Final presentation for NYU SCPS class "Social Media Analytics"

1. NYU SCPS
Social Media Analytics
Final Project
Social Media in Museums
The Smithsonian Museum and the Metropolitan
Museum of Art: A Comparison
(September 1 - November 30, 2012)
Team Members: Axel Diewald (@axdcom), Jay Hover (@jmhover),
Alice Northover (@alicenorthover)
Instructor: Rhonda Drake, Rhonda@drakedirect.com

2. Introduction
Both the Smithsonian Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have strong social
media presences.
Caveats:
• We have focused on social media for the Smithsonian Museum only for this report,
as there are numerous divisions of the Smithsonian with separate social media
presences. For example, the National Air & Space Museum.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art is often referred to as "Met Museum" or "the Met",
which often leads to confusion with the Metropolitan Opera House, also referred to
as "Met Opera" and "the Met."
• We are unable to measure several platforms:
– Blogs: Neither museum maintains a central blog, although the Smithsonian has several specialized
ones and the Met has used blogs for special exhibitions.
– Tumblr: Analytics are currently unavailable, but Smithsonian has a regularly updated Tumblr and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art has used Tumblr twice for special exhibitions.
– Flickr: No public metrics are currently available, but both museums have well-maintained presences.

3. Audience: Size
Although prominent international
museums, both the Smithsonian and the
Met account for only a small portion of the
social media chatter for museums as a
whole on the web.
For social mentions of museums: The
Smithsonian mentioned 1/120 times. The
Met mentioned 1/80 according to Social
Mention. (This doesn’t match other data.)

4. Audience: Composition
The majority of social media traffic is from within the
United States, with strong interest from their respective
museum locations. The Smithsonian has a larger female
audience on social media according to Netbase, although
Alexa's demographics for web traffic contradicts this.
Both the Smithsonian and the Met have highly educated
older audiences on the web. They tend to skew female, in
particular the Met.

5. Audience: Themes
The most common themes in
social media chatter are
surrounding museum
locations, exhibitions, and
related tourism terms.

6. Audience: Sentiment
The sentiment for both museums is overwhelmingly positive. Most of the negative
sentiment watch words surround opinions of certain works or how the museum is
organized. The positive opinions greatly outweigh the negative ones.

7. Main Social Media Activity
Both museums are engaged on the same social media channels.
Main accounts
we’re examining:
Institutions
as a whole:

8. Facebook Growth and Engagement
Facebook usage is increasing and both museums gain more fans constantly.
MetMuseum fan engagement on Facebook is about 40x higher.
Best time to post: Met = Sunday ; Smithsonian = Tuesday
Best content to post: Met = pictures ; Smithsonian = links
Met Museum Smithsonian

9. Twitter Growth and Engagement
Both museums gain more followers steadily. @Smithsonian tweets almost twice as
much as @MetMuseum and their retweet rank is much higher.
Best time to post: Met = Wednesday ; Smithsonian = Friday
Level of engagement relative to post: Met = 23.7 impact ; Smithsonian = 24.5
Most engaging content to post: Links for both (most of their tweets are links)

10. Social Influence and Share of Voice
The influence scores (e.g. Klout) of The Smithsonian dominates
both museums are almost similar the overall share of voice on
even though their presence on social blogs, forums, Twitter,
channels and their topics are Facebook, and news, most
different. likely from the proliferation of
Smithsonian affiliates that
amplify existing chatter.
Museums, Julius Caesar, Alexander
Mcqueen, Apps, Vampires, New
York City...
Museums, Education, Science &
Technology, Natural History,
Fenway Park...

11. Influencers
There are no stand-out influencers
for either organization. On
followerwonk, the Smithsonian's
affiliates dominate their influencer list,
while the Met has real people with
lower Klout scores. Bloggers are a
greater source of social media
chatter for both museums.

12. Social Media Usage: Synergy
While the Smithsonian has more pageviews on
average, Met visitors are far more engaged with
longer time on site. This appears to be an extension
of their social dynamic: The Smithsonian is more of
a broadcaster, and the Met is more engaged. Note:
The spike for metmuseum.org was after a major
member of the Met passed away. The majority of
social traffic comes from blogs for both museums,
although SEOprofiler backlinks for both hover
around 55,800+. Pinterest is a notable social driver
of the Met's web traffic, but doesn't even appear in
si.edu's top ten.

13. Conclusion
• The audience for each museum differs according to platforms.
• The museum collections and locations largely determine the social media
chatter around them.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art has a larger audience than the Smithsonian
on visual platforms, which seems to stem from their robust image content.
• The Smithsonian seems to have a broader audience, but less deep
engagement on each channel -- no doubt because of its multiple affiliates
where deeper engagement can occur according to interest.
• The Met is more deeply engaged on channels although has overall less
chatter.