12 simple and free improvements to your website you can make tonight

Photo by Luis Alberto on Flickr.com.

Last year around this time I made a list of 28 32 simple and low-budget things you can do with new media for your cultural institution. And it worked… at least in the Netherlands. A flock of blue birds has landed on cultural websites, Foursquare checkins pay for most of my coffee and 2.0 initiatives are launched for things as exciting as needlework samplers. In short: the world has become a wonderful place.

However, going through literally 100s of cultural websites in the last days for our annual Month of History has clearly shown me we’re not there yet. On many websites, it’s more likely to accidentally hit a like button than find the opening hours.

So, a reprise. Again, this is not for the big boys out there with the stunning new media budgets and multi-person web teams. Here’s 12 things a volunteer with a shoestring budget and CMS access can do tonight to improve the visitor experience of the website of a cultural institution.

As always, feel free to add your recommendations.

1. Make opening hours & entry prices accessible from every page
   A good spot is top right, next to “contact” and “about us”, and/or in the footer. And yes: opening hours & entry prices can fit on one page.
2. Communicate when you’re open; make closed the exception
   Big font: We’re open Tuesday – Sunday, 10 am – 6 pm. Smaller font: Except on public holidays. Even Google should not be able to find the string “the museum is closed…” on your website.
3. First communicate when you are free, then normal price, then exceptions
   I’ve struggled through endless lists of different ticket types, only to find out at the bottom an institution was free anyway in the summer months. It’s a good thing to be free, so shout it out. Makes you feel welcoming to people. Read the rest of this entry »

What to do if ‘they’ are not online? – 7 actions to promote new media in your museum

Photo by Ally Oop on Flickr.com

“My organisation does not see the importance of social media.” Does this line sound familiar to you? Or, “I’m the only one doing new media, the curators simply don’t care.”

I often hear this line. It was one of the leading themes of questions people posed between sessions at MuseumNext. I believe it’s the responsibility of the new media department to get the rest of the organisation to become active on social media. If ‘they’ are not online, ‘you’ should do something about it.

In this post I’ll address some simple things you can do to make your curators, marketing team, mother and small pets go online. Please add your secret recipes to the comment section.

1. Make social media useful to ‘them’. Figure out, in open conversation over coffee etc., what your colleagues are looking for personally. An old friend from primary school (Facebook), the e-mail address of an old colleague (LinkedIn), a cheap car (eBay). Surprise them with an email with a link. “I googled around and found this for you.” This will introduce them to the power of new media.
2. Subscribe to blogs related to expositions and projects your institution is working on, and share links you find online with the people working on the projects. Doesn’t have to be tech-related. Merely the fact the internet can provide stuff ‘they’ didn’t know about increases trustworthiness of the medium. Read the rest of this entry »

6 useful Google Analytics Custom Reports and Advanced Segments for museum websites

Photo by Kevin Dooley on Flickr.

It’s January and the time to brag about absolute numbers. Thing is, absolute numbers (visits, followers, fans) say almost nothing about online success. You need to be pretty good at numbers and statistics to really understand the regular Google Analytics reports. Read Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos to get an idea of normal people’s inability to understand numbers. It’s shocking.

Fortunately, Google Analytics has Custom Reports and Advanced Segments. And, also fortunately, there are some bright helpful minds that have made useful custom reports and segments available for free. A post on Marketingfacts pointed me to Avinash Kaushik’s blog where in posts and comments you can find useful reports and segments. After playing around with them during the weekend I found these useful for museums:

1. Content and source diagnosis provides a detailed custom report of your top-content and drills it down first to the medium and then to the source. If shows what content draws people and where you might improve this.
2. Daily analysis is a simple custom report that outputs a website’s main statistics sorted by day. Exporting this to Excel and mapping it with your calendar (openings of expositions, press releases) can give a quick insight in conversion rates.
3. Non Flirts, Potential Lovers is an advanced segment that throws away all the accidental visitors to your website and shows you the stats for those who really visited your website (>3 pages). Read the rest of this entry »

Telling great ideas and stories that stick

Photo by Andrew Beresford on Flickr.

Years ago I read the book Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath. Basically it’s about why some stories and ideas disappear and others stick with the receiver forever. What makes a successful story that is retold over and over again?

The book applied its own rules and stayed with me. Reading through a pile of unremarkable blog posts and museum brochures this week its lessons came to mind again. Here’s the slightly edited summary I wrote for internal use in 2007. I believe this message is worth sharing, even after some years. Useful for when you pitch your next innovative idea, give a presentation or simply write copy for an exhibition.

What makes a story or idea stick?

Successful communication alone is not enough to make ideas stick. An idea sticks when:

1. You can easily understand it,
2. You can remember it,
3. It’s effectively changing thoughts or behaviour.

To make sure your idea, story, pitch or presentation fits the above description, Dan and Chip propose the SUCCES criteria. Fulfilling these criteria will make your ideas powerful and successful. Read the rest of this entry »

I like museums – Using Facebook’s Like Button to connect with visitors

Facebook Like Button Stamp by design studio, Nation.

Facebook Like Buttons are revolutionising the web. There’re even rumours about Google going to use them in their search algorithm. Recently, at the museum, I’ve been adding Like Buttons to many of our websites and the results are significant.

Conversion is high and traffic from Facebook increased. Small and specific communities are built around projects, events and activities. We don’t have a physical collection, but I can see the same happening for objects in online collections.

Adding Like Buttons is as easy as copy-pasting. In fact, you can customise and copy the code on the Facebook developers website and have a Like Button online in under two minutes. Generic solutions might take a bit more skill and time (adding it to our 750+ activities in next week’s Week of History took about an hour).

With the ease and impact of the Like Button it’s an amazing tool for museums to connect with visitors and build useful connections online. Read the rest of this entry »