Guest post part 1: social media communities

A nickel for your thoughts: Growing and sustaining museums’ social media communities

Guest post by Erin Blasco, public programs coordinator and manager of the National Postal Museum’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Find her on Twitter as @erinblasco

Whether you manage social media accounts for a museum or follow a museum or two on your preferred social network, consider the following statement: “Museum social media communities grow quickly and are relatively self-sustaining.”

Whether it’s a “duh” nod or an exasperated sigh, I’d love to hear your reaction to this statement. Here’s why: at the 2012 Museums & the Web conference in April, a panel of museum social media practitioners will invite consideration of some of the most commonly heard truisms about social media among our colleagues. But you don’t have to be in San Diego to participate. In order to include a variety of voices from around the country, we’re kicking off the conversation early and will continue it both during and after the session. Comment here and your thoughts will filter into the session and the conversation surrounding it.

What do you get for sharing your thoughts, comments, and case studies?

1. The opportunity to step back from drafting tweets and deleting spam YouTube comments to re-discover why museums participate in social media and what we can reasonably hope to gain.

2. Advancing the dialog beyond assumptions will allow us to establish a thoughtful foundation of social media best practices to build upon.

3. Communicating about social media myths not only moves the profession forward but also sharpens our skills at discussing social media goals and myths in our own institutions. This conversation will make us better advocates for our museums’ goals and audiences.

So, do museum social media communities grow quickly and sustain themselves? If you’ve never heard this truism before, consider these: “Let’s make a Facebook page so that hundreds of people will gather to discuss our exhibits.” “There are a lot of people out there who like Civil War stuff; we should start a Twitter account to bring them in.” “Social media is huge; we should make a video and ‘go viral,’ too.” “We’re not reaching enough teens; social media is the answer.” How have you heard this sentiment phrased at your institution? We know some of you have. In fact, when we asked museum professionals to vote on the top “social media myths” meriting deeper discussion, this one was a big winner.

In Part II of this post, we'll pick apart the issue in more detail.