In her article, Digital
Desires: What Are Museums Up To?, Lanya White mentions Britain's Tate
Museums as a cultural heritage institution actively trying to increase public
participation with the institution's collections through social media.
Investigation of the Tate's social media practices reveal that while the museum
is engaging with people across multiple social media platforms, much of the
content chosen for each platform remains similar; creating different spaces
that encourage similar engagement. This post will provide an overview of the
Tate's current social media practices, their general online presence, and
comments about these practices.
While there are many unique Tate entities, many of which
have their own websites, there is also a central site representing the
institution as a whole (think of it like the Smithsonian - many buildings and
collections all of which are part of the same lead institution). For the
purposes of this post, Tate refers to
the grouping of institutions unless otherwise noted. The structure of all of
the Tate's webpages includes a footer, which includes a "Connect"
category. Direct links to some of the most popular social media sites -
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - are provided right in the footer, making it
quicker for users to connect to the Tate’s presence at these sites. This same
menu also provides a link to Tate’s Social
media directory, which serves as a dashboard for all of Tate’s social media
presences.
A glance at the Social
media directory reveals the extent to which the Tate has embraced social
media. In addition to the Twitter feed linked in the footer, the Directory displays fifteen additional
Tate institutional feeds as personal feeds for three Tate curators. Content from
these feeds is occasionally re-tweeted by another one of these feeds, such as
the Tate Shop retweeting Tate Publications note about a newly
published book, but otherwise, each of these feeds features unique content
relevant to a particular Tate community. Tate's Twitter practice is echoed in
Facebook; there are seven pages for the institution in addition to the central
Tate page. The Tate Members page
features unique content that would be relevant for those who are members of the
museum: collections, exhibition, and member exclusive events and sales
information are all provided. The other six Facebook pages are each tied to
their respective Twitter pages, providing two access points to content relevant
to their target audiences. Tate offers only a single page on Google plus, just
for the main institution, and it offers the same content as found on the
primary Twitter feed and Facebook page.
In addition to these primarily text based social media
platforms, Tate also maintains presences on several more visually based
outlets: Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr and Instagram are all represented with one
or two accounts. As would be expected with these sites, the content is not
solely collections based. Theses platforms also offer museum visitors the
opportunity to see themselves engaging with the collections as photos from
events are often featured. The images found here, especially on Flickr and
Instagram, provide visual evidence that the general population, not just
curators, are engaging with the Tate's vast collections at children's events,
dance events, and social events.
One of the unique ways that Tate is providing outreach
through social media is on YouTube. Members since 2005, they have uploaded 516
videos to date, which include interviews with artists, curators, and exhibition
discussions and walk-throughs, and profiles on artists as they create work. The
amount of content on the Tate's YouTube page is staggering, and could serve as
a solid introduction to art history. The most popular of these videos have logged
more than two hundred thousand views, yet while these videos have no doubt
sparked engaging conversation, it is not happening online. Popular videos with
hundreds of comments generally do not feature engaging back and forth criticism
and commentary about the works, but usually and isolated one or two sentence
note that does not ask for further engagement.
The efforts put forth in the Tate's various social media
sites is backed up in the Tate Digital
Strategy 2013-15: Digital as a Dimension of Everything.
Everything.
Here, it becomes clear just how the digital world is to the Tate,
and how social media – part of this digital world - isn’t just something that
happens in the background, but something that is fully integrated into the
Tate’s practice as a 21st century museum. With this in mind, the use
of multiple platforms makes sense. Everything in the museum isn’t presented in
the same manner, nor does every patron who physically enters the space of the
museum interact and react to it in the same manner. By presenting digital
content in myriad ways, the Tate is continuing to allow its patrons to choose
what appeals to them, and how they want to experience art in the digital realm.
For example, content may be duplicated across Twitter, Facebook, and Google +,
but this is not simply due to the lack of interest in creating unique content,
but because these platforms present information in similar ways. It would be
fascinating to learn what percentage of the Tate’s followers keep up with them
digitally using all three of these platforms or if each user tends to frequent
on one platform more than the others. The lack of unique posts to these
platforms suggests that the Tate assumes that its users will favor one site
over another.
The Tate has digitally published their Digital metrics dashboard template, a data set that tracks the
Tate’s online involvement with Twitter and Facebook (among other things) from
June 2012 through June 2013. As of June 2013, Tate had twice as many Twitter
followers as they did on Facebook, yet in both cases, less than one percent of
these followers is considered “engaged.” How can social media be deemed
successful if engagement is either not present or not possible to be tracked?
While digital metrics can easily track the number of re-tweets and shares
associated with online platforms, without holding a focus group or conducting
another type of survey, it remains impossible to track non-digital engagement
with the digital environment. The Digital
metrics shows steady growth in the number of the Tate’s Twitter and
Facebook followers each month. Absent another evaluation tool, that is perhaps
a good way to prove the success of the Tate’s vast social media efforts. As we
approach 2015 and the end of the Tate’s current digital strategy timetable, it
will be interesting to see if additional evaluation tools are employed and if
more is done to examine the success of all of the multitudes of social media
efforts.
Sources:
White, Layna, “Digital Desires: What Are Museums Up To?” Bulletin
of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (Online); Apr/May
2008; 34, 4; ABI/INFORM Complete pg. 12.
Tate: Digital metrics: http://www.tate.org.uk/about/our-work/digital/digital-metrics
Tate Digital Strategy
2013-15: Digital as a Dimension of Everything: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/tate-digital-strategy-2013-15-digital-dimension-everything
Tate: Social media
directory: http://www.tate.org.uk/about/our-work/digital/social-media-directory
Tate: http://www.tate.org.uk/
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