Using collections to drive social media: MA conference digest

Thank you so much to everyone you came along to our Smarter Training session at this year’s MA conference or who joined the discussion on twitter. We had an absolutely fantastic time sharing our passion with you and we were thrilled with your really positive response! As promised, this post includes some of the guidelines and suggestions we talked about to help you develop content for social media using your collections.

Before that though, just a few thoughts on some of the issues that came up on the day. First of all, we were really interested to see the broad spectrum of people who came along- from social media newbies to old hands. We were asked by a few people which sites we recommend for museum social media and how to get started. Just quickly- we love twitter and instagram and see museums moving more towards periscope and tumblr in the future. To be honest we don’t use facebook that much and wouldn’t really recommend it for a museum audience. It’s not nearly reactive or interactive enough! If you are just getting started, make an account, follow some people, and watch how its done for a few weeks before wading in. Also – get cozy with other local museums and heritage institutions who can draw attention to your new account!

We were also asked how we think a museum should deal with twitter accounts when lots of people want to get involved. Personally we don’t see a problem with museum staff tweeting from their personal accounts- as long as they are following guidelines of common sense and professionalism. Since that makes some museums nervous, we suggest that each department be in charge of its own twitter account – and the main museum twitter can focus on big stories and events, and supporting its separate departments.

The main subject of our talk was using collections for social media. As everyone who works with online accounts knows, the social media rat race is a hungry hungry beast. It needs to be constantly fed with new content, images, opinions and posts- and that’s where your collections and your staff come in! There are so many different ways to look at one object that your collection is a boundless source of inspiration, as are they people who work with them everyday. We believe in empowering collections staff of all varieties, from volunteers to curators, to engage with objects and create new content.

But of course, not all of us are used to thinking like social media people. So how do you tell a story with an object? Well here are some of our tips:

 At the Museums Association Conference in 2014, we ran a collaborative workshop in which we, along with fellow delegates, created the Social Media Manifesto. We think the Manifesto summarizes some really important points about museum social media which should be kept in mind when creating your content:

Finally, we’ve put together just a few thoughts which we’ve called the ‘Golden Rules of Social Media’ – based on the Manifesto as well as our own experience as museum professionals and museum bloggers:

We hoped that the workshop, as well as these resources, will inspire you to think about your collections in a new way, and to give staff across the museum a better sense of how they could get involved!

If you have any questions or comments- please feel free to get in touch! @curiositytweet or curiositycollect@gmail.com! 

#Museumtweetup and the Social Media Manifesto

Hey everyone- we are so incredibly excited to be heading out of our normal stomping grounds and out to visit the Essex County Museums this coming Monday for their Tweet-up event! As you well know, there's nothing the Ministry enjoys more than a cocktail and the chance to natter about everything museums. But we are doubly pumped because we are going to talk more about our Social Media Manifesto. Developed during our workshop session for the MA Conference in October, writing the Manifesto was a great collaborative experience in figuring out how to do social media better. We can't wait to hear what the Essex crowd thinks! (or have your say using #museumtweetup)

Prepping for the tweetup has got us thinking about the Manifesto, the workshop, and how we arrived at the actual finished product. There were so many more discussions we had over the day which we just didn't have space for or we felt hadn't been generally agreed upon by the group. In the run up to the event, we posted these controversial Ministry proclamations to try to challenge the way people thought about museum social media. Going into the session, we didn't really have any particular outcomes in mind. We hoped that maybe just by rejecting some of the more cliched aspects of social media practice we would be able to get at something fresh and different.

The results of these conversations are what ended up in the Manifesto, but now maybe before we head to Essex is a good time to reflect on what those starting points were that brought out the most debate amongst our participants. We think some of these things just have to be said in order to get to the bottom of what we think about them. Two of our favourite contentious issues were:

Do we by making social media fun and cheeky, trivialise our jobs and the value of heritage?

If only young people use social media, does it really matter if we tweet things that would offend older demographics?

To us, these are just really fantastic questions that are a bit offensive but maybe we need to think about. In the session we used a lot of images from flyartproductions and LACMA's snapchat account which showed them, hmmm, engaging with art in a different sort of way.

Are these funny? Engaging to a younger audience? Or do they degrade the works of art and really the reason why we pay so much every year to look after them?

Maybe this isn't the case because this is how young people use social media. But are they the only ones following our twitter, instagram and snapchat accounts? Again, its a tricky question that begs some genuine thought. We gear our exhibitions for specific audiences, so why would our social media streams be any different. In fact, this is what the Brooklyn Museum has done with its social media strategy. 

This is why events like tweet-ups are so crucial for the museum industry. Of course it would be difficult to bring up these difficult questions in a formal institutional meeting. But that doesn't mean they don't need to be spoken about, and actually that informal sharing process can be the most informative way of tackling the issues. As one of our participants wrote to us after the session:

I think the main thing that struck me about this process was actually that social media has a much bigger reach and potential than I initially anticipated. Furthermore, I think that museums’ use of social media in particular has shown that social media isn’t solely for ‘young people’ but that actually it has the potential to be interesting, inventive and self-reflective for all ages rather than a self-aggrandising promotional tool for teenagers which is, to some extent, how it is often seen. In a strange way I think that museum’s use of social media has given social media a good name by making it something that is both fun and educational, both powerful and subtle.