The
American Museum of Natural History and the Queens Library are both significant
cultural institutions in New York, serving large audiences. Both of these institutions should be
using social media to communicate with guests and potential guests about
upcoming programs, events, and materials that can be accessed on-site and
online. A brief analysis of how American Museum of Natural History and the
Queens Library currently use social media, and a look at current best practices
for social media, will show how these institutions are using social media
successfully and what can be improved. While “little research has explored the
possibilities arising from the use of the Internet (Web and social media),
particularly in the case of museums,” (Padilla-Meléndez & del Águila-Obra,
2013), informal social media guidelines written by information science
professionals like Kristina Fong and Kasia Grabowska can be used to understand
effective social media practices.
The
American Museum of Natural History, an internationally acclaimed museum of science
and culture, has a mission to “discover, interpret, and disseminate—through
scientific research and education—knowledge about human cultures, the natural
world, and the universe” (American Museum of Natural History). Social media
could be an ideal platform for the museum to achieve its mission of
disseminating information and knowledge. The museum currently uses YouTube,
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Google+ to communicate
with its audience, as well as disseminating podcasts using iTunes and providing
a mobile application for Apple and Android phones. Links to the museum’s social
media pages are always accessible to a user from the lower bar of their
website, so the user always has the option to navigate to a social media site.
The American Museum of Natural History certainly has a significant number of
followers on each of its social media pages. The museum does not appear to have
a social media policy, but a web page titled “Social Media” on the museum
website directs visitors to social media sites, saying: “Enlighten your day
with a daily dose of science. Stay up to date with the latest Museum news on
Twitter, be inspired by images from the Museum’s Digital Special Collections on
Pinterest or share science with all your friends on Facebook” (American Museum
of Natural History). While this is not a social media policy, the museum does
have a commitment to using social media to communicate with its audience.
The
American Museum of Natural History uses social media to post about events,
speakers, and information about materials or animals in the collection, like
fossils and dinosaurs. The museum is truly using social media to achieve its
mission by posting videos of lectures, pictures of dinosaurs, links to articles
about new research, and other information with a lot of educational value.
Despite
the museum’s large number of followers and its mission-centric use of social
media, audience engagement with the museum’s social media is inconsistent.
Kristina Fong, the former Digital Marketing Associate of the Walker Art Center,
writes about social media: “If your likes go up and your engagement numbers
also don’t go up (number of active comments and conversations), that’s a
problem. That means you’re boring your new followers” (Fong, 2013). Although
the museum has 282,000 followers on Twitter, some of its posts have fewer than 20
likes or shares, while some have higher numbers. The Museum of Modern Art in
New York is currently rated second on Museum Analytics, and the museum has high
levels of engagement on social media. Each MoMA tweet has at least twenty likes
and Retweets, and at most, several hundred. On Facebook, the American Museum of Natural History has similar engagement numbers to MoMA. Posts can garner as few
as thirty or forty reactions or are many as several thousand. Both AMNH and
MoMA have much higher levels on engagement on Instagram, an image-based,
photo-sharing social media platform. American Museum of Natural History does
not match MoMA’s engagement numbers on Instagram, which are consistently in the
thousands, but AMNH does achieve a consistently high level of engagement for
its Instagram posts. Each of AMNH’s Instagram posts receives several hundred or
several thousand likes.
The
fact that Instagram is so popular for museum audiences shows that users like
the format of viewing the image first and getting the information second. The
image catches the eye, and the user is drawn in to read more about the picture
they are seeing. MoMA is most likely getting such a significant response from
Instagram users because MoMA posts aesthetically interesting, colorful, high
quality pictures. American Museum of Natural History’s Instagram posts are also
eye-catching, and colorful pictures of subjects like dinosaurs, butterflies,
and gems are doing a good job of attracting users. The museum is doing a good
job of including these pictures on all of its social media pages.
While
the American Museum of Natural History is using social media to disseminate
knowledge by posting facts about natural history and videos of speakers, it
could be doing more to engage its audience. While AMNH does modify posts
slightly for each social media platform, the museum posts the same news and
information on each site, using the same pictures. Kristina Fong writes: “Form
follows function. I think one of the worst things you could do is sync your tweets/Tumblr/Facebook
accounts” (Fong, 2013). The AMNH’s use of crossposting means that social
media-savvy audience members who follow the museum on Facebook, Twitter,
Tumblr, and Instagram are seeing the same posts on each account, which could be
boring for the user. Similarly, if a user likes a post on Instagram, they are
not going to like the same post on Facebook and Twitter, which could easily be
driving down engagement numbers for the museum. The museum should work on
posting information differently on each site, to keep the interest of its
users. The museum also uses very scientific vocabulary in its posts. Although
it is necessary for the museum to use the appropriate scientific vocabulary,
long, complicated names of plants and animals probably do not hold much meaning
for the average user. Kristina Fong notes that “[s]ocial media managers fall
between marketing & education & interpretation & editors” (Fong,
2013). The museum is meeting its mission by posting educational information
about the natural world, but the museum is not doing enough interpretation on its
social media pages. The museum should work to create more context in its posts
so that the user can get more out of even a short tweet or Facebook post.
Overall, the museum appears to be successfully using social media to achieve its
mission of disseminating knowledge and educating its audience. The museum
should improve upon its use of social media by generating more engagement among
users.
As
a public library serving “2.3 million people from 62 locations” (Queens
Library, 2016). Queens Library has the opportunity to use social media to connect
patrons to the library, and bring patrons into its many branches. The Queens
Library mission is “to provide quality services, resources, and lifelong
learning opportunities through books and a variety of other formats to meet the
informational, educational, cultural, and recreational needs and interests of
its diverse and changing population” (Queens Library, 2016). The library’s
social media contributes to this mission by allowing the library to communicate
with its audience about the services, resources, books, and other media that is
available through the library system. The library uses a variety of social
media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube,
LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, and Tumblr. Queens Library does have a social
media policy on its website. The policy states:
Queens Library offers blogs, ratings,
reviews, comments, and other social software tools for educational, cultural,
and recreational purposes. Library social software tools provide a limited (or
designated) public forum to facilitate the sharing of ideas, opinions, and
information about library-related subjects and issues. Library social software
is intended to create a welcoming and inviting online space where library users
will find useful and entertaining information and can interact with library
staff and other library users (Queens Library, 2016).
The policy also
defines what the library constitutes as social software, and contains “Rules
for Commenting and Posting” for its users. The policy does not seem to include
any guidelines for the staff members moderating the social media sites; perhaps
there is an internal policy that staff members use.
The
library's use of Facebook, with 25,847 followers for the Queens Library’s page,
contributes to the library’s mission with posts about events, new books and
music, and information about services. Although it provides other media besides
books, Queens Library social media seems to focus on advertising the library’s
new books, and sometimes music. Despite the library’s large audience,
engagement is very low on its Facebook page, with posts often getting under ten
reactions, and often only one or two likes or shares. Engagement is also very
low on the library’s Twitter page; while the library has 13,600 followers,
tweets often have no responses from the audience. Like other institutions,
Queens Library has higher levels of engagement on its Instagram. Even though
its Instagram page has only 2,341 followers, many posts get at least 20 likes.
On Instagram, the library posts pictures of events and new books, as well as
quotes from popular authors. These quotes contribute to the educational part of
the library’s mission. It is difficult to compare the library’s social media
activity with the activity of an institution like MoMA. MoMA has an
international following, while Queens Library’s online audience is most likely
comprised of local patrons who use the library’s branches. MoMA and Queens
Library also disseminate different kinds of information; while MoMA’s posts
focus on events about visual art and artists, Queens Library advertises
community services and programs. Although Queens Library is actively using
social media, its low engagement numbers show the library could be doing more
with its social media pages.
While
the library does not have the online following of an institution like MoMA,
there are ways that Queens Library could improve its social media efforts to
encourage more engagement. Kasia Grabowska writes on the blog Tame the Web: “A
library website should be an entry point to social media; you need to create
awareness” (Grabowska, 2010). Although links to social media are present on the
Queens Library website, the links are not visible to the user. The Queens
Library website is very engaging, and the library could use it more effectively
to direct users to social media. Grabowska also writes on using social media:
“Be helpful, stay relevant, and focus on your community’s needs” (Grabowska,
2010). The library could do much more active posting on community news and
events, such as news from individual branch libraries. The library has a huge
amount of programming and services, but most of these programs and services are
not advertised on social media. The library could start by doing more posts on
each day’s events and programs, even programs that happen weekly. The library
could also consider using languages other than English to make its social media
more relevant to its community. The Queens Library audience is multilingual,
and on the website users have the option to translate pages into different
languages. However, all of the library’s social media posts are in English.
Multilingual posting could potentially be confusing for users, but it could
also engage users who speak English as a second language. While the library is
on the right track by posting about new acquisitions and events, it could be
using social media to engage with the community and announce programs and
services the community can use and enjoy.
American Museum
of Natural History. Mission statement. Retrieved from http://www.amnh.org/about-the-museum/mission-statement
American Museum
of Natural History. Social media. Retrieved
from http://www.amnh.org/social-media
Fong, K. (2013,
April 4). On Social Media as a Job (at a Museum). Retrieved from http://goshkristina.tumblr.com/post/47113948750/on-social-media-as-a-job-at-a-museum
Grabowska, K.
(2010, March 18). Social Media Best Practices for Libraries: A TTW Guest Post. Retrieved
from http://tametheweb.com/2010/03/18/social-media-best-practices-for-libraries/
Padilla-Meléndez,
A. and del Águila-Obra, A.R. (2013). Web and social media usage by museums:
online value creation. International
Journal of Information Management 33(5),
892-898. doi: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2013.07.004
Queens Library.
(2016). About us. Retrieved from http://www.queenslibrary.org/about-us
Queens Library.
(2016). Mission statement. Retrieved from
Queens Library.
(2016). Social media policy. Retrieved
from https://www.queenslibrary.org/about-us/social-media
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