During #AskACurator 2018 I tried to capture some of the different conversations.  This is more for me than for anyone to think this is an overall statement of the day (because I am not the one that can or will ever capture everything!)

Highlights: 

Museums talking to each – Australia and New Zealand really set the tone for 2018 as there weren’t a lot of questions at first so they took the bull by the horns and starting asking questions amongst themselves – then the public got involved and next thing you know it’s trending 2^nd in all of Australia.

First Tweet from @MOTAT_NZ 9:13pm 11-09-2018

It's #AskACurator Day! @chelseaheather1 @sjfox_nz @ShaeTrewin @christie_23 @whittaker_nina are here to answer all your questions! Go on…ask us anything pic.twitter.com/wIIQqcBPVj

— MOTAT (@MOTAT_NZ) September 11, 2018

By the time I jumped back Russia and Europe were in full swing (not so much UK at that point) and the tone remain positive, light, inquisitive, fun, interesting and most importantly educational.

Questions:

I usually try to ask a few general questions to get things going.  This year they were mostly ignored which to me is AMAZING because that meant there were so many other questions being asked mine weren’t needed!

https://twitter.com/MarDixon/status/1039646722090303488

What do you Wear?

#askacurator So what DO curators wear? Practical sensible clothes. Shoes that are able to be worn in the city and through paddocks. And no cloth gloves; nitrile works best in our sweaty climate. Here’s Dr Scott Hill dressed for work, conserving metalwork at Rouse Hill House. pic.twitter.com/y4dzNWHrKN

— Sydney Living Museums (@sydlivmus) September 11, 2018

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On August 22, @CultureThemes ran #MusMeme for the monthly hashtag.  As I often talk about, finding a hashtag once a month isn’t always easy and there is a balance of finding a hashtag that works with the public and culture venues alike.  For August, I usually try to find a hashtag that will be quirky-ish but light as September is always busy with #AskACurator Day (September 12th 2018)…. did I get that one wrong!

All I put was:

Our next CultureThemes is going to be #MusMeme – a day to share memes all about museums, galleries, art, collections, etc. on August 22!

The general idea is to let the public and museums have a bit of creative license and fun with collections.

Simple, right? If people got involved, great! If not, that was ok to!

They got involved.  A LOT.  By 11am it was trending in the UK and pretty much stayed there all day almost into the evening. This screenshot is from 2.30pm

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Lately I’ve been busy talking at conferences about social media and running workshops on the same. Why? Because I think many places have now started to realize giving marketing departments or people full time control over social media wasn’t, in many cases, the best move.

The most important aspect of social media – no matter what subject – is to be social. Constantly telling people of events and not responding to them, or, perish the thought, actually reaching out to people who are tagging you is all one way, and it gets old. Let’s be honest, there is a lot of content out there that people can be sharing, it’s a buyers’ market for the social media user and we should therefore treat those who do tag us with enough respect to acknowledge them or at least some of them (ok for those who get 1000s of tags it might be hard, but one or two responses a day isn’t difficult). It’s another aspect of customer service, we wouldn’t totally ignore someone who came up to the counter, or visitor information desk would we? Yet we think its ok for those who reach out to us on Social media to be ignored. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I seen a post about Murder at the Mütter® from Gillian Ladley Media & Marketing Manager @CollegeofPhys, home of @MutterMuseum pointing to an Instagram Story.  As someone who loves Mütter Museum I was really intrigued.  How could an Instagram Story be integrated in a fun, unique way, participatory way? I clicked on the link and was truly blown away so contacted Gillian and asked her for a bit more information to be able to share.

Guest Blog Gillian Ladley:

Murder at the Mütter® (it’s a registered trademark) is an event that we have hosted since 2011. Every year the “Murder team” create a new scenario, collaborating with scientists to include tasks that involve real crime scene and forensic analysis. Tickets to the event are very limited and sell out in minutes, so every year we have discussions about how to expand the reach and impact of the event and all the work that goes into it. We’ve talked about video, web content, digital exhibits etc… but like many nonprofits, struggle to get the time and resources to make something happen. Read the rest of this entry »

Thank you to everyone who took part, followed, liked, and got involved with @52Museums on Instagram and Twitter in 2017.  It grew bigger than anyone could have expected.  The report for 2017 can be found here.

You can find more information about what it is and how it works here.

The 2018 schedule (and yes this is draft as changes throughout the year does happen):

Please note: if you would like to be on the waiting list, please sign up here.

80 Museums – 21 different countries – 52 weeks

Our second 52 Museums Instagram project has wrapped up for this 2017 and overall it has been another huge success! At the end of each week all participants are asked to complete a survey, give us their thoughts on how it went, what went well and what could be done better in the future. We had 36 respondents to this, which is amazing, thank you to everyone who took the time to send in their feedback it really does help us to make it even better for everyone each year.

Finally, a big thank you to all of you who took part and made 52 Museums 2017 such a success, and now with over 17,400 followers on the account here’s to an even bigger and better 2018!

For the 2017 list and sign up information please see this link.

Increase in 52 Museums Instagram followers: 3,700 (correct as of Dec 2017)

Average increase in followers on Museums personal accounts after their week: 68 (based on those that responded to feedback)

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Hindsight is beautiful as we all know as I really should have put something about reading in there but felt ‘Other’ would provide a catchall.

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Recently, I went to Edinburgh with a few friends (Mark and Linda) as our friend Silvia was in the city with her mom. Silvia lives in the states so we don’t get to see her often (I’m giving the reason why we gate-crashed her time with her mom…).

We had a few ideas of things we wanted to see and do while in Edinburgh but I decided to tweet to get a few more ideas:

Hey Edinburgh what should we do and see today?

— Mar Dixon (@MarDixon) July 11, 2017

What happened after was truly inspiring and spoke volumes for Edinburgh as a city but also the way more can be done on social media. Every business was recommending another business – some that were the same! It was about raising the city, not themselves and it was so beautiful to read. And yes, we did take a few suggestions on our limited time but we will definitely be going back to Edinburgh! Read the rest of this entry »

Lately I noticed something on social media that I didn’t really like seeing.  I had hoped I was wrong but decided to ask others their thoughts:

Thing I’m finding is the more ‘popular’ museums get on social media less effort they are with the ‘SOCIAL’ part. It’s become… #musesocial pic.twitter.com/CtHtfNy7Db

— Mar Dixon 🍰 (@MarDixon) April 10, 2017

I felt I should share a few of the responses here.  What is important to remember is I was not talking about all museums or in one area.  It seems to be an international issue and I’m pretty sure it’s not because the social media managers like this either!  Maybe management feels social media managers have everything scheduled so can do 25 other things that really aren’t under their remit.  Social media managers rock and we shouldn’t at all blame them – most I spoke to privately hate it as much as we do!

However, brands (and museums are a brand) do sometimes forget that numbers aren’t the answer – loyalty also plays a role and can’t always be quantified. Does that mean it doesn’t matter?  Of course not!  And does it mean that museums, especially larger, more popular museums should respond to every one who tags them?  Of course not.  But it does mean they need to at least be shown to make an effort – even just once a day to engage with visitors and non-visitors.  It doesn’t hurt to ask someone who tags you how they are doing….

@MarDixon I think they forget the ‘conversation’ bit of being social – like in a playground it’s the ‘to ears, one mouth’ ratio.

— Emma (@LondonKiwiEmma) April 10, 2017

I also asked on Facebook and LinkedIn and the responses were an eye opener. What are your thoughts? What can be done to make social media more social and get us back to having conversations instead on constant marketing and pr jammed down our throats?

And for clarification, I need to add that this is the same on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – so it’s not a platform issue.

LinkedIn

Mät King
It’s a common problem with social media. People and companies tend to spend more time trying to engage with celebrities/bigger brands/more popular museums etc than actually engaging with those who follow or engage with them. This hierarchy is a very odd consequence of class structure/knowing your place and a general insecurity common to many who have been part of an organised education system. It’s very similar to how people will listen to those with no qualifications or , indeed, abilities in a subject because they are famous or are born with a title.

Facebook

Look forward to hearing your thoughts!  

It’s something we’re all too used to – funding cuts & threats in the culture sector.  Whether it’s museums, libraries, art galleries or theatres (and everything in between), culture seems to have been the easy hit for most of the people with the purse strings.

It’s been happening globally for more years than necessary and recently the new American administration has threaten NEA, PBS and other vital funding streams many of the museums and art galleries in the states rely on to survive. [NB See #ThankyouIMLS #StandUpForMuseums #SaveTheNEA #SaveTheNEH and #ThankyouNEH]

As many may or may not know @CultureThemes was created purely out of the funding cuts that happened in the UK.  While it was great for many museums (and social media managers) to discuss what this meant, it was vital that the conversations were open for all (eg young people and other ‘groups’ that are hard to reach, etc).  The first hashtag with CultureThemes was ‘WhyILoveMuseums’ and went world trending – why?  Because people do love museums and art galleries but we need to ASK THEM every once in awhile WHY.  This goes for staff also!

Recently I decided to do the same thing in a subtle way.  (Any sadly the day I asked it my phone broke so apologies for the delay in getting this shared).

For the Twitter & Instagram responses I was able to do a Storify which you can find at the bottom of this article or link is here.  For those that prefer infographics, there’s a free site for that …

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