Social media strategies of
Thomas
Crane Public Library and
SMK (Statens Museum for Kunst, the National Gallery of
Denmark)
Cultural heritage institutions, like other organizations
seeking to remain relevant in today’s digital culture, have created profiles on
social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Some
CHI organizations use their social media profiles as nothing more than
electronic bulletin boards, announcing events and promoting content. Others
think critically about the affordances of social media, and experiment with
tools in order to engage their audience in new ways. Likewise, social media
policies range from conservative risk-management strategies to thoughtful, innovative
experimentation. I purposefully chose a library and a museum whose social media
activities and policies lie at opposite ends of this spectrum.
Thomas
Crane Public Library, Quincy MA
The Thomas Crane Public Library (TCPL) is the library
system of Quincy Massachusetts, a city with a population of approximately
90,000. The system includes the main library, which opened in 1882, and three
smaller branch locations. The TCPL system’s collection is now the second
largest in the state. The mission of TCPL is to be “a comfortable and welcoming
place to visit, where
young children can discover the joy of reading, and people of all ages can
satisfy their curiosity, stimulate their imagination, and connect to the online
world”.[1]
TCPL is active on several social media platforms, but
restricts itself to a “one to many” broadcasting model, missing opportunities
to dialogue with its community.
Counting
“likes” and “followers” is a common way to measure how well an organization is
reaching an audience; looking at TCPL we see they have 1,788 likes on Facebook,
775 Twitter followers, 27 Flickr followers (where TCPL has posted 1,585 photos),
and 423 followers of their 29 Pinterest boards. On these platforms and on blogs,
TCPL staff post announcements about events, share staff picks and book reviews,
and promote digital resources.
Using social
media to disseminate information about library resources and programing, TCPL
does help its community to “discover the joy of reading” and “satisfy their
curiosity”. There is some consistency between the language of mission and the
ways in which the library is deploying social media tools. But the spirit of a
“comforting and welcoming place” is not reflected in their use of social media.
Communication back from library users is not encouraged, a sense of community
space is not developed. As Johnson and Burclaff point out, “users look to
social media to represent the organizations with which they interact, it is
critical that libraries reconsider how and why they engage in social media…it
should be done based on active reflection of the library’s mission and culture.
[2]
TCLP uses Facebook to disseminate information.
The
Pinterest board “What Are You Reading?” comes closest to inviting
participation, allowing libraries, librarians, authors and publishers to pin
book covers. But unlike Mesa Public Library’s board “Got Great Books?!”, for
example, TCPL’s board does not allow patrons to participate. It’s an
interesting paradox that although TCPL’s mission includes helping patrons
“connect to the online world”, the chance of a patron connecting in any
meaningful way to each other or to library staff is strictly discouraged by
their social media policy.
Rules for TCPL's What Are You Reading? Pinterest board do not allow individual users to share.
TCPL’s
social media policy[3]
reveals deep unease about allowing public users to engage with the library, or
to have a voice at all, in online spaces. It begins with a definition of social
media and goes on to list general provisions and rules relevant to specific
platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Language is included to restrict the
library’s online participation on each of these platforms with library
organizations only; TCPL profiles will only follow, join or like other library
groups, and not “individual users.” The policy functions primarily to put legal
safeguards in place and to manage risk of harm to the organization’s
reputation. As Cadell warns, “social media policies do not just combat the predicted or
unpredicted hazards, they also enforce brands”[4], and it would be useful
for TCPL to consider whether their social media policy communicates a brand in
keeping with the mission of the library.
Statens Museum for Kunst
(SMK), Copenhagen Denmark
The National Gallery of Denmark, locally called Statens Museum for Kunst
(SMK), is an exciting example of a CHI organization using social media in truly
interactive ways. Established in 1896, SMK is the largest government funded
organization in Copenhagen and hosts about 400k visitors per year. Its
collections cover 700 years of European art, the oldest of which came from
Danish royal collections.
SMK doesn’t have a specific document called a
mission statement, but says simply on its “Who We Are” page, “We want to
contribute to redefine the museum as an institution and to help promote a
creative and reflective society.”[5] A social media policy is
not available on the museum’s website either, but in a paper presented at
Museums and the Web 2015[6], Jonas Heide Smith
describes how staff moved from a conservative approach to a more creative,
experimental way of engaging with their audience. Initially, their digital
presence consisted of their website (the main information source) and also
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles. Staff used these platforms to share
event information and images from the collections.
Starting in
August 2014, the museum began to experiment. They encouraged staff to SMK
content on their own personal profiles, to offer online voices less formal than
the official SMK profiles. Instead of only static images from the collection,
dynamic images from in-progress events were posted. As Heide Smith explains,
“With individual staff members or departments tweeting more idiosyncratically,
the combined image of the museum ideally becomes one of both professionalism
and personal enthusiasm.” [7]
This idea is underlined by Cadell’s research, where participants felt strongly
about tone and voice in social media: “having an authentic voice is integral to not only using social media, but also in
enabling engagement.”[8]
The digital communications
team rolled out a series of initiatives designed expressly to encourage “guest
sharing”. “Instawalks” were modeled on the highly popular #emptymet project, in
which invited guests take and post photos at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
while it is closed to the general public. SMK Instawalks bring small groups of
guests to tour and photograph the museum before it opens, posting their images
with the hashtag #emptysmk.
Invited guests participate in #emptysmk.
Similar initiatives at SMK include #eckersgram[9], which celebrated a C.W.
Eckersberg exhibit by challenging users to take and share photos geared toward
4 themes highlighted in Eckersberg’s work. These user photos were then
displayed in the museum lobby.
Promotional image from SMK website
advertising #Eckersgram challenges.
SMK’s use
of social media is clearly aligned with their desires to “redefine the museum”
and “promote a creative and reflective
society”. Instead of shying away from potential negative, inappropriate or
irrelevant content that users could contribute if allowed, SMK actively invites
its audience to create and share content. In his paper, Heide Smith develops a
model portraying three social media strategies: Me (official/formal profiles),
Us (informal staff profiles) and Them (guest profiles). He lays out the pros
and cons of each strategy and the organizational conditions most suited to each.
This valuable model offers a nuanced mapping of the conservative vs. innovative
continuum with which I started this essay. Ideally, CHI organizations could
take pieces from each strategy and design a thoughtful social media approach
that supports their mission.
[2] Johnson, Catherine & Burclaff,
Natalie. “Making Social Media Meaningful: Connecting Missions and Policies.”
ACRL 2013.
[3] http://thomascranelibrary.org/sites/default/files/Social%20Media%20Policy.pdf
[4] Cadell, Louise. “Socially practical or practically unsociable? A study into social
media
policy
experiences in Queensland cultural heritage institutions.” Australian and Academic Research Libraries 44, no. 1 (2013): 3-13
[6] Smith, Jonas Heide. “The Me/Us/Them
model: Prioritizing museum social-media efforts for maximum reach.” MW2015: Museums and the Web 2015. Published January 31, 2015. Retrieved April 4,
2016. http://mw2015.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/the-meusthem-model-prioritizing-museum-social-media-efforts-for-maximum-reach/
[7] Smith, Jonas Heide. “The Me/Us/Them
model: Prioritizing museum social-media efforts for maximum reach.” MW2015: Museums and the Web 2015. Published January 31, 2015. Retrieved April 4,
2016. http://mw2015.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/the-meusthem-model-prioritizing-museum-social-media-efforts-for-maximum-reach/
[8] Cadell, Louise. “Socially practical or practically unsociable? A study into social
media
policy
experiences in Queensland cultural heritage institutions.” Australian and Academic Research Libraries 44, no. 1 (2013): 3-13
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