41 Ways Museums Are Merging Social and Tech to Engage Audiences

In preparation for the IMLS webinar series- Connecting to Collections- I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite ways that museums are merging social and tech to engage audiences. Part of the series, Using Social Media to Tell Your Collection’s Stories,  will take place from 2:00pm to 3:30 pm EDT on Thursday, October 28th, 2010. I’m pleased to be serving as commentator, and working with presenter Nancie Ravenel (@NancieRavenel) of the Shelburne Museum. This series is free and you can register here to learn more about how museums are utilizing social and technological elements of communication to engage audiences and stay ahead of the curve.

Technology is a powerful tool for cultivating community, and the merging of social and tech in museums is occurring more and more frequently. Here are my 41 favorite examples of museums building social capital through social media and technological endeavours.

Let’s start with some museums that are making the most of social media and online community engagement’s most powerful and basic building blocks:

1. Twitter. Are you following The Women’s Museum on Twitter yet (@TheWomensMuseum)? This is just one museum. There are over 871 museums on twitter.

2. Facebook. The California Science Center gets visitors involved by featuring a Fan Photo Of the Week on their Facebook page. Simple, yet effective.

3. YouTube. The Renaissance Society has its own YouTube Channel that allows folks to access gallery talks and events after they’ve happened. In fact, a lot of museums have YouTube channels.

4. Flickr. Which museums are using Flickr as a valuable photo sharing resource and a way to communicate with visitors? Here’s a taste.

5. Website. Have you noticed how many of the nation’s most visited museums feature social media information above the fold on their homepage?

6. Social Media Pages. The Art Institute of Chicago has a whole page devoted to social media and interactivity. So do many other museums, like the Smithsonian (well, they have many pages….)

7. Blogging. A crew of professional sailors teamed up with Pacific Science Center educators to sail Around the Americas. Good thing they’re so social; they used a blog to take us along for the ride.

8. Mobile Applications. The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis hosts Art on Call, which allows you to listen to tours on your cell phone. A lot of other museums offer this feature. MoMA was ahead of the curve when they created a mobile app for audio tours in 2008. They’ve recently revamped the app.

9. Foursquare. Become the Foursquare Mayor of the Vancouver Police Museum, and you and a guest receive free admission AND a 25% discount in the gift shop.

10. Virtual Conferences. The American Association for State and Local History made their annual conference accessible to folks who could not get to Oklahoma City this September by putting some of their best (in my humble opinion) conferences online in an interactive format.

Museums are taking interaction even further and building upon Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, mobile applications and web-based platforms. Check out these initiatives, competitions, and downright cool ideas (in no particular order):

11. Looking for a short-cut to becoming a museum-displayed photographer? The Denver Art Museum gives community members prime gallery realty by featuring a Flickr Cascade Installation that displays photos of the museum taken by Flickr users. Even cooler? They give proper attribution to each photographer.

12. Mixing social and tech isn’t just for older folks. The Walters Art Museum gets families talking by highlighting an interactive game featuring their lovable mascot: Waltee’s Quest: The Case of the Lost Art.

13. Please just visit the Adobe Museum of Digital Media. No need to take off your PJs or put your shoes on.

14. This list would be silly if it didn’t include the Museum of Science and Industry’s Month at the Museum. Out of 1,500 applicants, Kate has been chosen by project judges and the public to spend a full month living in the museum.

15. Now this is super sneaky. Three cheers to the International Spy Museum for creating themed geocaching adventures with a fun twist.

16. The Contemporary Jewish Museum melds art, technology, and Judaism through their new LINK initiative which bringing in monthly speakers to explore the intersection of Judaism and new technologies. I love this post about Jaron Lanier’s talk.

17. I could go on forever about how the rock stars at the Brooklyn Museum engage audiences through social media. But I’ll just give you this example. Oh! And 1stFans must be included. Okay. Done.

18. Combining Twitter and Flickr to engage visitors in science education? It’s no problem for the Museum of Life and Science in North Carolina. They created NameThatZoom- an interactive game moderated by the museum in which folks are shown flickr photos and challenged to identify those photo via twitter using the #namethatzoom hashtag.

19. Remember playing capture the flag as a kid? Try playing it as an alternate reality game at… (are you ready?)… The Smithsonian American Art Museum.

20. Meet SCREENtxt, a real-time live text messaging and photo streaming location-based social network created by The Mattress Factory and updated/created by museum visitors. Get confused there? Their blog helps explain. Oh, and I cannot forget The Mattress Factory’s iConfess!

21. Did you know that on September 1, 2010 over 340 museums took part in Ask a Curator Day on twitter and #askacurator became a trending topic?

22. If you’re a tech tinkerer, you can’t really beat tinkering at the Maker Faire in Detroit at The Henry Ford- the birthplace and showplace of one of the world’s most famous tinkerers.

23. Like to babble about art (or rather, babble about cool videos about art)? A lot of us do. And we do that on ArtBabble, thanks to these museums.

24. The planned hijack of LACMA’s twitter account by The Office star, Rainn Wilson, could easily have been called “Operation: Who’s stuffy? Not This Art Museum.”

25. When art museum directors at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art talk trash regarding the Superbowl, everybody wins.

26. The Skirball Cultural Center’s lovely Build a Better World Project encourages you to share how you are making the world a better place via Facebook, and hopes you’ll pass the message along using small decorated tokens as powerful community symbols.

27. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History tapped into talent by conducting a YouTube competition (O Say Can You Sing) featuring folks signing the National Anthem.  The winner (out of over 800 entries) got to sing the anthem at the museum and at the Baltimore Orioles vs. Atlanta Braves game on Flag Day. Check out the winners contest entry below:

28. Want to see something cool? Try making The Getty’s Augsburg Display Cabinet and experience augmented reality at it’s best. As it is, this project may be high on the tech and low on the social aspect. But trust me, you’ll want to show a friend.

29. If it weren’t for twitter and YouTube, so many folks wouldn’t know about “Those About to Die, We Salute You,” the downright awesome staged battle featuring warriors represented by The Queens Museum of Art (the hosts), Brooklyn Museum, The Bronx Museum, and El Museo del Barrio.

An image from the battle. Click for more photos and video.

30. This is the public wiki for the Smithsonian’s Web and New Media strategy process. Prepare to learn.

31. Folks at The Autry created Trading Post, a site to facilitate conversation between the museum and its visitors regarding current events.

32. One of the most powerful and important jobs of museums is storytelling. Please check out Culture Shock, a site full of digital stories by people in the North East of England.

AMNH's new application allows you to share museum findings on social media.

33. The Australian Center for the Moving Image has created Generator, a “creative studio space for teachers and students to explore exemplary work by their peers and industry professionals. Comment, tag, and share creative work and education resources.”

34. The Auckland Museum’s Hybridiser is an interactive kiosk where visitors can create their own orchards and then share them with folks in their social networks.

35. The American Museum of Natural History’s new mobile application, Explorer, has many highlights. My favorite? It allows you to easily share finds in the museum with your own networks on Facebook or Twitter.

36. Open Museum is like “Facebook meets Blogger and Flickr for the visual arts.”

37. Could you inspire America in six words or less? The National Constitution Center asked folks to aid Barack Obama in their project, Address America.

38. We’ve covered that there are over 871 museums on twitter… but I don’t think I mentioned that museum artifacts are hitting the social media space, too– and making folks laugh in the process.

39. Follow treasure maps, decipher codes, uncover hidden objects- The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s multimedia scavenger hunt, Ghosts of a Chance, is downright cool.

40. The Guggenheim says YouTube videos may be art. In fact, they took the time to go through 23,000 video submissions to create a short list of videos to be featured in the museum.

41. The Virtual Museum of Canada allows visitors to create their own museum and point members of their online networks to the collection.

Do you know of a cool way that a museum is merging social and tech that you think belongs on this list? Please feel free to comment with additions below. Please feel free to provide links!

* Photo credits: Top image from www.ieplexus.com/blog/

Posted on by colleendilen in Community Engagement, Digital Connectivity, Nonprofit Marketing, Trends 13 Comments

About the author

colleendilen

MPA. Chief Market Engagement Officer at IMPACTS Research & Development. Nonprofit marketer, Generation Y museum, zoo & aquarium writer/speaker, web engagement geek, data nerd, marathoner, nomad, herbivore

13 Responses to 41 Ways Museums Are Merging Social and Tech to Engage Audiences

  1. Nancie Ravenel

    Hi Colleen.

    Great list! I’d love to add Voices for the Lake http://voicesforthelake.org, a project of the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center in Burlington, Vermont. On-site and virtual museum visitors are invited to share their their thoughts and experiences of water and stewardship of Lake Champlain in whatever format they feel most comfortable – photos, video, audio or written prose.

    I’m really excited about what you’ll contribute to the conversation about using social media to raise awareness of collections and the need to care for them.

     
    • colleendilen

      Thanks, Nancie! I think Voices for the Lake is a great addition to this list!

       
  2. Jenna Peterson

    I’ve reblogged your post to my Tumblr (again). You do amazing work, and I always enjoy reading your posts. Do you have specific places you go to get information on social media? Keep up the good work!

     
    • colleendilen

      Hi Jenna, Thanks so much for reblogging and for your comments on Know Your Own Bone. Yes! I get most of my information from museum contacts and my incredible network on Twitter. I like to follow a lot of museum folks who are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their museums. Those kinds of people are great at sharing their ideas and inspiration. This article highlights some of my favorite (and generally well-known) initiatives– but museums are doing a whole lot more than this and really testing the waters.

      Thanks again for your kind comment!

       
  3. Adrianne Russell

    Awesome post! I have to add a not-so-shameless plug for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s new Mobile Guide which allows you to interact with over 200 works of art in the permanent collection via smartphone. Due to its web-based platform, it is accessible from virtually anywhere. If you’re onsite and don’t have a smartphone, you can check out an iPod Touch from the Info Desk for free.

    http://www.nelson-atkins.org/education/Tours_Audio.cfm
    http://www.nelson-atkins.org/desktopguide/

     
    • colleendilen

      Awesome! Plug or not- this is a great example to share. Thanks, Adrianne!

       
  4. Michael Müller

    Thanks Colleen for this amazing collection of great examples!
    I found Scapes, a smartphone based sound installation by Helsey Burgund at the deCordova Sculpture Park, very impressing. See the video presentation:
    http://vimeo.com/15058020 (and my post about the project: http://blog.culture-to-go.com/; German)

     
    • colleendilen

      This is a great addition to the list. Thanks so much for sharing it!

       
  5. Dave Charest

    Colleen, what a great resource. Thank you for putting this together.

     
  6. Pingback: DC Museums: Five Best in New Media « DC Museumgoer

  7. Terry Boyd

    revisiting this post. Again…thanks for the list!

     
  8. Shannon Perich

    The National Museum of American History is in the midst of a collaborative project with photographer Robert Weingarten and the public. The public first voted on a historic figure (through the NMAH blog). Then after the figure was selected they told us what made that person significant. A Museum curator provided the historical record about the figure to compare and contrast what the public contributed. The photographer photographed artifacts from the collection related to the subject. He is now in the midst of producing a historical portrait of Celia Cruz that will then go on view in the fall.
    http://blog.americanhistory.si.edu/osaycanyousee/weingarten/

    This project spun out of desire to help bring the public into the process of how Weingarten made his photographs (digital composites) that are on currently on view .
    http://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/exhibition.cfm?key=38&exkey=1806

    The initial voting in which the public had to select one of five figures, raised the questions that museums wrestle with such as how do pick who and what stories and artifacts to display? Why? What kinds of histories do we tell?

     
    • colleendilen

      Wow, Shannon. Thank you very much for sharing this here! Hopefully this is something that I may contact you about for more information when it is complete? This looks like an interesting and very valuable case study. I look forward to watching this initiative play out!

       

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