I have now been in the ranks of the twittering masses for just over two months. These are my observations of successful (and not so successful) twitter usage by museums (and related people and organizations) thus far. I will provide the names of those museums I feel are doing well, but at this time it is not my place to call out museums I feel are not doing the greatest job. (What can I say, I'm non-confrontational and am not in the position to ruffle feathers.) Anyhow, on to the post.
One of the things I love is the museum that provides interesting tidbits about goings on in the museum. The Shelburne Musuem in Shelburne, VT is one of my favorite twittering musuems (@ShelburneMusuem). Why? Because I want to know more about the museum than just what events are happening and. Yes some advertising of events is acceptable, since spreading the word is always good and twitter is certainly an outlet for it, but I want to know more than just that. I loved being told by @ShelburneMuseum that "The turtles have emerged! Collections Asst. Nick rescued one that was trying to cross the road in front of the Covered Bridge." I followed the painstaking process of restoring a Tiffany settee, and the pouring of the lighthouse foundation. Things like this made me like the museum that much more.
So rule No. 1 in twittering about museums is to provide something extra about the museum that one would not be able to find out otherwise. It is easy enough to look at a museum's event calendar to figure out what is going on (although friendly reminders don't hurt as long as it doesn't dominate the twitter stream). I look forward to tweets from @ShelburneMuseum because of this something extra, and the next time I'm up in Vermont when it's open (season starts May 17th) I know where I want to go.
Rule No. 2 in twittering is to not do the opposite of what @ShelburneMuseum is doing. Please do not tweet solely about upcoming events. I can find out about them elsewhere.
Rule No. 3 is to not heavily rely upon bots. What are bots? Autobots (no not the kind from The Transformers) as they are also referred to as are programs that search for tags on news stories, or anything really, and if the particular tag matches what is being searched the bot (hooked up to the twitter account) will tweet the link to the story. This often ends up in a tweet looking like *tag being searched* "partial article title..." link to story. What gets really annoying is when these searches occur all at the same time so in a span of a few minutes 5, 10 or more tweets come from one account, blocking up the stream. I like the idea of there being a real human behind the tweeting. This in no way is me saying I don't want to get links to something newsworthy online. I do, I just don't want them automatically given to me. I much rather prefer someone writing Found this museum news article interesting: link to story.
No. 4 Respond to those who reply to you through @ tweeting (where the @ symbol is placed in front of the twitter name, for example @museummusings). These messages show up in the sidebar under the aptly named @youraccountname, making replying to others easy. Now I know this rule is not always followed and I certainly understand why for some institutions it is not feasible. Sometimes the personpower isn't there and sometimes there are just too many questions/comments/suggestions to reply to them all. I do suggest replying to some when one can. I also suggest the Direct Message feature and have gotten numerous direct messages from museums just thanking me for following them. Things like this create a good relationship between follower and tweeter and I feel retains followers. I certainly appreciate them. The museum groups that sent me Direct Messages just for following them are @ShelburneMuseum, @heardmuseum, @metmuseum, @EngineMuseum, and @fordstheatre.
I also recommend using the established protocol of the hashtag #followfriday in which a tweet consists of other twitter accounts that you recommend following. The trend is to provide 5 of them. So even though today is Monday, I recommend following (in addition to myself and the accounts above): @TheWomensMuseum, @MuseumMaknMusic, @tenementmuseum, @fieldmuseum, and @GettyMuseum. There are many more museum related twitterers out there. Just search for Museum on twitter and go from there.
There has been much discussion in the museum world about this too. Multiple people have discussed twitter and its benefits on Museum-L and numerous tips on how to utilize it properly have been included. Apparently there are also podcasts on iTunes that deliver tips on how to effectively use twitter, although I have not used them. Connecting with others who share common interests and is a good thing in the museum world: person to person, museum to museum, museum to person. I maintain my stance blogged previously that twitter has the unique potential to reach the masses thereby expanding a museums presence in the virtual world.
Hello to all and today especially to those who found me via twitter.
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7 months ago
