Tweeting Moles? Social Media from the Grant Museum

Mark Carnall Curator Grant Museum of Zoology UCL

UKRG Professional Development 12th February 2014

All images © Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL unless otherwise stated

Museums and the adoption of technologies

Early adopters

Technophiles Media savvy

Guardian

Politicians

Middle classes

Young people

Academics

MA start charging 150 quid for training courses

Museums

Marketing industry suck the soul out of it,

Libraries

Changing landscape- Think about the field you are in- managers aren’t consumers.

Social Media- Formats

• Twitter- Transitory, irreverant(?), topical• Facebook- Badges and postcards• Blogs- Long form, ‘publication’, CV(?)• Flickr, Youtube & others- Hosting tool

Trailing, Legacy and B-roll content

Advantages

© Will and Mike Tuck

‘New Audiences’

Advantages

• People who can’t visit the museum.• People who won’t visit the museum.• People who should visit the museum.• A way of discovering a museum through

social networks• People who don’t see every activity you

do.• Technophiles.

adoption Africa archaeology Asia Australian fieldwork behind the scenes conservation day in the life detective work event topics exhibition exhibitions Extinction Fish Flinders Petrie from the stores I found this... in the field in the news Invertebrate Mammal Marine Marsupials Micrarium museums Natural History Museum object based teaching Outreach Petrie Petrie Museum pop culture public engagement QRator Reviews science shark Slade School of Fine Art South America Specimen of the week Tasmania Thylacine UCL Art Museum Underwhelming fossi

Reactivity + Range

Advantages

adoption Africa archaeology Asia Australian fieldwork behind the scenes conservation day in the life detective work event topics

exhibition exhibitions Extinction Fish Flinders Petrie from the stores I found this... in the field in the news Invertebrate Mammal Marine Marsupials Micrarium museums Natural History Museum

object based teaching Outreach Petrie Petrie Museum pop culture public engagement QRator Reviews science shark Slade School of Fine Art South America Specimen of the week Tasmania Thylacine UCL

Art Museum Underwhelming fossil fish of the month upcoming exhibitions Western Australia

Collections

Museums

Issues?

Advantages

Source: www.ucl.ac.uk

Promotion and Advocacy

Institutional Hazards

• What does your centre/department/university think of social media?

• Is there a format you should adopt?• Make sure you get crediting right.• What kind of voice will you use?• Are there other restrictions- personal information,

images.• Minefield topics• Moderation

Disadvantages

Frequency is King

Disadvantages

Disadvantages

Disadvantages

Statistical bulletin: Internet Access Quarterly Update, Q4 2012Office for National Statistics

Who is the audience?

Disadvantages

The Museum Niche?

Museum Twitter

• British Library 536k• NHM- 482k• V&A- 346k• Science museum- 324k• BM- 264k• MoL- 46.2k

Other

• OMG Facts 6M• NASA 5.8M• Weird Al Yankovic 3.2M• Dolly Parton 2.9M• Philip Schofield 2.7M• Fat Amy 2.2M

Broadcasting

• Which channels should be direct marketing?• Engagement & broadcasting?• Authoritative voice• Social media for social media’s sake• Your opinion?• Humour- It’s only museums..

Accessibility

• Putting stuff online = accessible to everybody

Disadvantages

• Content in English• Requires a plugin• 43 clicks to get to content• Do you want to ‘reach’ everyone?

Treat your online audience as if you would any other ones of your audiences! OBVS.

Feedback

• Tweeting moles

Benefits

• Column in New Scientist.• National press coverage for smaller exhibitions.• Museums and Heritage Awards!• Wikipedians will link content to wikipedia.• Use of ‘unusable’ collections.• Events like today.

Mark Carnall

• UCL Museums blog: http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/

• Grant Museum Twitter: @GrantMuseum• Me: @mark_carnall• Email: mark.carnall@ucl.ac.uk