Dana Mitroff Silvers is talking about her love of Post It Notes and how, maybe, people should plan things ahead before they rush in like over-caffeinated game show hosts. She reminds us it’s 3am back in the US.

Enthusiastic English guy is talking to us about how he wants to remake his own brain inside Minecraft. Adam Clarke is actually a really good speaker, although I suspect 2/3 of the crowd have absolutely no idea what Minecraft is.

Is it time for a coffee break yet? I have an emergency 500ml can of Rockstar energy drink, guava flavor – which I once read is Lindsay Lohan’s preferred energy drink. Feel like each swig is bringing me closer to God (and/or death). Still, it contains taurine, coffee, guarana, ginseng, and enough sugar to induce diabetes.

First use of the term "gosh darn it," at #museumnext. Colleen Dilenschneider is talking stats, numbers, and analysis. Main takeaway – people will leave a museum feeling much more satisfied if museum staff actually acknowledge them and maybe ask about their visit. Or just read the notes and stats for yourself. 

Tonight’s conference reception is taking place at the Great North Museum. It is strange and filled with taxidermy animals. Most of the crowd has found the secret room at the back of the building where England is playing (and losing to) Uruguay.

Despite England’s inability to play football, a group of attendees decides to drink away the pain at a pub in town. For overseas visitors, this is their first opportunity to see the ‘Geordie’ in their natural habitat, i.e. drunk in a gutter eating a kebab after getting thrown out of the pub.

Day 2

It’s day 2! I have a hangover from last night and a presentation to give. Two months prior an Australian doctor refused to give me beta-blockers for my talk and advised me that I should just “suck it up” and get on stage. What kind of monster doctor says / does that?

The thing about giving a presentation at a conference is you’re so focused on your own thing that you don’t really pay any attention to what anyone else is talking about. In other words, I have no idea what anyone has discussed this second morning of Museum next.

If you want cheap gimmicks and shit memes I’m your conference presentation guy... I think it went okay. And the tweets were nice.

Back in the main room for more talks. So many museum apps. “OMG, you guys, like, I need an app just to keep track of all these apps…” #Discuss

Seriously though, does every museum and institution need an app? Who downloads all these things?

Coffee, coffee, coffee and sandwiches at the lunch break, talk turns to tonight’s closing party and who’s actually going to be around. Turns out many people won’t be ’partying’ in Newcastle and are heading back to their respective homes :(

Drinks have been arranged at small pub, situated on a hill overlooking the river.

Best comment of the conference. Dutch presenter after a few beers: “I thought I was in a really bad part of town. I looked outside the hotel and it was all hookers. Then I realized that’s just how they dress up here.”

Thank you Newcastle, the Museum next team, and all the speakers… Now where can we find a decent kebab...