Sun, sangria and social media: Communicating the Museum 2009

Date: Wednesday 24th to Saturday 28th June. Location: the sun-soaked Spanish city of Malaga. Event: four days of workshops, keynote speeches, case studies and seriously good socialising with 154 representatives from the world’s best and most interesting museums, galleries and art spaces. Communicating the Museum 2009, organised by Corinne Estrada from Agenda and Damien Whitmore from The V&A, aimed to show cultural institutions why and how to use social networks to transform their relationships with their visitors – and I was in the thick of it, complete with tinto de verano, sunburned shoulders and a massive cold which almost prevented me from speaking at all.

I squeezed out just enough volume on Thursday lunchtime to join a panel of experts discussing ‘How to Be Performant: Budgets, Content and Resources’ – the measurement and ROI of social media marketing. As the majority of the audience came from cash-strapped and publicly funded institutions, concerns around value and investment were understandable; but it was great to see participants gradually alter their perception of word of mouth as a cheap and trend-led free-for-all, to a skilled and sustained strategy based on quality, not quantity. One marketing head nailed it in a eureka moment: “we’re basically saying do less, but better.”

My keynote speech on ‘Shattering the Museum Monologue: listening to, engaging with and measuring word of mouth as the future of museum advocacy’ wasn’t scheduled until the very end of the conference (by which time the projector was having some major tantrums) but I was delighted that most people not only seemed to stay awake but had some brilliant questions and insights about the 1000heads approach, and our work on the Cold War Modern exhibition with The V&A. For any participants who would like an aide memoire or anyone else interested in getting a glimpse of what I covered, you can download the presentation here.

More importantly, away from the limelight, I learned so much from listening to everyone else across the four days. Unsurprisingly, the big barrier for these publicly funded institutions is internal structure and buy-in, particularly from curators afraid of relinquishing intellectual control over their content. But there is also some amazing work going on out there which is completely focused around giving excellent visitor experiences, backed up by social media technologies. At the blue sky thinking end of the spectrum, I loved the work Shelley Bernstein and Will Cary are doing at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Their 1stFans social media membership scheme is persuading a whole new audience that the museum is an innovative, interactive and social space, by both listening to their needs and engaging in dialogue around their passions using an exclusive Twitter feed as well as a number of other projects using video, blogging, and events in the museum itself. For an example of their genius Twitter collaboration with artist An Xiao, watch below.

For the best impression of how the conference unfolded in real time, and to see how people are digesting the aftermath, check out the #ctm09 hashtag stream on Twitter, where both participants and remote observers have been weighing in with comments and questions. I can’t wait to continue some of the conversations I started in Malaga. It was so evident that these are people who really, really love what they do – and who are eager to find a way to finally give a voice to their visitors who feel the same way.

Brought into the world on Monday, June 29th, 2009 and filed under Uncategorized.