This document provides an overview of Toronto Historic Sites' 2017 social media strategy and a review of successes and opportunities from 2016. Key initiatives for 2017 include a podcast, blog, and cookbook promoting local history. Monthly social media highlights will feature different historic sites. The #MomenTO program will commemorate Canada 150 by sharing historical people, places, and events significant to Toronto and Canada's history. Getting staff involved on social media and creating engaging content like videos, infographics, and contests were successful in 2016. Analytics show growth in followers across platforms from 2015 to 2016.

1. 2017
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
+
2016YearinReview
by Adrianna Prosser
SM Community Manager

2. 2017
TRENDS AND HIGHLIGHTS
#Canada150 Canadian Holidays
#C150TO
#MomentTO (OTD) #TOhistory
#AskACurator #MuseumSelfie
February Black History Month May Museum Month
June Indigenous History Week June Pride Week
Programs + Exhibits + Events

3. NEW INITIATIVES
Toronto Historic Sites PodCast
Historical On This Day content, local history around the
historic site, and recipe commentary
Toronto Historic Sites Blog
Historical Influencers (TO Dreams Project, Historical
Societies, etc...) in the Toronto community share information
as a guest blogger, articles and coverage from our sites.
MomenTO Cookbook
Call to action on social media specifically to share cherished
home recipes that remind people of their time in Toronto
growing up

4. TOHISTORICSITES
MONTHLY HIGHLIGHTS
January - Toronto's History
February - Zion Schoolhouse
March - Market Gallery
April - Todmorden Mills
May - Montgomery's Inn
June - Scarborough
July - Canada 150 (Canada Day)
August - Gibson House
September - Fort York
October - Colborne Lodge
November - Mackenzie House
December - Spadina
Each month a museum
is highlighted on
#MuseumMonday
and
#ThrowbackThursday

5. #MOMENTO
MomenTO is a commemorative program of local and citywide events, exhibits
and experiences that will mark the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation.
Since 1867, Toronto has been the setting for countless moments that have
helped define how we understand Canada, our communities, and ourselves.
MomenTO will present a thematic set of installations, exhibits and events
highlighting the historical people, places and events that are significant to the
history of Toronto and to Canada. A mobile audience engagement activation will
travel around the city to promote Canada 150 and MomenTO, and will
dramatically expand the reach of the program.
­Canada 150 Team Internal Document
#MomenTO
social media hashtag will highlight
historical people, places and events, from
1867 to 2017 that are significant to the
history of Canada and Toronto.
WaybackWednesday
FlashbackFriday
*Pinned Posts*
Major events
Starting in March

6. #MOMENTO EXAMPLES

7. Toronto's HIstory
#TBT
#TBT
#TBT
#TBT
#MuseumMonday
#MuseumMonday
#MuseumMonday
#MuseumMonday
#MuseumMonday
#OTD in Toronto:
1850, Etobicoke is
incorporated as a
township. (1878 Map
from Library of
McGill) #C150TO
www.toronto.ca/cana
da150
FY: Queen Charlotte's
Birthday Ball
Saturday, January 21, 1 to
10 p.m.
MH: Haggis
Workshop
Saturday, January 14,
10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
MH: Robbie Burns'
Day Celebration
Sunday, January
22, 12 to 4 p.m.
SPA: Meet the
Austins: A Toronto
Family Between the
Wars
#FlashBackFriday
#FridayFeeling
#FlashBackFriday
#FridayFeeling
#FlashBackFriday
#FridayFeeling
#FlashBackFriday
#FridayFeeling
TODAY is
#MuseumSelfie Day! Tag
your face in our historic
sites & you could win 1
of 4 Museum Prize
Packs! *Contest closes
Jan 22)
#WaybackWednesday
#WaybackWednesday
#WaybackWednesday
#WaybackWednesday
Canada 150 begins

8. *Black History Month
#MuseumMonday
Zion Schoolhouse
#MuseumMonday
#MuseumMonday
#MuseumMonday
#TBT
#TBT
#TBT
#TBT
#FlashBackFriday
#FridayFeeling
#FlashBackFriday
#FridayFeeling
#FlashBackFriday
#FridayFeeling
#FlashBackFriday
#FridayFeeling
#WaybackWednesday
#WaybackWednesday
#WaybackWednesday
#WaybackWednesday

10. 2016 Examples
What Worked + What We Need To Do in 2017
Inclusion
By constantly talking about the historic
collective as a community and
showcasing them together, we are
underlining the message that Toronto
Historic Sites are a collection of sites
that work together.
Sister Site + Fellow Museums + #TOhistory
+ Our Museums

11. GETTING PERSONAL
By getting in front of the camera and
sharing our staff as experts we tap into
that personal touch that social media
feeds off of.
By making our faces the faces of the
museums we shift the narrative to the
present, along with community
engagement and our message of
interactive history.
I have had great success as "Big Red"
my THS persona who loves history in a
very proud and geeky way. This acts as
a clearance for those who are nerdy
about history to engage with me/THS as
a fellow history fan instead of a
faceless/impersonal account.

12. #AskACurator
A highly visible #hashtag trend among
museums all over the world, participating in
this tag always elevates our engagement
online. This year Gibson House Museum's
social shares were used as an example in a
German blog about the best content for that
tag, one of only 3 examples that was
included with high profile sites such as MoMA.
https://burgposterstein.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/askacurator­
2016­laesst­uns­zu­den­amerikanischen­museen­aufschauen­
ein­rueckblick/

13. INFOGRAPHICS
In­house generated infographics
got a high engagement in shares
and likes on Facebook and Twitter.
It is a great way to show the sites
as a collective and strengthen our
image as a collection of historic
sites under one umbrella as
Toronto Historic Sites.
TRENDS
As much as we can we try to stay on
top of trends such as #PokeMuseum
to be topical and informative to our
followers.

14. VIDEO CONTENT
With video content ahead of all other forms of social shares
(text, photo, GIF), our video content is growing with a
focused effort I started in 2016 to have the sites more
comfortable with video content creation.
With the foundations laid in 2016, I hope 2017 will yield
more casual video content that is timely and coverage
based (as in events and seasonal programs), but also a few
high profile and reusable videos like my highly successful
Rebel Rabble video that Gibson House can reuse each
December on the anniversary of the 1837 Rebellion.

15. Contests
We did a few different contests from
casual/low­barrier "what's your favourite
museum?" to asking questions about Toronto
history to reward our history loving followers
with great ROR (return on relationship)
By creating a low­barrier contest, the prize is
more of a thank you than a reward. We
handed out 25+ museum passes over Twitter
and recieved many thanks in return. The
winners shared their experience on social and
thanks us for all their friends to see. A win­win
for these contests!

16. Internal Community
Management
Weekly updates that focus on trends,
updates, an internal statistics and best
practices have strengthened our
communal tone and focus as a ten
historic site account.
Supporting the sites and answering
questions, or supplying resources (or
finding an alternative), doing site visits
and troubleshooting technology; making
the team a strong and confident face for
THS online is a behind­the­scenes/offline
job as well.

17. PARTNERSHIPS
+
COLLABORATIONS
A great pairing was made in 2016
with Daniel Rotsztain and it was all
because of Twitter.
Through our social media
relationship with Daniel I was able to
reach out and start talks about
creating a THS colouring book
highlighting all the historic sites,
which focuses on inclusion and
collective branding for the
museums.
This collaboration was started in
2016 and will be on tour and exhibit
in 2017.

18. ANALYTICS
G:CULSHARED2016 MARKETINGSocial MediaAnalytics
Looking at the Reach vs. Engagement for our posts we
can determine what content works best for our channels
and listen to what our audience wants from us.
Sept ­Dec 2016
THS Twitter Stats

19. With a dramatic increase
from 2015 to 2016 in
followers (65% on Facebook
and 43% on Twitter,) we
continue to grow from our
2015 refocus to our
engagement at the centre of
our online strategy with 11%
increase on Facebook, 23%
increase on Twitter, 297%
increase on Instagram, and
growth YouTube channels as
we drive more energy to
creating video content.
75
150
225
300
Facebook Twitter Instagram
0
2016 Follower Growth