5 digital habits of highly effective museums

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5 digital habits of highly
effective museums
or: how to make an impact with small budgets and minimal time
January 2019

I’m Mike Ellis.
I’m from thirty8 digital, a small web agency based in Cornwall.
We work with museums, galleries and other content-rich organisations to
help them get the most from the web.
hello

What you should come away with..
• Some practical approaches to digital
marketing on a shoestring
• Examples of best practice from the
sector and beyond
• Downloads n stuff

What is a museum digital
presence actually FOR?

“Marketing is only ever attempting to
meet our objectives through
communication, and our objectives
are wider and more complex than
just selling tickets and driving
attendance at events.”
Adam Koszary

Your Director probably has one
single thing on their minds:
“How can I get more people
through the museum doors?”

You need time (and therefore
at some level, money) to do
digital well.
…therefore you’re going to be
asking your Director for time
(or money) to do this stuff

..so really, everything you do
online is ultimately*
about…
“How can I get more people
through the museum doors?”

*It isn’t just about this. But you
can do cool, interesting,
engaging stuff which has a wider
mission and purpose and still
fulfil your Director’s primary
motivation of bums on seats.
Fundamentally, both are the
same but only if you do them
the right way.

So…what makes
people come to a
museum?

Two paths to the doors
Direct Ambient
“Buy a ticket! This
thing is cool”
“Check out some of
this interesting stuff
we’re doing”
“Looks interesting!”
[adds to mental
model]
“Nice, I’m in
Manchester that day,
I’ll buy one”

Two paths to the doors
Direct
“Buy a ticket! This
thing is cool”
“Nice, I’m in
Manchester that day,
I’ll buy one”
Calendar
Location
Mental Model
What did I think
last time I went?
My mate said this
was good
Ah yeh, those
guysGreat newsletter
I downloaded a
nice desktop
picture
My dad said they
had a great cafe Really friendly
and quick
response on FB
I saw them doing
some cool things
on Twitter
They’re known for
their groovy stuff
I read an interesting
blog post by that
Adam guy

https://www.colleendilen.com

Reputation
“What people say about you is [12.5x] more
important in driving your reputation than
things that you pay to say* about yourself”
https://www.colleendilen.com
*via paid media / advertising /
radio / online etc]

What did I think
last time I went?
My mate said this
was good
Ah yeh, those
guysGreat newsletter
I downloaded a
nice desktop
picture
My dad said they
had a great cafe Really friendly
and quick
response on FB
I saw them doing
some cool things
on Twitter
They’re known for
their groovy stuff
I read an interesting
blog post by that
Adam guy

How do we go about
improving reputation in an
online space?
How about…
INCREDIBLE CONTENT,
INTERESTING OBJECTS,
REAL CONVERSATIONS,
PLAYFULNESS and USER
AT THE CENTRE?

Habit 1: Incredible content

Boring but useful content
• Where is the museum / how do I get there?
• Is it open?
• How much is it?
• Is there a car park?
• Can I get lunch?

Practical stuff: the do’s
• Make things exceptionally obvious,
visually (big buttons or links, high on the
page)
• Avoid institutional words (collection,
exhibition, curator, object)
• Don’t be clever with navigation: use things
like breadcrumbs, short words
• Think in CTA terms: what do you want the
person to do next?

“I just want to
know this, right
away, with zero
effort on my part”

“What is there to do” content
• What’s there?
• Will it keep the kids busy?
• What’s on?

… the do’s
• Make use of obvious, well-known devices:
calendars, lists, big images
• Clear “highlights” for those who don’t have
time to go too deep
• Use the “inverted pyramid”: put easily
digestible stuff at the top, and link through
to deeper stuff underneath

Playful content
• Stories
• Interactives
• Blog posts

Engaging digital is like storytelling:
• ..personal / emotional
• ..sometimes formulaic
• ..social, benefitting from network effects
• ..iterative and flexible

Making a content calendar
• Outlook calendar / Mac Calendar / Google
calendars…. whatever works
• Trello is pretty great
• I like Teamwork (it has Gantt charts..)
• …but recognise that a high % of your
content generation (particularly social)
may well be reactive rather than proactive

“the web offers you the space to publish everything,
and it’s much easier to treat it like a hall closet with
infinite stuffing-space than to impose constraints”
Erin Kissane, The Elements of Content Strategy

Guides
• Writing for the web: http://out.thirty8.co.uk/webwriting
• Editorial / Style guide: http://out.thirty8.co.uk/editorialguide
*available in Feb*
• https://trainingdigital.co.uk

Habit 2: Interesting objects

Objects are the most
powerful and unique
attractors that
museums have

Some old thing
Not really much reason to
look at this, unless you’re a
researcher or a curator
Some other old thing
More of the same
An old thing
We have hundreds of these
No idea why this is here
Hey look, another thing
Oh, never mind
You searched for: A thing

Does this make you happy?

We have
100,000 object
records online!
I’m not interested.
They don’t have
images.
No-one tells me
what these things
are
I want stories

https://www.artic.edu/collection

Do less, better
https://ageofrevolution.org/200-object/artificial-leg-of-earl-of-uxbridge/

Social / sociable objects
“Social objects are the engines of
socially networked experiences, the
content around which conversation
happens..
http://www.participatorymuseum.org/chapter4/
..one of my most reliable social objects is my dog.
When I walk around town with my dog, lots of
people talk to me, or, more precisely, talk through
the dog to me. The dog allows for transference of
attention from person-to-person to person-to-
object-to-person”

Sociable objects online are
those that allow users to
easily interact with them and
with other people.

a sociable object is..
integrated into your main site
http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/collections-stories/world-cultures/ancient-egypt/coffins-and-mummy-masks/

a sociable object is..
one which lets users tell their side of
the story

a sociable object has..
a clear call to action
• print
• download
• share
• save
• see similar
• add to lightbox
• see wikipedia entry
• send to a friend

…and is easy to share or bookmark
Ask:
1) do I want to share this, and
if not - why not?
2) if I did want to share this,
how easy is it to do so?

…but most of all, it’s got
to be “high arousal” in
order for it to be shared
• funny
• sad / depressing
• boosts self-image (“I saw this
first”)
• encourages self expression
(“We think it’s ugly, what about
you?”)
• practical or useful
• visual

https://astreetnearyou.org/
Local engagement

Habit 3: Real conversations

• Social channels allow you to go where the
users are rather than expecting them to
come to you
• Good Social Media isn’t marketing - it
should genuinely allow your users to talk
to you, directly.
• This also gives you an opportunity to find
out what your users really think
• …and act on it!

Not “getting people to our museum
website”, but “getting our content in
front of people”
a web presence
= becoming a part of
people’s lives…

US THEM
US THEM
US THEM
AND HIM
HER
AND THEM
AND HER
HIS MATE
It’s a CONVERSATION, dammit

Do you…
• have clear goals for using social media?
• have the human resources to commit to it?
• have enough quality content to sustain
conversations?
• know which sites are popular with your
users?
• have a website which is prepared for the
attention?

https://www.colleendilen.com/2018/10/24/social-media-platforms-important-organizations-data-update/

Social media interaction
improves reputation.
Reputation improves visitation.
Therefore: social media
interaction improves visitation

Get to know your audience!
Talk to them…
…face to face
…on your website
…via social media
…ask your mum
…ask a focus group
…just talk to them…
Don’t forget research…

Habit 4: Playfulness

“I start with the
assumption that
everyone finds our
stuff boring”

http://wellcomecollection.org/thecollectors
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/explore-the-collection

https://exhibitions.bristolmuseums.org.uk/

“King Philip IV, as you can see, is famous for
being in this painting by Velázquez, and he’s
here today signing autographs - absolutely free”

Habit 5: User at the centre

Several bits to this…
• Thinking like a user
• Being joined-up at a strategic level
• Being coherent with your brand

MUSEUMS AREN’T SPECIAL

Museum object quiz! Which
museum website would you go
to to find more information
about these objects:
Q: Stephenson’s Rocket? A: The Science Museum
Q: The Raft of the Medusa? A: The Louvre
Q: A Pearson “Nife” No.20 A: Durham Mining Museum

Museum object quiz! Which
museum website would you go
to to find more information
about these objects:
Q: Stephenson’s Rocket? A: Google
Q: The Raft of the Medusa? A: Google
Q: A Pearson “Nife” No.20 A: Google

Thinking like a user
…isn’t just about usability on-site, but
thinking like a real person before you even
get there

“on the web, visibility is authority”

your site
is here
1. link! (then link again...)
2. use the <title> tag well
3. use words in <h1> tags
4. use the description metatag
5. have “nice” urls
6. make your site easier to navigate
7. use robots.txt and google site maps
8. content, content, content,
content….!
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in one slide..
out.thirty8.co.uk/seo101
Boring
geeky stuff
Interesting
groovy stuff

Being “joined up”
• Some kind of strategy
• Editorial consistency
• Navigationally useful
• Aligned branding
strategery

Why is this good?
• Design content which serves users
• Joined up = more efficient
• User trust
• Do more with less
• Be better positioned to understand risks
• Makes it easier to say no

where are you now?
where do you
want to be?
how do you know
when you get there?
what should you
change next time?
agile
strategy
out.thirty8.co.uk/digitalstrategy

Joined up content

Joined up across channels

Joined up campaigns

Mailing lists
• Probably the most valuable asset you have
• Write less. Much less.
• Make it visually joined-up
• Do the GDPR stuff
• Use segments

Mailchimp: segmentation

Mailchimp: automation

thanks, that’s it from me
INCREDIBLE CONTENT, INTERESTING
OBJECTS, REAL CONVERSATIONS,
PLAYFULNESS and USER AT THE
CENTRE
Recap:

Invest
in
great
content.

Useful resources
> Google :-)
> marketingformuseums.com
> museumscomputergroup.org.uk
> trainingdigitial.co.uk
> culturehive.co.uk
> Arts Marketing Association www.a-m-a.co.uk
> Guardian Culture Professionals
http://guardian.co.uk/culture-professionals-network/
Twitter (lists)
People.

> web: http://thirty8.co.uk
> email: mike@thirty8.co.uk
> @m1ke_ellis
feel free to get in touch..

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