Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History & Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

The mission of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History reads: “Understanding the natural world and our place in it.”1 The Social Media Policy of the Smithsonian (dated November 2, 2011) states that, “content must not be posted that is unrelated to the Smithsonian mission…”.2 It furthermore stipulates that the social media outlets of the Smithsonian “should be used as part of a strategy for supplementing and enhancing content available on Smithsonian websites, reaching and engaging existing and new audiences, and carrying out the Institution’s strategic plan”.3

It would be fair to say that the various and regularly updated, social media outlets of the Smithsonian (Facebook, Flicker, Twitter, & YouTube) do follow these basic rules. The question of whether or not the social media is being used to its full capacity is a different story. The Twitter (2,167 followers) is filled with pictures and is written in a short conversational tone,
which is good.4 But most of it is re-tweets of their own people, and there is a lack of broadly used hashtags, while other less popular ones like #fossilfriday appear. Their Flickr (956 followers) account is filled with interesting and thought provoking pictures. However, the quality of the tagging in their multiple albums (and somewhat arbitrary albums) is not consistent, which makes the pictures less likely to be found. Furthermore, while the albums do tell stories, there is nothing that makes this clear, or tells their importance, so there potential I somewhat lost.5 The Facebook page (196,636 likes) suffers from roughly the same problem that the Twitter does in that the pictures while interesting are not immediately obvious. Their page is filled with interesting articles but that doesn't mean anyone’s going to find them, without going out of their way to look up the Facebook page. Finally, the YouTube page (4,555 subscribers) is simply (unfortunately) dull. Mostly it is filled with videos of seminars or talks ranging from 10-30 minutes. While I'm sure it's interesting to some, it isn't the kind of thing it's going to catch people’s attention.

Overall, it would be fair to say that the social media is well used well is not used to it full potential. Partly this may be due to vagueness of the mission statement. At the least it could be made into a full sentence. As it stands almost any action taken by Smithsonian is in line with the mission statement. Partly this may be due to the nature of the institution putting out the media. As a government institution the Smithsonian is required to keep a professional neutral and that you could voice and such subjects. However, that does not mean that the sites need to be boring. Someone clever could find a way to bring the content of the sites more into the realm of the social rather than the academic. Questions of style aside, an easier if more time consuming project would be an improvement in tagging. However, perhaps the simplest fix of all would be to move the pages could be increased in use by simply moving them to a more prominent place on the front page of the Smithsonian's website. (There's a Twitter feed on the front page but the other three are buried in tabs about four clicks deep.)

In comparison to the Smithsonian there is the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Their mission statement reads as follows: “The mission of the Peabody Museum is to serve Yale University by advancing our understanding of earth’s history through geological, biological, and anthropological research, and by communicating the results of this research to the widest possible audience through publication, exhibition, and educational programs.”6

I was not able to find the Social Media Guidelines for the museum, but I was able to find guidelines for the Yale School of medicine, and it seems that’s if the Museum did have one, it would be akin to those for the School of Medicine. It generally makes the point of; the responsibility of presentation, the need for common sense, and that site should stay active.7 The Yale mission statement being more defined, it is easier for one to tell if the social media the museum has is doing better at supporting the mission, which should be its propose.8 First off, one could make the argument by simply having more social media outlets, the Peabody is doing a better job of communicating their findings to the widest possible audience. Currently the Peabody has: 8 blogs, a Facebook, Foursquare, Flickr, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, and a YouTube. But more is not always better. Three of those eight blogs are archived, meaning they chronicled a certain event and no longer are updated. Of the remaining five, three of those have not been updated in some time. That leaves only two which are currently adding new findings or thoughts.9  

The social media sites are also interesting in that they are in one way an example of neglect. (The sites like Foursquare and Google+ are like Yelp in that the museum does not have direct control over the reviews, and so little can be done about them, though they do rate a 8.6/10 and 4.6/5 respectably.)

The Tumblr and their Flickr (12 followers) both seems to have shared the same fate. While yes, both are filled with pictures and short but informative text as they should be, the quality of tagging in their multiple albums (and somewhat arbitrary albums) is not consistent, which makes the pictures less likely to be found. Add to that the fact the former has not been updated since October of 2016, and the later hasn’t been updated since March of 2015. Their Pinterest account (134 followers) also seems to have been abandoned in October of 2015. Their Instagram account (1084 followers) is good it tells the story of the behind-the-scenes work on setting up exhibits and ask questions of the followers all of which are good things. Of course the last update was three weeks ago.10 Finally we come to the three that are the most recently updated the YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. The Peabody Museum's YouTube (349 subscribers)channel suffers much the same problems as the YouTube channel for the Smithsonian. It is dull, and could do with more eye catching videos. Both the Facebook (12,049 likes) and Twitter (8,610 followers) updated very frequently. The Facebook is much more geared towards bringing people in, as is the Twitter. Instead stating this or that fact as the Smithsonian's pages do these make clear that new events are coming where they will be and what time they will be. This fix the mission statement better, as it provides potential audiences with the information they actually need to know.

Over all, the majority of the social media sites have a distinct feeling of being been made by an intern, who placed the images and information online primarily because they were asked too and that there was little thought as to the maintenance of the project afterwards. Social media is not one and done process. One positive note however is that though, the Peabody is subject it most of some restrictions in tone and content as the Smithsonian, the Peabody dose manage to instill some manner of character into there social media. Like before the process of retagging of the images could help in some cases. But I think that some of the sites (Flickr & Tumblr) should just be taken down. While they are technically helping to communicate the museums findings, the Facebook and Twitter are doing so much better.