A general discussion of Social Media including how it can benefit museums, agruments against and for access, and an examination of two popular platforms - Twitter and Facebook. Presented at the Arkansas Museums Association annual meeting in 2010.

1. What are you thinking -
right now?

2. Social Media and
Museums I
Presented by
Heather Marie Wells
Collections Assistant/Technology Coordinator
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Springdale, Arkansas

4. Social Media
 What is it?
 What can museums gain from it?
 What are the pitfalls?
 Arguments against access
 Arguments for access
 2 popular platforms

5. What it’s not
 Non-interactive
 Authoritarian
 Press release
 Traditional marketing
 Non-personal
 1 way

6. What is it?
 Social
 Sharing
 Following
 Collaborative
 Communication
 Conversational
 Community building
 Personal
 2 way
 FUN

7. What’s in it for Us?!
 Free & easy
 Potential global audience
 New audience (demographics)
 Live news
 Reviews & testimonials
 Connect to experts, colleagues, vendors
 Monitoring your reputation
 Allows for engagement in community
 Making patrons more informed
 Making you more accessible

8. Where does it go wrong?
 When you try to force it
 Over-engagement
 Posting too much
 One on one involvement
 Spammers
 Phishing
 Hackers
 Trolls

9. Arguments Against Access
 Privacy - what if the employees talk about
us?
 Productivity - A 2009 Nucleus Research Inc.
showed that companies who allow full
access to Facebook suffer a 1.5% loss in
productivity.
 Network Security - We’ll get more bugs,
viruses, and hackers.

10. Arguments For Access
 You can create a social networking policy to
address concerns.
 University of Melborne study shows 9% increase
in productivity for those allowed to use social
media for personal use; imagine increase if they
were allowed to use it to gather information for
their work responsibilities.
 Security risks are no greater than when email
was first developed. Policies, education, and
following platform guidelines curtail most attacks.

11. Choosing Platforms
 What are your goals?
 Who are you trying to engage?
 Demographics
 How big a group
 Who is going to maintain the project?
 What do you want to say?
 How much time do you have?
 Policies regarding third party services

12. 2 Popular Platforms
 Twitter
 Networking & mini-blogging service
 140 characters; 2 sentences
 Twitter is to blogging what instant messaging it to
email.
 Facebook
 Social networking
 Share photos, videos, posts, blogs and play
games; friends can comments
 A website all about you; you control who sees it

13. Twitter.com
 Create an account
 Tweetbeep
 Tweetlater
 Bit.ly

14. Twitter Tips
 Create an account
 Try to use a short user name
 Include a photo so you don’t look like a newbie or
spammer
 Customize background
 Lock or not
 Use your manners
 Thank people for following
 Thank people for retweeting
 Talk directly to users
 It’s ok to just follow for a while

15. Twitter Tips
 Terms
 Tweet – a post on Twitter
 @username – used when you want to send a user a
public message or refer to a fellow user
 Retweet (RT) – reposting someone else’s tweet
 DM – private message to a user, but to send that user
a message they have to be following you
 Tweetup – when users meet in-person for a gathering
 Fail Whale – when Twitter is down
 #topic – a way to categorize and label messages, it
also aids in searching

16. Twitter Tips
 Writing for Twitter
 Use abbreviations
 Use numbers instead of the words
 Omit common words (I, we, to be) & punctuation
 Use + b/c & adds extra hidden characters
 Remember classic shorthand
 Add yourself to Twitter directories
 Participant in routine Twitter conversations
 Music Monday
 Follow Friday

17. Twitter Tips
 Who to Follow
 Follow 40-100 for a few weeks to see what works for
you
 Smart people you may not know
 Peers + thought leaders in areas you are interested
in
 Local entertainment reporters
 Chamber of Commerce
 Other non-profits + entertainment groups
 Tourism organizations

18. Twitter Tips
 What to Search For
 Your name, user name, museum name
 Your city
 Your topic (house museum, history, science, etc)
 Your annual events (your brand or product)
 Common Hastags
 #FollowFriday, #FF
 #479 [search for your specific zip code]
 #conference [where you type initials for conference
#AMA2010]

19. Twitter Tips
 What to Post
 Behind-the-scenes info
 Things visitors say
 Ask questions
 What staff or volunteers are doing right then
 Something from the viewpoint of an artifact
 Historical anniversary
 Diary entries
 The good and the bad
 Responses to others & Retweets
 Contests
 Announcements & Updates

20. Twitter Tips
 Identify Spammers (then block them)
 They follow excessive amounts of people
 Few people are following them
 Few posts
 Little bio + no photo
 Lots of links in their posts
 Content of posts (ads or worse)
 Nature of photo
 Check your followers list don’t just go by email
notices

21. Twitter Services
 Tweetbeep
 Tweetlater
 Bit.ly

25. Catch Your Breath

26. Facebook
 Learn the difference between profiles,
groups, and pages
 Create a profile (if you don’t have one)
 Create a group
 Create a page

27. Facebook: Profiles
 For people; not organizations, businesses,
bands, or pets
 Facebook does monitor and will delete
profiles that are not a person
 Someone in your organization must have a
profile in order to create a page or group for
your organization

28. Facebook
Features Pages Groups
Authorized Yes No
Indexed by search engines Yes (more options) Yes (Optional)
Nice URLs Yes No
Hosting a discussion Yes Yes
Discussion wall & forum Yes Yes
Add Apps Yes No
Messaging to all members Yes (News Feed) Yes (Messages)
Visitor statistics Yes (Insights) No
Video/photo sharing Yes Yes
Event invitation News Feed Messages
Promotion with social ads Yes No

29. Facebook
 Create a profile
 Create a group
 Create a page

30. Facebook Tips
 Profile
 Never post anything you don’t want the world to
know about you
 You don’t have to maintain the profile associated
with the group or page
 Associated profile can be a “dummy” profile
 Associated profile can be locked

31. Facebook Tips
 Groups
 Can have officers (no more privileges than
members)
 Can have more than 1 admin
 Can’t remove creator or older admins
 Customize settings (who can do/post what)
 Decide if group is open, closed, or secret
 Can promote with ads - check for pricing

32. Facebook Tips
 Pages
 Can have more than 1 admin
 Can’t remove creator or older admins
 Customize settings (who can do/post what)
 Republish blog in notes
 Use free badges to promote
 Can promote with ads - check for pricing
 Add apps

33. Catch Your Breath

34. Thank You for Coming!
Heather Marie Wells
Collections Assistant and Technology Coordinator
hmwells@springdalear.gov
http:www.springdalear.gov/shiloh
479-750-8165
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Springdale, Arkansas