Social Media Report: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and the Royal Ontario Museum

The two sites whose social media outreach I have chosen to report on are the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum.  Both of these institutions are situated in Toronto, Ontario (coincidence!) and have varying degrees of success in social media.  According to the Social Media Handbook from the American Association of Museums, involvement in social media outlets is recommended for cultural heritage institutions to succeed in the 21st century [1].  Social media outreach can increase public awareness of an institution and/or it's collections, impart important news to a wide audience, and even elicit help from the community.

The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

I first found out about the existence of the Fisher Library due to it's extensive use of the social media tool Instagram.  It uses this tool beautifully, and I decided to report on the institution's wider social media use because of what they have done with their Instagram account.  The Fisher Library's Instagram account is filled with images of it's collections, particularly close-up shots of unique and interesting book bindings, illustrations, and printed text.  There are also photos of the library's interior and exterior, as well as staff members and contributors.  Most of the posts are photos, but there are a few videos.  The account has over 11,000 followers and has posted 895 times (as of this post), with each post averaging around 300 likes.  The Fisher Library seems to try to post once a day.  Their Instagram posts are very informative -- they don't exist just to attract the eye or make a joke, as is common among other institutions [2].  This approach to Instagram posts supports the mission of the Fisher Library, which emphasizes their mandate to "foster the search for knowledge" [3].  The beauty and variety of the images on their Instagram alone also goes far in fulfilling this aspect of their mission.  They also participate in many of the fun hashtags that are popular among special collections institutions and libraries, like the #roygbiv event, where institutions posted a different colored binding every day, in the order of the rainbow, and #tinytuesday, where images of small collections items are featured.

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library Instagram

While the Fisher excels with Instagram, their use of other social media outlets is not as strong.  Their Flickr account is fairly robust, and is a nice accompaniment to their Digital Collections.  Their photos on Flickr are arranged into 20 albums and each photo has a decent amount of metadata associated with it.  The Fisher's Facebook account deals primarily with events, exhibits, and acquisitions, and has 1,500 followers.  The posts on Facebook are infrequent, but there are attempts to actively engage with the audience.  For example, one post asks users if they can spot something specific on a posted image.  The Twitter of the Fisher Library is similar to the Facebook, in that it focuses on events and exhibitions, and also has about 1,500 followers.  The Twitter also retweets a lot of posts about the institution from visitors who had positive experiences.

Overall, I think that the Fisher Rare Book Library has a good, if imbalanced, social media presence.  I think that while the Instagram account is amazing, more attention should be paid to the infrequent posts on their Twitter and Facebook accounts.  The good thing though is that at least they aren't just mirroring all of their accounts -- I like that the Instagram and Flickr accounts focus on collections materials, while the Twitter and Facebook accounts are more informative about the institution and it's events and exhibits.  That way a user that follows all of the Fisher's accounts isn't getting repetitive information.

While I could not locate a formal social media policy, I think it is clear that the Fisher recognizes the usefulness of social media to provide outreach.  The links to all of their social media accounts are accessible as buttons right on their homepage.  The success of their Instagram is a great start, and I hope that they can extend that success to their other accounts.  In addition, their social media policy should emphasize the complementary aspects of their suite of social media engagement: how each of the different platforms can fulfill different aspects of their mission and appeal to different audiences.  The Fisher is also doing a great job of using social media tools (especially Instagram) to actively engage with their audience.  They often respond to comments and questions on their posts, and use Twitter as well to retweet and respond to posts from the community.  Their social media policy should expand on these activities.

In comparing the social media presence of the Fisher Library to that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I think there are more similarities than differences.  The main difference is that it is clear that, as a giant, encyclopedic museum, the Met has the resources and the collections to maintain a large social media presence that is wonderfully varied.  I think that the Fisher does a great job featuring different aspects of the book on their Instagram account, but they just can't compete with the variety of the collections at the Met.  In addition, the Met's Instagram account is maintained by a dedicated Social Media Manager, while it is possible that many people contribute to the Fisher's, all of whom have other job responsibilities.  This also means that, while the Fisher's daily posts are a great start, the Met posts much more frequently.  Their Twitter and Facebook are updated every couple of hours!  They of course also a lot more content to choose from, because their program schedule is so full.  The Met also has several blogs that focus on different audiences, like teens, and different news types, like their In Circulation blog or the Digital Underground blog.  The Fisher Library has one blog, apparently defunct since 2013, that focuses on rare books and book reviews.

So, while that seems like a lot of differences, I think that the Fisher Library is doing most of the same things, just at a smaller scale.  Even though they do great things with their Instagram, and they clearly have an interest in pursuing social media outreach, as evidenced by its inclusion on their homepage, I think that the development of a social media policy would make their goals and approach clearer.  If they created a policy, and/or created a position for social media outreach, instead of relying on the contributions of a multitude of staff members, their online presence would grow in size and sophistication.

The Royal Ontario Museum

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is both a natural history museum and a world cultures museum.  Although the museum doesn't have a solid mission statement, they have many goals such as "bring[ing] insights into how the earth and its cultures have evolved, and how the changes we face today will shape the world we'll live in tomorrow" [4].  They also have information about their brand, which is very specific, and encourage users to engage online.  The museum has a robust social media presence, which supports their goal to attract users via their online identity.

The museum has a great social media handbook, which describes all of the goals of the social media plan at the ROM and tips for general social media outreach as well as more targeted tips for their preferred social media tool, Twitter.  They have primary and secondary social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are their primary ones, and their secondary ones are Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest (pg. 2).  Each of the different platforms has a different identity for the ROM and is used to post different kinds of information, much like the Fisher Library (although they don't have a policy that describes these different functions).  For example, their "Twitter accounts are used to promote events and exhibitions as well as conversational channels" (pg. 2), while their "Facebook is currently used as a mechanism to broadcast news & updates, to promote events, and to promote ROM blog posts. It also provides a way for people to identify themselves as supporters of the ROM" (pg. 2).

The main Twitter account of the ROM dates back to 2010 and boasts over 30,000 posts and 160,000 followers.  This account does a great job of posting a variety of posts, both about the collections and also about different acquisitions and general collections.  This account definitely supports the mandate to foster learning about the natural world as well different cultures, as the most recent posts jump back and forth from being about their cultural holdings to their scientific ones.  This account also retweets tweets from the community, and most posts include links and photos, further engaging the community in the events and collections of the museum. A recent example of community engagement is their invitation to users to tweet and hashtag their tattoo stories, which links to a current exhibit on tattoos as cultural identity.

That's just one account, though.  The ROM has at least 12 other associated accounts, ranging from their Biodiversity account (6,096 followers) to their Library and Archives account (929 followers) [5].  Each of the different accounts has a different focus, but the type of content and approach is much the same.  The main museum account often retweets and links to their other associated account in an attempt to create pathways to all the aspects of the museum.

While their guide lists Instagram as an experimental, secondary platform for the ROM's social media program, I really like what they're doing there.  The posts all have a fun, conversational tone, while still maintaining the educational value of seeing their collections.  Each post uses a couple of appropriate hashtags and usually includes a silly pun and/or the use of emojis.  I think that this definitely appeals to the users of Instagram, as the younger set is more likely to use these types of communication tools.  Another audience that the museum seems to be targeting is young professionals.  A couple of posts I came across (on their Instagram but also a few on Twitter) mentioned the museum as a great date night excursion and appear to target the young professionals of Toronto who are interested in going out but also want to soak in some culture (or natural history...?).  One of the most interesting things I saw on their Instagram, that I have seen on other accounts to varying success, is the tile mosaic effect:

Royal Ontario Museum Instagram

You can't see the full effect because of the limitations of my laptop screen, but they have posted nine images in order, and because the Instagram feed displays in rows of three, a full image is created like a mosaic.  I love when accounts do this -- I think it is incredibly eye catching and can really engage the viewer.  There may be drawbacks to this type of post, however -- I think that after you post this, you need to keep posting in multiples of three or the mosaic will be off by one or two images.  I'm not sure exactly but either way, the effect is pretty amazing.

In comparing the social media presence of the ROM to a larger institution like the Met, there are many similarities.  Their Twitters, for example, are each updated every couple of hours.  They both include images with both of their posts.  The ROM differs from the Met in its collection variety.  Obviously the Met, being an art museum, features mostly art on their Twitters.  The ROM has to represent its cultural holdings but also its scientific ones.  This leads their Twitter to be a bit all over the place, although it is necessary in order to support its mission.  One thing I would recommend for the ROM's social media presence is to represent its bilingual user base.  There are many people in Toronto that speak Québecois, and I think it would be appropriate for their social media to reflect this language diversity.