Due to the spread of coronavirus, museums and cultural organizations across the country are extending their expected lockdown periods and bracing for prolonged closures. As they remain physically closed to visitors, many museums are encountering new challenges around communicating and engaging their audiences. What outreach channels should you use? How do you overhaul your content calendar? And perhaps, most importantly, what kinds of content will resonate with your audiences?
This week, over 3,000 museum professionals joined Brendan Ciecko (CEO & Founder @ Cuseum), Ryan Dodge (Head of Digital Experiences @ Canadian Museum of History), and Kat Harding (Public Relations & Social Media Manager @ North Carolina Museum of Art) as they discussed how to develop effective content and messaging that aligns with your organization’s mission while resonating in the hearts and minds of audiences.
Watch the full video recording.
View the full transcript below!
Brendan:
Hello everyone, my name is Brendan Ciecko. I'm the founder and CEO of Cuseum. First off, I want to say thank you everyone who's joining us today, as well as say thank you to our panelists, Ryan and Kat. I hope everybody's staying safe and healthy and optimistic throughout these very difficult and certain times. For those of you who have tuned into our past webinars, it's great to see you again. And for all of our newcomers, I want to say welcome. We hope that today's dialogue is helpful and informative.
This is the fourth in a series of conversations we've been facilitating about engaging audiences during coronavirus. Over the past few weeks more than 10,000 people have joined us from across the globe. And there are over 3,000 people here with us today. Week after week, we're all seeing we're faced with new challenges and new questions as we navigate choppy and very murky waters. It hasn't been smooth sailing, but we're all here doing our best. These are unprecedented times and most of us have been catapulted into a world of trial and error, figuring things out faster than ever, and doing everything we can to overcome these challenges with really limited resources.
It's in moments like these that we come together to share ideas to support each other. And with all of this uncertainty, there's at least one thing I'm certain of: it's that the museum, art and cultural community has stepped up to help each other and to help their community. Today's theme for the conversation is how to craft meaningful and mindful digital content in the age of coronavirus. Now I would love to introduce our special guests.
We have Ryan Dodge, thanks so much for joining us today, Ryan. Ryan is the Head of Digital Experiences at the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian War Museum.
With over a decade in digital strategy experience, he previously held roles at Royal Ontario Museum as well as CBC, Canada's national broadcaster. Active in the global museum technology community Ryan has presented internationally, and has been a member of the New Media Consortium's Horizon Report, Museum Edition expert panel and sat on boards of ICOM Canada, as well as the Virtual Museum of Canada. Ryan also is a father of three and he likes to keep his kids busy doing the right thing, visiting museums and getting lost in nature.
Thank you so much for joining us, Ryan.
Ryan:
Sure. Happy to be here. Thanks.
Brendan:
Thank you. Then we have Kat Harding. Kat is the Public Relations and Social Media Manager for the North Carolina Museum of Art. She's presented at Museum Computer Network and the North Carolina State Public Relations Day Conference. Her work has been featured on the National Arts Marketing Project blog, won multiple Raleigh PR Society awards and she is the recipient of the 2019 Public Relations Professional of The Year Award in Raleigh. She's on the board of the Raleigh PR Society and WHUP-LP Radio Station and in her free time, she's a DJ at WHUP and a writer for Midtown Magazine. Prior to all of this, she was a publicist and freelance writer in the music industry in Nashville. Thanks for joining us Kat.
Kat:
Thanks for having me.
Brendan:
I'm Brendon Ciecko, founder of Cuseum. I'll be your host and moderator for today's discussion. Let's get down into the questions.
Ryan, in last week's conversation, our special guests and attendees talked about and celebrated your checklist for how to build high impact content. You put this out back in 2016, during your time at the Royal Ontario Museum. It sounded like something that could really help museums that are just starting to get started with social media and digital content and also, assessing what type of content to focus on today. Four years later, do you think that checklists and frameworks like this are still applicable and important to put together as a baseline for guiding our approach to content?
Ryan:
Yeah, for sure. I think it's always important to remind yourself of why you're doing what you're doing. And that's really what that checklist was about. And a lot of people I think are putting in the chat for the link and I'm sure you guys will share that as well. I'm more than happy to share that. I think one of the things about our community, people doing this type of work, is they're really open to sharing and learning from each other and building off of each other. So I'm really flattered that Emily and Hilary-Morgan talked about that last week. I'm flattered that they actually used it or iterated off of it. I think because the world moves so quickly, there's an opportunity there to move quickly along with it. But we always have to remember the unique context of our institutions and our collections and the expertise that we can share with the world. And so having a checklist to really focus in and help you with your decision-making process I think is really important. Like you said, that one's really old, and I've since moved on from the Royal Ontario Museum, so I don't know if they're still using it. I hope that they've iterated off of it and, and built a new one, or have switched it up to meet the needs of their community now.
But anyone that's looking to use it or to use it as a base from which to build on, I'm more than happy to share that. We're so inundated with opportunities that we could jump on. And the one thing it really helps you to do is take a step back and think about what you could do and why you're doing it. And that's a really important question, is asking why. I think we often don't think about that. Why are we producing something more? Who is this for? And that's what my goal was with that checklist.
Brendan:
That's great. I think one of the things that I love about it, aside from it as a resource, is it shows the value of building something internally - how the ripple effect or the value can be felt immediately but also many years later. I'm sure there are many things like that.
I have a question for you, Kat. From a public relations perspective, what has been your approach at the North Carolina Museum of Art? How has the museum's PR and communication strategy, the language you use, and the voice changed over the past few weeks? And how are you ensuring it's mindful of what your community might be experiencing right now in their own lives?
Kat:
The focus of what we're talking about has changed quite a bit, where we used to be talking about events and exhibitions, as well as our art, of course, but now it's very much, is the museum even open? Where can people go? We still have a park that's open. So we're still communicating what we know when we know it, in a very relatable and knowledgeable way. We have had more input right now from higher state officials, since the NCMA is partly state run. So we're having to go all the way up the chain to the governor in some cases, and that's very different than how we normally would do it.
But a lot has stayed the same. We're trying to connect, we're not trying to bombard people with our communications. We want to be a solace and an escape, but we do have urgent information to communicate with people about events, closures, what's open in the park and that kind of stuff. So it's mostly the same core, relatable, knowledgeable, get the facts out type communications, but a little bit different, and that is probably a little bit more formal than it has been before.
Brendan:
Thank you. How do you or do you see any changes to the voice or the brand of the museum? Has that been changing? I know you mentioned it's been formal, how do you ensure that your mission still feels the same and can be communicated in a way that people are familiar with?
Kat:
I don't think it's changed that much, especially on social media. Social media is a bit more lighthearted. Once we're getting out the pertinent information, then it's back to content as normal that you can experience online. We're the people's Museum of North Carolina, we're here for everyone and that has not changed.
Brendan:
That's great. I love that you're the people's museum. I think that's amazing. This question is to both of you. Lately, we've been hearing a lot of advice along the lines of, “listen to your audience and support your community.” What does your audience want from you right now? What do you think they need from you right now? And how do you go about determining this?
Kat:
I think we're all pretty stressed out, probably a little freaked out and scared. So we're keeping that in mind when we're putting out all of this content. So we asked our audience, "What is your favorite piece of art in the museum?" And then we've been building some deep dive content pieces each week about them. So, it's movie recommendations, because we're all stuck at home. It's music, it's meditation. Very short bites of content that people can experience in just five to ten minutes, instead of an hour long. We're feeling especially for parents who are all suddenly teachers.
So we're not trying to inundate people with, "Oh, you need to sit down and spend two hours with our content." You can experience it all week, in little bites, when you can. It's great for all ages. Just a lot of options and a cohesive package, based on your very favorite art. So, I think as long as people are keeping in mind that everyone is so much more frazzled than normal and time is really stretched thin, that will help influence the content that you're putting out.
Ryan:
Yeah, I think one of the things that I've always thought about is the difference between an audience and a community. And really understanding that your digital community is a community and an audience is someone that you speak to, you perform for, you lecture for - that sort of thing. And to me it's always been, we're in this together, we're in a community and how can we serve the community? What can we provide them with? What does our community need then what can we provide them? And so I've always looked at it in that relationship. And that's right, by providing all of those resources, thinking about what do parents need right now in our community? What do people who may be home alone need then now? Just things like that I think are really important to step away from what you're normally used to doing and think about how you're talking with your community.
Brendan:
Excellent. Thank you. Ryan, shifting gears a little bit here, one of my favorite museum projects from the past few years was during your time at Royal Ontario Museum when you put your T-Rex on Tinder. Projects like these I think show a certain level of creativity, agility, and risk tolerance that might be encouraged in a meaningful way to re-engage the public's attention in a couple months as we enter the new normal. Can you talk through that initiative? How did you come up with it? What did you learn from that project that still rings true today?
Ryan:
Yeah, that one was a pretty fun one. Just to put that in the context, at the time it was centered around an event that we ran called Friday Night Live and when that event first started in 2012, we had lots of engagement on social media, there were lots of tweets flying back and forth and lots of user generated content. That was a really high level of engagement for us. And as people's sharing habits started to change, people moved to doing more on Snapchat and more of Instagram Stories and things like that. We saw our engagement numbers dip. So I spent a good deal of time walking around the events and trying to figure out what people were doing and where they all went. They were there physically, but they weren't there digitally. So how do we make sure that we're connecting with them? I saw lots of people on their phones, but what were they actually doing?
I've been married for 10 years and didn't do the whole online dating thing, but I saw people doing the swipe thing. I was like, "What is that?" So I went to some of my colleagues and they said, "Oh, that's Tinder." And I just got the idea, "Wouldn't that be fantastic?" If a museum object would engage with people in the space, how unexpected would that be? And what would that look like? So just thinking through how that would work, wrote the brief and obviously sold it up the chain of command and made people understand that this was an experiment. It's a pilot project. And the goal really was to enter into conversations with our community. And so I did a whole lot on my medium account - there's a whole post on why we did it and then the follow up.
I have to give a shout out to Jacqueline Waters, who did a lot of work actually putting a voice and a personality to Teddy. She was the one that wrote all the witty one liners and things like that and did a fantastic job, giving Teddy a real presence on the platform. There was no marketing ROI and we didn't push people to buy tickets to the event. It was a true experiment to see if people would talk to us and to see what kind of reaction we would get from people. And it was a really fun way to build some engagement.
Brendan:
That's great. That's prompted a lot of conversation in our chatbox today about other platforms that museums are experimenting with today. A lot of people are asking about using Snapchat and a lot of people are asking about using TikTok. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Ryan:
I want to give a shout out to the social team at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. On that team, we had a person where their main job was to work with Snapchat and to repurpose CBC content directly for Snapchat. And one of the big goals at CBC is reaching a younger demographic. CBC was really good at reaching older demographics, but really needed help reaching those younger demographics. And the person who was doing this work was incredible at sourcing the content from this pile of content and finding a way to repurpose it specifically for the Snapchat platform.
The numbers were ridiculous. They were routinely reaching 18 to 24 year olds. And I don't know if you know Snapchat's demographics, but they only the younger demographics are really cut up. After that it’s 35 and above. So they group everyone 35 and above as one big group. So it was really great to see that engagement with those younger demographics, and to be reminded that you don't have to dumb down content for younger demographics. You don't have to write in a certain way so that younger demographics will engage with content that you produce, as long as it's packaged for the platform and in a way that is engaging.
Brendan:
It's interesting to think about all of these new distribution channels and new avenues to get either your mission, your brand, your content, or your voice into as many lives as possible. One that I want to talk about today is Zoom. Zoom's daily active users have jumped from 10 million to over 200 million over the past few months. This video communication platform, which we're actually using right now for this webinar, has quickly risen in popularity. It's now part of many people's personal and professional lives and a growing number of museums and aquariums and zoos are using this as another avenue to promote their brand and content in a completely new way.
I saw that the North Carolina Museum of Art recently posted and promoted some Zoom backgrounds. I want Kat to tell us a little bit about where the inspiration came from, how it's been, what some of that content looks like, and what some of the basic steps are so an organization might take to take advantage of this distribution channel.
Kat:
Yeah, definitely. That idea actually came from a member of our development team. I think probably the very first week we all started working remotely, it was just a great opportunity to listen to different ideas that come in from all directions. I know we're all going through that now where suddenly everyone is on the digital content team and you're having to really filter through stuff. So we finally were able to get to it. We had our photographers help us pick some great images of our campus and the collection and then crop them to the right size, so all you have to do is download them and stick them in the background.
It's been a huge success. We were in two national art publications, our local newspaper, it exploded on social media and some of the best numbers I've gotten this year actually. And then just to shout to some other museums that did it, the Wellington Museum, the Children's Museum of South Dakota - theirs has dinosaurs in the background, so that's really nice. The Smithsonian American Art Museum also has done some. I think they're just a really fun way that you're still somewhat experiencing the collection and the resources that your entity has, but it's not driving you to the website, it's not driving you anywhere else. It's just something nice to look at while you're on all these calls all day. So yeah, it's been great.
Brendan:
That's great. Thank you for sharing all of that information. And I loved hearing that it came from the development team. I think that just shows how important cross department collaboration is right now and sharing these ideas. I kind of laugh at this. Zoom backgrounds are just backgrounds. They're just JPEGs that are sized to your screen in the same way your desktop wallpaper is set up. So they're really a low lift for departments. You don't even necessarily need to hire a designer, you're just taking your best images and maybe popping your logo on the bottom left or right, and then your brand becomes a part of someone's business meeting, or a family reunion. A colleague of mine calls those family ‘re-Zoom-ions.’ I think that's awesome. And Ryan, do you have anything to add to the Zoom life we're living?
Ryan:
Yeah. A bunch of us organized a global Drinking about Museums event a couple of weeks ago and we used Zoom. There's people talking about Zoom bombing and that's sort of a concept that I had no idea about until this happened, until it actually happened during the event. And so it's interesting to see that Zoom has actually changed their settings, so they've instituted the waiting room right off the bat and things like that. So they're aware of it. There's different paid plans that are pretty reasonable for the services that you get to lock it down and hold a good virtual visit or a webinar or something like that. I love when museums show some personality. I love when museums do things outside of the box and really recognize what their communities are doing, what everyone is doing right now, they're on Zoom. How do we insert museums into the activities that people are doing? That's a lot of the things that I get excited about when I see museums doing.
Brendan:
I love the aspect of even tying the narrative around the backgrounds to some mission centric initiatives. Looking at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, their Zoom backgrounds are very much connected to their open access initiative and I see Amy Fox has posted a link to that on our chat box and it shows how all of these things can be woven together back to your mission.
I do want to say that we're going to be posting sometime today, a blog post about the different live video and webinar software that's available today. There's a lot of discounted nonprofit rate availability and so we've done a little overview to talk about who's using what, how they're using it, with backgrounds and, and beyond backgrounds, just to be a helpful guide for people. I think it all comes down to meeting people where they are and now they're all in their homes and if you can weave your brand and your mission into that, that's a great opportunity in a really clever low lift.
We have a question from Kathrynn Rosati from the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Ontario. How do you reach audiences when there isn't equal access to the internet to view online content or content in general?
Ryan:
Yeah, that's a tough one, right? Especially now that people don't have access to places where they could get free internet like public libraries and community centers and places like that. So it's tough numbers and Canada showed that about 90% of people in Canada have access to the internet. But I think that did include access to the public library. So it is tough and you have to be aware that with any content you're producing, you're not going to reach everyone. Especially now with everyone sort of focused on the online space and everyone pushing so much content, stuff you do probably will get lost in the shuffle.
If it's really well executed, it might not, but I think it's important to know that you're not always going to hit a home run. It's always a bit of a risk and there's other things you can do to reach people.
Kat:
I agree with what you're saying definitely, where understanding that not all of our content will be used by everyone, especially as kids are now being schooled at home. Growing up we only had one computer, three kids, two parents. If this happened then all of us would be trying to work on just the one computer. So, we're sending out content that maybe you can access on your TV or Netflix, Spotify playlists, somethings like that, that you can experience on a different device. But yeah, it's really tough and we've talked about trying to get physical coloring sheets, activity kits, whatever in the hands of people, especially while our park is open. But then that requires our employees to go back and we're just trying to be super safe, not touch anything, and it's really, really hard and it's something that we're definitely aware of that not everyone is going to be able to access everything.
Brendan:
That's helpful. It points to how this is a really challenging reality because when we're talking about access to internet and broadband and media, we do make assumptions of course, but then the backup plan or the alternative formats are going to be physical media, and when physical media is opened up to uncertain risk and risk for your employee and risk for the recipient, it does put you in a challenging situation. But maybe there's some people on this panel that have worked in radio and there's some people on this panel that worked in broadcast, where there are maybe opportunities for radio during times like these. I think that could be a viable avenue to reach audiences.
Kat:
Yes.
Brendan:
Past guests on our webinars have emphasized that consistency and compassion are two of the most important things to keep in mind when communicating with your audience. How do you go about communicating in a compassionate and meaningful way today? How are your organizations dealing with that?
Kat:
I would say we're really only communicating what we know. So we're not making any promises. We're not talking about future events and exhibitions. We have a summer concert series. All of that is obviously on hold, and I think that helps be consistent and compassionate because we're not making any promises that we're going to go breaking. And of course it would be out of our control. People are really understanding of what's happening with businesses right now, but it's just ... We can only tell you what we know, and it's X, Y, and Z. So we're all facing these same challenges.
And I think I've seen some backlash with retailers who were basically saying, "We're going to pay all of our employees during the shutdown." Now the shutdown could be two months, and they're laying people off. You just can't make any promises right now. So you have to focus on the very immediate future, what you know, and then you need to be able to say, "Look here for more information." If you don't have it as it comes along.
Ryan:
Yeah, I'll just go back to being a good community member, right? Like you said Kat, we're, for the most part, the museums aren't the experts in infectious diseases, and so making sure people are given the right information or sent to the right resources. I'm a bit sort of outside this, I don't work directly with our PR and social media team, but they've been doing a great job. I think just focusing on the content and, and talking about what the museum has to offer. And so just going back to what the mission of the museum is and talking to people about history and so that's what I've seen the focus being from our museum so far and it's been great.
Brendan:
Thank you. We're about a half an hour in. I just want to take a moment to announce that starting this Friday we'll be hosting a Weekly Digital Happy Hour called MUSE, ZOOS, & CLUES. We'll recap some of our favorite museum campaigns and our posts from the week. Do some trivia, talk about some of the topics we're discussing now in a little bit more depth, but also have some lighthearted conversation and to mix things up a little, we'll be inviting a few attendees onto the digital stage to participate, so you can register early or email hello@cuseum if you want to be a guest.
Ryan:
That sounds awesome.
Kat:
That sounds great.
Ryan:
I'm going to make sure to put that in my calendar.
Brendan:
Let’s get back to questions. A few days ago, I read an interesting and sobering article in the Financial Times that claimed, “there's no room for bullshit.” By the way, that's the first time I'm swearing on these webinars, so I apologize. The quote was, "There is no time for bullshit in the time of coronavirus. Speaking clearly and honestly in a crisis cuts through the guff." End quote. Museums typically aren't so blunt or brisk in their communication. How do you approach this in a mindful way? How do you strike a balance?
Because my sense is a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Museums are always trying to be optimistic in their messaging. I also want to loop in a question from the community on top of this, which pairs very nicely. Ben Fast from the Alberta Museums Association over in Edmonton asks, "How can you mindfully and sensitively tell communities about changes in their organization past that you've just closed?" For example, the staff have been laid off or services in the future might change. With staff gone and the majority of activities ended, many museums are struggling to act out of their missions.
Kat:
I think it's pretty similar to what I was saying before. We're only communicating what we know. Our restaurant closed - it did not turn to take-out only or anything like that. We don't know when it will reopen because we don't know when the whole museum will reopen. We had some great exhibitions going on. We're hoping they're extended but, and we think they will be, but we haven't communicated that yet just because we don't have anything definite. So again, no promises that we're going to wind up breaking - just the facts. And that's really one way to cut through the flowery stuff, which is not helpful. What's helpful is people knowing exactly what we know and us just saying "We're closed, here's all of our online resources." And trying to make that appeal to them. And like I said, all businesses are facing super hard decisions and it's just day by day. We know people are losing their jobs. We've been really careful about asking for donations right now. We haven't started that yet. The very first event we canceled was our biggest fundraiser, and we're just very mindful of when we get back into fundraising, what is that going to look like?
How do we position ourselves as an important escape for people who suddenly have had their income cut. It's just truly communicating what we know and not making promises that we're going to wind up breaking.
Ryan:
Yeah. I think one of the things that museums enjoy is a really high level of trust with their families. Among other industries, there's this sort of trust that people give museums and I think we need to be really aware of how fragile that can be and the decisions that we make now can really affect not only our reputations but also our relationships with our community. And again, I echo what Kat's saying, stick to the facts, be honest. I think the worst thing you can do is try to shuffle some things under the rug. If people are savvy, they're smart, they're media savvy, they're going to find out if decisions were made, and I think a lot of people are watching us right now.
They're watching what we're doing and there's a lot of difficult stories coming out of museums, but I think the museums that have really shared their tough news well have done it in an honest way and they've said, "Look, here's, here's what's happening and hopefully this won't be long term." And all those things, I think it's really important that we do right by our communities.
Kat:
To add onto that, just who is this message coming from? So for us, a new director joined us little over a year ago and a lot of this communication is obviously being written and brainstormed from the marketing and communication team, but it is coming out from her. It is coming out from her email address. She is available for questions and concerns from visitors and other audiences that we serve. Yes, as the PR manager, I can tell you something, but it means a lot coming from the very top person. So who can you rope in if you need to to have these conversations with people. These decisions are coming from the top and so a lot of the communication needs to be coming from them.
Brendan:
That's really helpful. I saw the videos on your website and I saw the videos in your newsletter and I thought it was wonderful that your directors used this as an opportunity to get personal and be human and connect with your audience, with your members, your donors, your community. I'm really happy that both of you touched on the fundraising and membership solicitation aspect of this because I'm seeing in the chat box a lot of people are having questions about that.
The timing about it, the optics of it, especially when a variety of things are taking place are challenging. We've started to host conversations with people who work in membership every Monday, and there's been a lot of interesting perspectives on how this has been a really challenging and dynamic moment for membership departments that are trying to navigate the uncertainty about when they'll extend, how long they'll extend, what they'll ask for in terms of donations and other such means of support. Frankly there is no easy answer to that, and I'm glad to hear that you're thinking about this when it comes to all bits of your communication.
Ryan, you work for a federally-funded institution and Kat, you work for a state-affiliated institution. We've heard a lot from people that work at government-affiliated organizations that they're limited by very long approval periods and red tape across most departments. How do you think organizations can tackle such a challenge when coronavirus represents such a need for rapid communication today?
Ryan:
I don't know if everyone out there is like me, but my level of meetings have doubled or quadrupled in the time that we've all been working from home. And I think as a federal institution, there's definitely a mandate from the federal government. We have processes and things like that that we have to follow, but I think the staff internally have been really great at keeping the lines of communication open, sharing ideas and collaborating. I think when there is something that needs to be jumped on or discussed internally, the first thing someone does is send out a quick note or have a quick chat and we'll go from there.
It's really difficult to change processes in this time, but I think Scott Stulen said something about that in your first webinar about maybe this is an opportunity for museums to look at their processes and rethink how they do things. And not every museum has that luxury. Some do, some don't. But I agree with him and it is a good opportunity to look at things and see if there's a way to revamp how you're communicating internally and how you can quickly leverage what's happening when it does.
Brendan:
That's great. Kat, I know early on you mentioned that for official communications you're getting a lot of direction from the governor level, but for social, media, it seems like a lot of flexibility around the voice and the content. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that, because I think when we're talking about government mandate and policy, it sounds like we would love to live in a world where official correspondence, coming from the top is very formal. But when it comes to social media, loosening the guidelines so that the lighthearted human touch can take place. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that dynamic and how you're navigating it in North Carolina.
Kat:
Yeah, totally. So on the social side when we were open, there is a focus on visiting and coming here and exhibitions and events and things like that. But now that all of that is closed, basically what I have at my disposal is our collection. And then we're all kind of doing the same stuff. We're all watching Tiger King, so it was a great opportunity just to get some little jokes in there where again, I'm not selling anything, I'm highlighting a piece in our collection, but I'm connecting it to something very much of the times. I think a lot of us are on social media a lot and a lot more than we normally are, so I'm just keeping an eye on the meme formats. Some things with social media just click.
On the flip side, I've been a little bit wary about posting a lot of work from home content because I know a lot of people are not working from home. They don't have the luxury. So keeping in mind that folks that have lost their jobs - just things like that. But if it's something that is so deep in the cultural mindset right now, like Tiger King or another show, 90 Day Fiance. I did a Museum Bachelor with our Statue of Bacchus. Things like that can be a really easy thing that gets a lot of eyeballs, a lot of engagement, but the stakes are fairly low so that's nice to throw in there.
Ryan:
It is really great to see when museums do engage with that type of thing and also show a bit of personality.
Brendan:
On personality. Someone on the webinar wants to know if we can have a 90 Day Fiance webinar? For that I say, if you're at a museum, this is open territory, go for it. Run with it. Be the first museum to host the 90 Day Fiance.
Ryan:
I just wanted to shout out Russell Dornan's work, who's at the V&A Dundee and he's done a lot of writing about whether or not to show personality in their digital presence. Just Google Russell's name. He's interviewed a lot of people from the community who do it both ways. So it's an interesting discussion and an interesting post about whether or not you should show some personality in your digital presence, I believe.
Brendan:
Going down this path around personality and brand and communication and social media, Kat, you've worked in music, broadcast, journalism. Music has a lot of personality, especially in Nashville. What are some of the approaches from your past in music, broadcast radio, and journalism that you think have come in handy, or helped you hone your skill, to help your museum through this really challenging era?
Kat:
I'd say that there's really just two important factors here. The first is communicating the facts. So if it was an album release, who's releasing it, when's it coming out, where can I get it? That kind of stuff. And then with museums, are you open? What's available for me to look at? What can I still have fun with? And then on the other side of that is the human connection. So, why should you look at our stuff? Or why should you listen to that album? What are you going to get out of this? Even if it's educational, a moment of relaxation, a deeper connection to something….Those are the two important parts. Everything has to be there. You have to be able to find it with the facts and then you have to be able to relate to it. And that's been nice with the content we're releasing now with our weekly NCMA Recommends series. Do you like music? Do you like movies? Do you need to relax? Do you have kids around? Whatever it is, we have something for you. And then here's where you find it. So those are just the two important pieces for any kind of communication: facts and connection.
Brendan:
It sounds like you guys have a culture of taking into consideration the context, because I remember it was a couple of years ago when you rolled out your audio guide experience, there were date night, lunchtime, and work week tours. They were really contextual, down to taking into consideration the context of the person so that it would be really meaningful or a little bit more personalized. So it sounds like there's something special about the approach that you have done in North Carolina.
I have a question for both of you. This has been weighing on my shoulders and a lot of people's shoulders for the last couple of weeks. I know many things have been weighing on our shoulders, but annual reports have historically included key metrics like annual visitor count, and with all of the closures and the uncertainty around when venues will be opening back up again, there's no question that our 2020 audience numbers are going to be significantly impacted. Right now, remote and digital engagement has become really the only way to engage the public when you think about it.
Is 2020 the year that digital engagement, social media, so on become key metrics across the entire museum? Are we going to start including digital engagement metrics like website views on annual reports? I've seen the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston where I've been involved for many years, include how many people visited their website in the annual reports. I imagine probably less than 1% of cultural organizations are doing that type of reporting on an annual report level. What do you think about that? Do you think that this year is going to be the year that these metrics are reviewed by the board, reviewed by the public, discussed internally, externally and beyond?
Kat:
I would say these kinds of numbers absolutely should be in the annual reports, not only just as a check in from year to year of how your content is doing, but it's also going to be really important for funding later. You can talk about how many people you've reached with the platform that you have now, but we need some money to improve it and to reach even more. All of that is going to become very important. We're working on a whole new website overhaul, so knowing how many people are visiting and what pages are they going to, what platforms need to be better embedded, that kind of thing. It's crucial and especially right now when we have no physical visitors, how else are you going to measure how you're reaching people without these kind of numbers?
Brendan:
That's really interesting to even think about the funding implications that you mentioned. How you're communicating that type of engagement to your donors and potential donors, whether it be the thousands of minutes streamed of free educational content to your community, or other forms of engagement. I think that's a really, really an important point you made Kat. Ryan, what do you want to add to that?
Ryan:
It's going to be super important going forward and I know I've seen museums include them. You're seeing more and more every year. And that's great. I think it's really important because in my opinion, digital visitors or visitors too.It's not like you don't have an impact on what you're doing at your institution and also you really need to include those numbers. But recently, my boss and I, Marquis Cote, we’re even looking a little past that.
Then there's some really great resources that I want to shout out. It's great that you quantify the engagement and all those types of things, but I've been really interested in the impact that our digital engagement or digital content or digital experiences actually have on people. And so I've been really following the work of Adrian Kingston who's at Te Papa. He goes beyond foot traffic and vanity metrics in his Audience Impact Model. If you Google that, something really awesome will come up. Europeana also has this really amazing Impact Toolkit and it's all about how you plan at the outset to report on the impact of your digital products. And then just recently I saw Simon Tanner, who is a professor at King's College London, put out a book called Delivering Impact with Digital Resources. So I think yes, noting how many visitors you get to your website and how many followers you have on social and all that kind of stuff is really great to show that you're active in that sort of thing, but I think the next step and the real opportunity is to show the actual impact of that work that you're doing. So that's where my thinking is on that. And yes, I really hope every single museum in the world includes those numbers in their annual reports going forward, but I also want to see more thinking around the impact of this work.
Brendan:
I think that's really important to explore right now and it has me thinking a lot about Max Anderson's pretty influential piece published called the Metrics of Success in Art Museums and how that's evolved since the time of its publishing, which was in 2007. A lot has changed since that time and a lot has changed over the last couple of months.
We only have eight minutes and I want to get to some questions from the audience, so hopefully we can keep these short and sweet. Eileen Hammond at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill asks, what strategies do you use to streamline content creation and capture from departments that don't usually participate much in social media?
Kat:
That's a great question. I was saying in the first week of us working remotely, it was coming in like a firehose of content ideas trying to get out through a pinhole because there's only so many times you can post a day. What we did with this NCMA Recommends, and this package that I keep talking about with all of the different content pieces, those come from the different departments. We just have Google docs everywhere to have people put all of their ideas in one place, and then we can see where they're matching up, what we can package together, how is this relating? So that's been awesome. And then they're still creating stuff. They still have work to do and it's been great not having the marketing and communication team having to come up with everything, which can sometimes happen. So definitely be leaning on your teammates, and Google docs is one way to do that.
Brendan:
Great. Let's jump into another one. This one's from Liliana Markova at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. Liliana asks, as people with different cultural backgrounds, worldviews and everyday realities will be accessing the content we produce, we must remain aware of how it might sound to them and how something might seem totally benign to us could be perceived as insensitive by others. How do we produce thoughtful content without making too many assumptions about our audiences? Ryan, do you have any thoughts?
Ryan:
You really need to look at who your audience is and there's a lot of metrics available that you can pick to pick out where people are coming from and what languages they speak and things like that. You're never going to be 100% accurate all the time. Make sure that you're taking a data-driven approach and look at all of the numbers you can glean from platforms and dashboards and things like that to try to make those decisions.
Brendan:
Great. We have a question from Liza Holian at the Charleston Museum in Charleston, South Carolina: We have decided to pause our social media live content out of sensitivity to the gravity of this past week. Do you think that is wise or necessary?
Kat:
It really just varies on where you are, what is happening in your area, what they depend on your museum for. I would say if there's no way to not address it, address the situation, talk about what you know. Again, don't make any promises. But do you keep in mind that with everything else on social media, it is nice to see other content and content that can be an escape. Even if it's just a nice picture and that this museum is thinking of you or something like that. Engaging with other area museums for #MuseumBouquet was a great example. So if you still want to be posting, there's definitely plenty of subject material and sentiments and all of that that you can. If it has come that your job has been furloughed or something or if you have been directed to stop, I think that pinning a tweet to the top just says, "Here's the website for more information. Social media is not going to be monitored or updated at this time." You need that. But it depends on so many different factors. If you can cut down on the content, do it every other day, it is nice to log on and see something other than the headlines.
Brendan:
Thank you. That's really valuable advice and I know we only have a couple more minutes, so I just want to mention after this webinar we're going to compile everyone's questions and ideas and solutions and a lot of the names that Ryan was mentioning for further investigation and we're going to gather all this into one living document. We're going to share it with the museum, art and cultural community. Free to share your thoughts here in the chat box or email them over or tweet them out. I'm super confident that any questions that you may have will be able to be answered by someone in this community.
I know there's hundreds if not thousands of questions that are unanswered that need to be answered and will be addressed in due time. And the fact that you're here shows that you're taking proactive steps, you're curious, you're hungry for new ideas and, and for inspiration and you're taking a proactive step in preparing your museum. We're all in this together and we're all going to get through this together. Thank everybody for joining us today.
We have one last question for our special guests: can you leave us with one big idea that we can bring back to our organizations during this time? Ryan, can you start us off?
Ryan:
This was the toughest thing and I was thinking about this for a couple of days and I think, just to go along with the theme of this whole webinar, is to just be mindful of your community, be mindful of their needs, be mindful of what you can deliver to them. And don't be worried about saying, "No.” Don't be worried about saying no to internal pressures and ideas from colleagues and things like that. If you're working with your digital presence, you know your community well and your colleagues may not. So it's a good idea to make them aware but also backup your decision with why. And just be aware that it's okay to not do everything all the time, and to not compare yourself to the other big museums out there and, and that sort of thing. It's really all about community right now, so do right by our community.
Brendan:
Thank you.
Kat:
Fantastic.
Brendan:
Kat Harding, what do you say?
Kat:
The big like idea for me is just to stay in touch with your coworkers, your community, all of us. This group has just been such an amazing resource for me and sounding boards, people I can vent to. It's truly some of my best friends. So, keep in touch with your coworkers, your management, your community, the audiences that you serve. Reach out for literally whatever you need, someone will be able to help.
Brendan:
Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for that Kat and thank you for that Ryan, I really appreciate you spending the hour with us today. I know that we've been able to reach over 3000 people that have tuned in and ask questions and are an active participant in this community globally. And I thank you for sharing some advice and guidance and inspiration. I hope all is well in your lives and I hope all is well with your friends, family and community. And I hope to catch up soon and thank you again. And thank you to everybody who's joined us. I send you the best. I wish you best of health and I hope to see everyone again soon. Thank you.
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