The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia
Mission: VMFA is a state-supported, privately endowed educational institution created for the benefit of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its purpose is to collect, preserve, exhibit, and interpret art, to encourage the study of the arts, and thus to enrich the lives of all.
Museum Analytics:
- Facebook: 37,640 Page Likes
- Twitter: 29,464 Followers
- Youtube: 513 subscribers, 302,671 views
- Tumblr: vmfaeducation.tumblr.com (Follower count and post count unavailable)
- Instagram: 461 posts, 11.4k followers
The VMFA is a free entry museum in Richmond, Virginia. The museum boasts a permanent collection of 35,000 works. In comparison to the Royal Collection Trust, which has the highest analytics as of this posting, there's over a million Facebook followers more for the RCT. But considering the sizes and locations of these institutions, it is not that surprising that the RCT has a larger internet presence. The VMFA though, achieves outreach through social media by using several different popular types of platforms. They are able to consistently update and interact with a variety of different user bases, all of which provide different needs. While Facebook and Twitter are more text-based mediums, museums benefit from platforms such as Instagram and Tumblr just by the fact that these are visual tools. The museums are able to show pieces of their collections to draw in users, particularly from younger age groups that use these websites/apps. The mission of the VMFA stresses the purpose to encourage the study and interpretation of art. By posting their collections and news across several different platforms, they are able to show their collections daily (or several times daily). On most of their platforms, but specifically image sharing medias like Tumblr and Instagram, they educate their followers by posting a piece of their collection with fun and interesting captions. This educates and engages their audiences on a daily basis in a way where the user can learn casually and not have to go out of their way to find information, but can be inspired to learn more about the pieces.
I could not find a social media policy on the VMFA website. My first suggestion would be to make access to their social media platforms more visible. Their wikipedia page shows up on google before any of their social media sites, and the first page doesn't even include all of the sites listed on their main website. Once on the website, the icons for the pages are not found until you reach the very bottom of the page. Some of the social media pages link to other pages (Facebook has a tab for Instagram, etc) but other than that, all of the accounts are not prominently displayed. It does seem that some of their pages are updated more frequently than others. As of this posting, their Tumblr was updated 2 days ago, but their Instagram was updated a few hours ago. One thing I've noticed that the VMFA seems to be doing well is interacting with their user base- right now they are doing an Instagram "selfie contest" for a free membership. If your photo is chosen, you win! The downside to this is that their users must be using that platform to win. As you can see above though, Instagram has significantly less followers than on Facebook. The content across platforms is not uniform, and it is debatable whether or not this is a good idea. People using different platforms tend to interact with content differently (it is easier to share an opinion on a photo on Instagram rather than Twitter, for example.) However, there could be content that is missed by some users who prefer to follow from one platform rather than another. It is unlikely a person would follow on all of these platforms.
Library of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia
Mission: As the Commonwealth's library and archives, the Library of Virginia is a trusted educational institution. We acquire, preserve, and promote access to unique collections of Virginia's history and culture and advance the development of library and records management services statewide.
Analytics:
- Flickr: 1.8k Followers
- Youtube: 835 subscribers, 368,371 views
- Pinterest: 833 Followers, 1.3k pins
- Instagram: 831 Followers
Note: The Library also has a blog, google cultural institute, history-pin, and tumblr.
The Library of Virginia is a library and archives located in Richmond, Virginia. It is one of the oldest in the Virginia government and holds much of the state's history. In comparison to the VMFA, its social media presence is significantly smaller. The Library achieves outreach and promotes access through a wide net of social media networks. Unlike some other institutions, it seems that more is not necessarily better. The Library has so many accounts that it's unclear how they are able to keep up with them all. Their Facebook page garners the most likes, at a pathetic 4k, and the numbers get smaller from there. The Facebook page updates regularly, but there are little to no comments and likes on the posts. Twitter contains equally small numbers of shares and likes. The Library has a blanket social media policy about user comments, but strangely they also specify terms for Youtube comments. I can assume they have similar policies for their other platforms that allow user interaction, but with such low numbers I wonder why they single out Youtube specifically. All of these websites are prone to offensive and irrelevant commentary (this statement basically states that the Library reserves the right to remove such comments), so a single blanket statement makes more sense. I think my major suggestion though, would be to cut down on all of these accounts. Most of them seem to be updated inconsistently and with no real flow to the posts. The most recent Youtube upload was 5 months ago, and I don't think history-pin has been updated since 2014. Tumblr was updated today, but Instagram was updated 3 days ago (forever in Instagram timelines). It is this type of social media erraticism that hurts and out-dates institutions. By focusing more on heavy-traffic websites while self-promoting across the board, I think they would see more results.
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