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Social Media Smackdown: Tacoma Art Museum vs. Cincinnati Art Museum

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The summer is winding down, the kids will be back to school in days if they’re not there already, and you’re looking for a last-minute diversion. Something that mixes culture with fun, that’s not too expensive, and that will enrich your life just a little bit. Maybe something like your local art museum?

Most communities are lucky to have a museum of some sort, but often these museums struggle to get by on a combination of donations, fundraisers, grants and endowments. A big marketing budget is usually never an option. Social media offers a huge opportunity for local museums to tap into a community and try to build up word-of-mouth about current exhibits and events and drive foot traffic to the museum.

For this installment of Social Media Smackdown, I selected two art museums in smaller cities: Tacoma, Wash. and Cincinnati, Ohio. Let’s get down to it and see who comes out on top.

Cincinnatilogo

TacomaLogo


Round One: Twitter

Each museum is active on Twitter: @TacomaArtMuseum and @CincyArtMuseum. I like how each museum’s Twitter handle is pretty obvious and descriptive.

Tacoma Art Museum: Following 304; Follwers 1,577; Tweets 644
Tacoma Art Museum has a really nice, even mix of original content promoting museum events, retweets of general art news and items of interest, and passing along local area happenings. They also do a good job of replying to people, despite the fact that they are only following back about 20 percent of their followers (which isn’t specifically a bad thing). It seems that one person manages the account, as it has a singular voice to it, but the bio doesn’t state who that person is.

Tacoma Art Museum seems to do a good job of promoting events using Twitter. For example, a recent tweet on a Friday afternoon let followers know about a local movie and subsequent lecture being given by the museum curator. Another tweet let followers know that kids would be admitted free through the end of the month. Following events, the museum often asks people to post and share pictures at its other social outposts.

Cincinnati Art Museum: Following 351; Followers 4,434; Tweets 363
cincy2Cincinnati Art Museum’s twitter feed is slightly heavier on the tweeted news links, but they still seem to manage good interaction with followers. And the links aren’t automated from a feed source, so they’re typically well-crafted “teasers” that take you to interesting parts of the museum’s Web site. For example, each Wednesday they tweet a “Work of the Week” which takes you to a photo of some obscure piece in the museum’s collection.

The account seems to have lagged on actively replying to followers lately, but going back just a few weeks I found  replies thanking people for visiting, giving directions to nearby bus stops near the museum, and even responding to followers about the reduction in hours the museum made to save costs.

Both museums are doing a pretty decent job using Twitter to share news and get folks interested in their offerings. I think that while Tacoma does a good job mixing in other community events in its Twitter feed, it could even stand to do a little more self-promotion. Cincinnati has that part down, but it seems to have been slacking off on replies and interactions lately and needs to be careful not to become just a link feed. And both museums would benefit from adding the name the person or people behind the account to the bio so that followers have someone to identify. I also think it could benefit them to try and follow back more of their followers.

Point: It’s really close. While I like that Tacoma uses its Twitter feed to be a source of community info, I think Cincinnati does a better job of using Twitter to drive interest in the museum itself, which really should be the primary goal for these organizations. But Cincinnati doesn’t engage as much as Tacoma and in some ways is too focused on just tweeting links. I’m going to wimp out and call this a tie for now.

Round Two: Facebook

Tacoma1The Facebook fan page for Tacoma Art Museum has 325 fans. The info tab includes hours, public transportation information and directions, and links to all the museum’s social outposts. They’ve created an “Extended Info” tab that has links to all current and upcoming exhibitions and dates. The events tab is chock-full of events that range from simply admissions deals to community festivals, art camps and lectures. Tacoma Art Museum’s fan page only has a handful of photos, and with all the events they have you’d think they’d populate with more. They have also listed 21 other pages as favorites, many of them other museums or other popular places in the Tacoma area.

On the wall (which is the landing tab of their fan page), Tacoma frequently posts new content that often includes news articles about the museum and art-infused happenings other locations in Tacoma. It doesn’t seem that many fans are interacting with the page yet (very few likes or comments on the items), but hopefully the 325 fans are catching the fun tidbits that Tacoma Art Museum is pushing into their stream through its fan page.

Cincinnati Art Museum’s fan page, with 2,301 fans, has very basic info including location, transportation and hours, and they also have an extended info tab that goes into great detail (including images) of current special exhibits with descriptions, pricing, dates and links. It’s almost a little cluttered, though, and I wonder if that tab could benefit from less information overall and instead serve as teasers and send folks to a more detailed exhibit site. The page includes more than 100 photos from exhibit openings that the museum has posted, plus a couple from fans. On the boxes tab, there’s a feed from Flickr with more pictures. The events tab is also full of activities at the museum.

On the page wall (also the landing page), the content is primarily an automated feed of its Twitter account. I’m not really sure what purpose this serves, and it just comes off as looking robotic. It would be much more effective if a “real person” managed the page and selectively posted status updates and posts that allowed for more interaction among the fans.

Point: The pages are almost identical in type of content and structure expect for the walls. Tacoma wins here for keeping the wall posts frequent and interesting but not automating.

Round Three: Web site

I found the Web sites of each to be visually pleasing (which you would expect for art museums, right?) and relatively simple to navigate. I was specifically looking for how “social” the sites were: how interactive, innovative and how easy it is for users to share and save content.

The Web site for Tacoma Art Museum allows you to translate it into one of six languages from a flag icon on the home page. They’ve also installed the “Add this” widget to the home page to allow you to share the content to Facebook, etc. However, on subsequent pages the widget just appears as a tiny orange cross and I didn’t even realize what it was until I accidentally moused over it. I can imagine that someone less used to sharing content on the Web than I am would ignore this completely. But at least it is there as an option. The site invites you to sign-up for eNewsletters via a link in the sidebar.

One of the best sections of their site is the “Connect with us” area that alerts visitors about the museum’s social outpost. Icons at the bottom of the page invite visitors to become a fan on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. Separate pages detail the museum’s Flickr and YouTube account with an embedded slideshow of photos and video. The museum has free WiFi and they encourage visitors to share their experiences from right within the museum. However, this section is buried in the site. I think it would be much more effective to have a large “Connect” icon somewhere on the home page or even have social profile links right in the sidebar so people didn’t have to go searching.

Cincy1Over on Cincinnati’s site, there appears to be a disconnect with social media. They do a few things well — an RSS feed icon in the upper corner takes you to a page where you can subscribe to events and news feeds and also includes a link to explain what RSS is and how to set up a feed reader — helpful. They also have some neat podcasts that they’ve produced that are available in the iTunes store and a video podcast that’s embedded on the site.

However, basically none of the content on the rest of the site is easily shareable. They have photos of thousands and thousands of the pieces in their collection cataloged on the site, but no one-click sharing option (to be fair, copyright may be at issue here). None of the events or exhibit pages have an opportunity to share, and despite sifting through their site I could not find any mention of their Facebook page, Twitter feed or other social outposts. Even the contact page was missing that info.

Point: Tacoma wins here for making visitors to its Web site aware of its social media presence (though not obviously) and for installing the Add This widget to allow visitors to share content across the Web. Cincinnati still has a very traditional site with little to no social media integration.

Round Four: Other social sites (Flickr, YouTube, etc.)

On Flickr, Tacoma Art Museum has both its own account/photostream and has also created a group pool that visitors can add pictures to. More than 385 people have joined the museum’s group pool and uploaded more than 1,700 images! On the museum’s own photostream, they’ve done something pretty cool — they uploaded more than 40 images of the museum plaza so that artists, architects and designers who were entering a competitive bid to redesign the space could visualize it and get a sense of the opportunity and hopefully capture it in their proposals.

Cincinnati has a group pool on Flickr with 38 members and 400+ images posted. It looks like the admin for the Flickr group has actively sought out images to add to the pool, and there are some really nice shots there. They also have their own Flickr account and have posted 195 snaps from exhibit openings and museum events.

Tacoma2Over on YouTube, both museums have dedicated channels (Tacoma’s is here and Cincinnati’s is here). Each has nearly identical number of channel views (3,200) and, haha, they are “friends” with eachothers’ channels on YouTube. Tacoma has posted 11 videos ranging from museum commercials to video depictions of how they actually install some of their exhibitions (like this Ship in a Bottle clip). They’ve added several related videos to favorites and have 78 subscribers to their channel. Their most recent video was posted seven months ago. Tacoma has also created a playlist of videos from a recent cinema competition that were shot at its museum.

Cincinnati’s YouTube channel has 100 subscribers but only three videos and the most recent one is a year old. They did attempt a video podcast two years ago that appeared to be in conjunction with an exhibition opening – it’s a 10-minute clip that contains an interview with an art fashion collector. It’s an interesting piece, but a bit on the long side and since there’s only one it appears that they abandoned the video podcast format. The other two videos are short promos for museum exhibitions.

Point: Again, it’s close, but I think I’ve got to go with Tacoma again. They seem to have kept a little more up to date with their Flickr and YouTube accounts and have more fresh and recent content. . I like how Tacoma does a good job aggregating other people’s content (like the playlist from the film contest)

The Final Verdict: Tacoma comes out ahead of Cincinnati in this smackdown. It’s great that both museums are dabbling in social media and seeing how they can get it to work (that certainly can’t be said for all arts organizations). Tacoma seems to be a little ahead of the curve on making sure that it is allowing visitors to share its content and avoiding automation of information, which can turn people off quickly. Cincinnati has made a good start, but could go much further by tying their Web site to their social outposts.

Previous Smackdown: Cannondale vs. Trek
Previous Smackdown: Columbus, Ohio vs. Columbia, S.C.
Previous Smackdown: Mountain Hardwear vs. The North Face
Previous Smackdown: Magic Hat vs. Bell’s Beer


Small businesses: It’s 2009! Get a Web site!

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tonks22In October I became a cat owner. I’d like to think that I’m not one of those freaky obsessed “cat ladies” but the hundreds and hundreds of digital pictures on my computer of my “girls” would probably convince you otherwise. Nevertheless, one of the first things I had to do when we got the kittens was to find a good veterinarian.

Being relatively new to the area, I had no prior experience with local vets and I didn’t really even have anyone that I could ask. I wanted some place that was close to my home and that looked decent. I went to Google. I searched, as just about any reasonable person would, for “veterinarian” + my city and state. Only about three results came up (I live in the sticks) and I selected the one closest to my house.

In the end it turned out to be a great little place called Homestead Animal Hospital. I’d highly recommend them – but I won’t be doing it with a link because they don’t have a Web site.

I understand that small and local businesses often don’t have huge Web development budgets or in-house staff that knows how to create a Web site. But this is 2009. There’s really no reason to not have claimed out a little portion of the Web. Maybe you don’t want to be bothered with a domain name and Web hosting. Fine. Get a Tumblr or Posterous page. Make a simple WordPress.com blog. Do something so that people can get some basic information about your business and share it with their friends. It’s as critical today as the sign post on the front of the business or listing in the yellow pages used to be 20 years ago.

I need information in order to make my decision. If I do a Google search and am confronted with businesses who have a Web site versus those who don’t, I’m much more likely to investigate, and ultimately patronize, the one with a Web site. Even if it’s not a particularly good one.

With a business like an animal hospital, just think of the existing engaged community you could tap into. Run a photo contest where your customers submit their favorite pet pictures. Add some links to resources on animal behavior. At the very least, post profiles and photos of each doctor or technician and the location and the hours of the practice. It would hardly take more skills or knowledge than knowing how to type and upload a picture for someone in the practice to maintain a simple site.

In the end, Homestead Animal Hospital got my business (likely for life) because they were pretty much the only result returned for my town. But if I had lived in a bigger area and conducted the same search and Homestead had been one of five or eight or 20 results, they wouldn’t have even made the cut for me to investigate further. And that’s a shame, because they’re an outstanding veterinary practice.

No one can afford to ignore the Web anymore, no matter how small or local your business is. And with so many simple tools out there, no one needs to.

Photo credit: Me. That’s my baby girl Tonks.

Why Facebook shouldn’t be your primary B2B marketing channel

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do_not_enterIt’s hard to determine which social media tool is more lauded as the second coming these days, but Facebook certainly ranks up there as a platform that many of the social media experts, mavens, gurus and even people who know what they’re talking about promote as an easy place to start your business’ foray into social media.

But here’s the thing – most of the really good examples out there are of B2C companies using Facebook to reach their target audience. There are far fewer concrete examples of successful use of B2B companies using Facebook. And I’d caution that it’s not a very good tool for B2B companies to use – as least not right now, anyway.

Why? One simple word: blocking. Those of us who dabble around in social media all day from our laptops, iPhones, or the comfort of our Web 2.0-crazed agency jobs can easily forget that THOUSANDS of people work for companies who block Facebook at work (some gobbledy-gook about productivity?). For B2B companies, their target audience is usually (obviously) other companies, but more specifically, it’s the decision-makers within those other companies. This could mean purchasing managers, marketing managers, IT managers or the C-suite. You can have the snazziest Facebook fan page in the world for your business, but if none of your target audience can actually access it during the day while they’re at work (and making those decisions about whether to use your company’s product or service), then it’s probably not the best way to engage your potential customers.

I could write a whole series of posts on the annoyance of Internet blocking software at work, how it’s a management and not an IT issue, how social media tools can actually increase productivity… but these have already been written and rehashed. Shel Holtz even founded a Web site dedicated to the issue, StopBlocking.org. But the reality is that several companies still routinely block Facebook and other services, and while those people your company is trying to reach probably DO have a personal Facebook profile, many of them can only access it at home, after the workday. Unless they are really, really passionate about finding the lowest-cost widget or solving their company’s CRM software needs or testing out a new benefits delivery system (heck, there’re probably people who are), I doubt they’re likely to spend too much of their personal time in the evenings on your company’s Facebook page.

Facebook can certainly be a key tool for your B2B business in adopting social media, but don’t forget the cardinal rule: Go where your customers are. And unfortunately, due to Internet blocking, many of them are NOT on Facebook at work.

Web 2.0 in a 1.0 industry

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When Marty McFly rocks his guitar solo in ‘Johnny B. Goode’ at his parents’ high school dance in Back to the Future, he leaves the shocked crowd slack-jawed at what they’ve just heard. The line he drops is something like, “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet… but your kids are gonna love it.”

Welcome to my day job. I work in a 1.0 industry (construction). My main goal is managing my company’s relationship with the independent dealers who sell our product, and most of them are small business owners in their 50s who buy our products via distribution partners and resell/install to homeowners. These dealers are old school. Great, hardworking, dedicated businesspeople… but old school.

During a recent flight I read through Todd Defren’s excellent new (and free!) eBook on social media marketing called “Brink.” It’s filled with fantastic nuggets on how to “make an entrance” into social media, including tips on blogger relations, creating content using a variety of media channels, and reaching out using Facebook, Twitter and social bookmarking. Reading it made me excited and disheartened at the same time.

How do you implement social media tools and strategies if your audience isn’t ready for it yet? My audience – our network of dealers - can barely handle e-mail. I’ve had several phone conversations with dealers where I’ve had to explain to them how to open Internet Explorer. At length. A lot of them only want to send and receive information via mail or fax. (Apparently a fax machine is this thing from the early 1990s that you fed paper into and then that paper was magically transported to other fax machines).

Last year I created a secure extranet site for our dealers. It includes a blog where I post news items about our products and programs; forums for dealers to share information and best practices with each other; a media center where they can download .pdfs of our literature and view presentations from conferences; and lead management tools. Despite the fact that this group of dealers has hundreds of combined years of experience in their industry and could benefit greatly from more interaction, the utilization of this extranet community is near zero. No comments on blog posts, no posts or discussions in the forums, and rarely do people access files from the media center. It has the potential to be a great community for these dealers. But a community doesn’t exist if there’s no one there.

So what do I do? How much do you try to drag an audience along? How much should your communications strategy reflect where your audience currently is, versus where you’d like them to be? How do you keep from pulling a Marty McFly?

Geni.com: Stealth social media

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My mom is a Baby Boomer, and I don’t really think she could be labeled as an early adopter of technology. She teaches elementary school and uses the computer in her classroom probably better than most teachers (she made a blog for her kindergarten class one year and had the students post a sentence each day about what they learned). But my mom doesn’t really participate in social media on a personal level, and in fact, she’s pretty skeptical of it. I’m pretty sure she’s never heard of Twitter or LinkedIn, doesn’t subscribe to any blogs, and definitely, definitely doesn’t want anything to do with Facebook. She’s wary of posting personal information online and thinks that Facebook is “something that you young people do.”

Geni

But a over a year and a half ago, I started creating our family tree on a site called Geni.com. You can create profiles for members of your family tree and invite them to join. If they do, they take over control of their profile and can then add additional family members. My family tree now stands at 500+ members, stretching back to Tipperary in 1816. Each family member can add photos and videos to their profile, edit personal information, and post messages to other family members’ pages. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…

My mom and her siblings love Geni. They post birthday greetings, anniversary messages, and comment on pictures of relatives’ kids. My mom’s oldest sister has really gotten into it and added scanned images of birth, death, and wedding certificates of some of our first ancestors. She’s connected with our third cousins twice removed (Geni calculates those weird relationship rules for you) and added all the family genealogy data that previously was scattered around on a dozen different paper trees.

My mom is all over this “family” version of Facebook. She doesn’t view it as social networking; maybe because it’s a little more controlled and she knows that only her family members will see her profile. But she’s actively participating.

The PEW Internet & American Life Project recently published a report on Internet usage for American adults. According to the report, 19 percent of online adults aged 45-54 have some sort of online profile (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.) and only 10 percent of online adults aged 55-64 have one. These numbers are increasing but the report shows that by a wide margin, social networks are, as Brian Solis puts it, “still a phenomenon of the young.” The report also indicates that 60 percent of adults restrict access to their profile so that only their friends can see it.

My extended family’s online presence seems to mimic the age splits in the PEW report. Most of the cousins in my generation have multiple social network profiles and have joined Geni, but we all prefer to connect to each other through Facebook. We post pictures there, send birthday greetings to each others’ walls, and connect and share family news. Many of my cousins are fairly open and don’t restrict their profiles.

Family members in my mom’s generation use Geni for all the same purposes, but almost none of them has a Facebook profile. In many cases, Geni is their only online profile, and they’ve set it up so only members of our family can see it. I’m not sure if my mom is intimindated by Facebook or just thinks it’s not for her, but I’m wondering if Geni will serve as the “gateway drug” for her to branch out and start accepting social media more openly. We’ll see.