A quest for relevance

Photo by Stephanie Schuldes on Flickr.

To succeed in our never-ending quest to make culture and the arts more relevant in the lives of people, all we have to do (online) is approach the right people at the right time and place with the right message through the right communication channel.

Simply put, don’t tweet about overflowing toilets unless you want to make a point about the pressing need for maintenance funds. And in that case, be sure to ask at the beginning of the month, when people just received their paychecks.

The museum of the 21^st century is as successful in being relevant to people, as Google and Facebook ads are. (Or, if you prefer, will be in the near future.) In fact, we can use the very tools Google and Facebook ads provide us to prove that the more relevant we make our content, the more likely they are to engage with it.

In the chart below I’ve plotted a number of Facebook ads we ran. The potential reach of the ad is on the horizontal axis, on the vertical each ads true reach (normalized to a similar number of impressions per ad). The CTR chart of the same data is very much alike.

Without a doubt, ads aimed at a specific target group, with a specific message, almost always outperform the more general ads.

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Critical mass

Photo by maniwa_pa on Flickr.com

Recently someone used the term critical mass to mean you need a certain amount of followers/friends/fans to be successful in social media. Strength is in numbers, etc. “Of course MoMA can do that, with its gazillion followers.” I dare to disagree.

In primary school they taught me to address specific people when asking for help in a crowded place. An undirected ‘help’ would certainly go unattended. Later I learned this is called the bystander effect. People don’t help when there’re other people around.

A hundred thousand, or even a millions followers/friends/fans is a lot of people. If you tweet a question or Facebook a funding request or e-mail a petition, certainly some small percentage will respond. And maybe a small percentage of many is enough to do the trick. On the other hand, many, many more will not feel any need to respond. Bystanders.

I believe that if you know your audience, are creative and dare to specifically address your questions, you don’t need a lot of followers/friends/fans. Over the last months, every single campaign I did where I specifically asked some outdid those where I generally asked many. Even if “specifically asking some” was semi-automated. Even if the ties between the addressed individual and our institution were weak.

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Putting xwashier on the map

Over the last months we’ve been busy with the launch of xwashier, our physical and digital network of historical places. In my presentation at MuseumNext and in a recent blogpost I advocated the use of integrated media strategies to make your product (exposition, activity, app) known to your audience. In this post I will share some of my experiences with the xwashier campaign that is currently unrolling.

(Despite our best intentions, in the end the media campaign accompanying the launch became the happy chaos communication tends to be. So, copy and steal ideas, but do so wisely.)

Message, target groups and designing the campaign

Xwashier is about the experience of history on the location where it actually happened. The relevance for the potential visitor/user therefore is local. Also, xwashier is a platform for local history, getting together many different organisations from around the country. Thirdly, xwashier is personal. A location is especially relevant to somebody, if s/he has a personal relation to the location.

Although we want to reach everybody (of course), from the general target groups in communication we identified opportunities online to reach day trippers, iPhone users and the networks of local institutions as well as increase our reach within our network (people enjoying history and heritage). Read the rest of this entry »