In my interview with Lucy Redoglia, we spoke of all things social, the importance of varied content across social channels, and the need for innovative thinking when museums approach their digital strategy. Ms. Redoglia, the former Social Media Manager for LACMA and a vet of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, spoke eloquently about how lucky she has been to work in museums that value curiosity and embrace the challenge of social media. Of the many insightful words of wisdom that Ms. Redoglia passed on, there were a few standout lessons that I believe will come in handy.
Firstly, not every social platform or activation requires a strategy. Redoglia points out that it is often a fear of failure or a lack of curiosity that drives many museums to reject emerging social platforms. When social networks like Snapchat emerged, it was difficult for many museums to figure out how to engage users without undercutting credibility or isolating its core audience. But it is this informality, Redoglia notes, that can be beneficial to enlivening museum collections and elevate user engagement. See what type of content is successful on a particular platform and if your collection has content that can lend itself well to that structure. Try, fail, and try again in order to see how the public responds.
Secondly, having a multifaceted approach to social media as a whole is essential. One of the biggest mistakes that some museums make is uploading the same content and messaging to all platforms despite different target audiences and user needs. This shows a lack of imagination and discourages engagement.
Last, but not least, don’t feel held back by the size of your museum. Institutions that are large and small all suffer from lack of resources and manpower. Think creatively about how you can maximize what you do have and what story you want to tell. Open your mind to strategic partners, be they influencers or larger companies, or even like-minded museums in order to amplify your message and drive home your mission.
Speaking with Ms. Redoglia really helped me envision more well-rounded and thoughtful activation that can work well with social media influencers and other businesses that share the same vision. Understanding the social media landscape can be overwhelming and daunting, but when you break it down it is all about starting and maintaining a conversation. Much like real life, we speak with different people about a range of subject matter every day in different aspects of our lives. We must apply this same thought process to how we, as museum professionals, wish to engage visitors as they navigate the museum experience both online and off.
Click below to hear the full interview with Lucy as well additional insight on how to effectively run museum social media channels that appeal to a wide ranging audience.
Lucy had some great advice about tailoring content to the respective platforms. On Instagram I have noticed sponsored ad posts that were designed for Facebook, and the functionality is not the same, yet the post does not account for it. I wonder if some of this happens through shared ads (since Facebook & Instagram are one in the same now) and whether there is a way to correct that?
Lucy has some strong advice on how important it is to tailor the content you post on each platform to take advantage of each platform’s strengths, the type of content that does best on each, and format requirements. The Disney partnership with LACMA is very interesting, and I’m curious to hear more about the Buzzfeed and Huffington Post and how they came about – were those efforts funded by PR budgets or led by PR teams, or was the Museum contacted for a partnership as in the Disney example?
Like Liz and Jenna, I like Lucy’s advice for tailoring content to specific social media platforms. This is something I don’t see on some of the accounts I follow and at times causes me to “tune out” and organization’s posts on one platform, assuming I’ve seen the content on another. I also like Lucy’s point about going where your followers are and inspecting the demographics of your followers on each platform to, again, tailor the content as needed.
It was interesting about her comments on making sure you post different content on each of the institutions’ social media platforms and to stagger the postings. And marketing of her content strategy, and developing the social media strategy at The Met. Also, The Met’s Pinterest accounts and how I’m finding more museums are delving into the Pinterest platform. Is there more of the interview somewhere that we can listen to it?
It was good to hear that a lot of the social media planning requires trial and error and testing new software to see what works. I also thought it was interesting that Lucy thought of matching the museum content with the platform that shares that message the best. It would be too easy to try and do everything and not really connect your contact through your audience.
I enjoyed her endorsement of a trial and error strategy when it comes to social media engagement – it seems like many institutions are cautious, so it was refreshing to hear. Thinking about her comments on different audiences on different platforms, tailoring approaches based on user data makes a lot of since. In addition to considering platform functionality and the most appropriate content, strategies for reaching different age ranges or user demographics can be different depending on the platform.
The Beauty and the Beast project sounds so cool, I can’t even imagine how much fun that must have been to curate and work on. I could see an online version of this idea where audiences can look through collections and curate their own visual narratives of familiar stories with the work. I find your conversation about Pinterest really useful and fascinating. It is one of my absolute favorite sites, far above Facebook, Twitter, etc., partly I think because it inspires action in the real world rather than just operating exclusively on the web. I would have loved to hear more about that and how she sees its future in the museum realm!
After just listening to Chris’s interview with Kristin Prestegaard and hearing how they tailor their posts to each social media platform and then hearing this insight from Lucy it really resonates how important this is. We can’t treat each platform as being the same. There are different followers, different users, different platform needs, etc. It seems like a great tactic is to have a strategy that is tailored to the results/data pulled from each platform. This is definitely something to work with as well as staying current on the various platforms that are being used (i.e. Snapchat). I would love to collaborate with Disney! Beauty and the Beast is my favorite! And that sounds like a great project!
It’s so valuable to hear from someone who has experience with social media at both the Met and LACMA. As Lucy explains, there is no lack of good content at museums with such extensive collections and programming, so strategizing about what content will perform well and when is important. As others have mentioned, Lucy’s advice about tailoring content according to each platform’s capability is key. This is something that we have begun to learn at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and collection. I remember about 3 years ago, we were excited to start using Hootsuite which allowed for cross-posting across different platforms. In the past year, we have been more mindful about what to post to which platform.
I love her mention of pinterest a strong visual component for art is crucial for social media. It is important like she mentions to tailor cross platform content to each specific social media.