Twitter and Ice Skating at the Natural History Museum
Sunday, December 7, 2008 at 08:01PM In the past week or so, I've been doing a lot of research and exploration on the subject of how arts and culture are represented online. Mostly I've been focusing on museums and the kinds of presence they have on social networks. My lifelong dream of being Facebook buddies with MoMA can now become a reality.
In any case, I spend a lot of time on Twitter, so one of the first things I did was start following every museum I could find and seeing what their tweets looked like. I then checked out their websites, whether they had their art collections up online (in full or in part), whether they had a presence on Flickr, Facebook, or a YouTube channel, etc.
I didn't really approach the task with any predetermined idea of what the museums should be doing, more so a curiosity for what sorts of social media tools they embraced and how they used them. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the major U.S. museums have a pretty healthy social media presence, and in the bunch, there are some standouts doing VERY interesting things with Facebook apps and Twitter accounts (the Brooklyn Museum being a notable example--they really blew me away. BM, I <3 you.).
But on the whole, it seemed to me that the majority are missing the point of social media entirely. It's not enough to have an RSS feed upload stale and impersonal blog posts to your Twitter (ahem, I'm looking at you, Tate), and it seems to me that when your business is art, using your Flickr account exclusively for posting your party pics is a guaranteed way to ensure that nobody will care about or engage with any of the content you post there. Meanwhile, Flickr groups dedicated to the museum's art exhibitions and collections were largely ignored by the museum itself. Come on guys, get with the program!
My favorite interaction of the week occured via Twitter with the American Museum of Natural History. This was actually not one of the museums I found and followed on my own, rather, they found me and I followed them back (nice work, guys!). One of the first tweets I saw the AMNH post was about their Polar Rink and the 17-foot-tall Polar Bear that sits in the middle of the rink.
It was a cute and fun tweet and caught me by surprise--I had no idea that the AMNH had a rink. You mean, I could go to the museum AND skate there? With a polar bear? How awesome is that?! Intrigued, I replied to their tweet and inquired about ice-skating. And here's my favorite part: they replied within minutes.
I was so pleased that they responded to me--and so promptly, too!--that I promised I'd visit and go ice-skating there soon. And the thing is, I really DO plan on visiting now. Prior to this interaction, the AMNH was not on my list of things to do, but ice-skating was. Finding out that they have a rink there means I can kill two birds with one stone--go check out some dinosaur bones and then take a quick loop around the rink--my idea of an ideal Saturday afternoon.
Granted, I may have decided to visit regardless of whether they replied to my tweet, but the fact that they did just made me commit to visiting that much more. It effectively got me excited about a museum that I previously had no interest or intention of going to. And THAT is what most of these museums are missing.
Now, I realize it's unrealistic for museum staff to spend their time on Twitter replying to every single person that sends a tweet their way. They probably don't want to or need to convert fans one person at a time, but the ones that do take this personal approach have the potential to convert people into extremely loyal fans by showing that they care about their visitors, are interested in what they have to say and are willing to take the time to engage in one-on-one interactions with them (which are, of course, broadcast for all the world to see).
And that, to me, is just so damn cool. So, hats off to you, AMNH. I'll be seeing you soon and skating around your polar bear rink. In the meantime, keep rocking on Twitter. I'll be looking forward to your tweets.
Reader Comments (6)
Love the new blog, Julia, and can't wait to read — it's definitely a unique take on social media. There's so much stuff out there about social media in general but I think your focus will be a fresh and interesting one.
In regards to the museum responding to individual tweets, I think it's less about the individual converts and more about the WOM marketing that can happen because of one single person who loves a brand or product.
My last blog post was about Tokbox.com, a new conference chatting service. Hours after I posted it, I got a comment from someone at Tokbox! You can bet that made me a more loyal user. :)
Blogrolling you!
I love that social media is becoming so pervasive; my parents are art historians and I will definitely show them your post (not that they have any idea what Twitter is ...).
Goes to show, however, that being successful with social media -- and especially with Twitter -- whether you're doing general brand-building, customer service or customer acquisition, requires plenty of time, and timeliness. The gold standard continues to be Comcast, as evidenced by a simple screen shot over the weekend: http://bit.ly/jVii (Clusterstock). In-depth engagement with the digital audience is time-consuming, but all signs point to it being worth every minute (and tweet).
"But on the whole, it seemed to me that the majority are missing the point of social media entirely. It's not enough to have an RSS feed upload stale and impersonal blog posts to your Twitter (ahem, I'm looking at you, Tate), and it seems to me that when your business is art, using your Flickr account exclusively for posting your party pics is a guaranteed way to ensure that nobody will care about or engage with any of the content you post there."
This is a great observation. It is a big problem that companies just make Twitter/Flickr/Facebook/MySpace groups without any actual intention of reaching out to their stakeholders. They just expect to create a group and have people flock to it. Case in point, your experience in twittering directly with the museum. Very cool!!!
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Sorry. My blog is julianpjones.wordpress.com, not julianjones.wordpress.com. A very small but very important detail, as I don't like a href="http://julianjones.wordpress.com/" title="Amy Winehouse" at all.
I'll go with you. And Tweet about it. While skating.
If you can skate and tweet at the same time, I am so impressed!!!!!