Posted: September 6th, 2010 | Author: Jasper Visser | Filed under: Inspiration, Technology | Tags: advice, checklist, easy, guidelines, list, new media, quick, social media, tips, twitter, use | View Comments
Last week some of my colleagues and I hosted a new media afternoon with workshops for participants in the Week van de Geschiedenis (“Week of the History”). During this annual event hundreds of cultural institutions in the Netherlands organise activities related to history. Over 250,000 people all over the Netherlands visit debates, tours, lectures, special exhibitions… I believe this week has an enormous new media potential.
Quite some of the participating institutions have zero budgets, work with volunteers and have limited or no experience with new media. Some of the visitors of the new media afternoon asked me what they could do with new media – taking into account their limitations. I composed this list of 28 simple things to do with new media for small cultural institutions to help them.
If you know of other low-budget, easy-to-do new media activities, please add them. It’s highly appreciated by the many small cultural institutions taking their first steps in new media.
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Posted: January 28th, 2010 | Author: Jasper Visser | Filed under: People, Technology | Tags: communication, community, conversation, do's and don'ts, museums, strategy, twitter | View Comments
Next Monday, February 1st, is “follow a museum” day. As there are a lot of museum with quite extraordinary collections, I think it’s worth following one or two for inspiration, information and entertainment. Therefore, I applaud the idea of follow a museum day.
However, I also have my doubts.
Followers seem to be the new currency. The more followers, the better. I strongly disagree. It’s involvement that matters. It’s not about the number of followers a museum has, but about the communication with its audience a museum has.
Jim hinted using Ad.ly Analytics to measure the involvement of your followers. I say 100 involved followers beats 100.000 uninvolved ones. (Read about the “benefits” of being on Twitter’s Suggested Users List by Anil Dash.) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: June 15th, 2009 | Author: Jasper Visser | Filed under: Technology | Tags: advice, community, do's and don'ts, practice, strategy, tips, twitter | View Comments
One of my first jobs as a Community Manager for the Museum of National History was to build a presence on existing social media websites. There’s quite some literature available on social media strategy. That helps. I think I developed a strategy that could be the envy of all museums worldwide. (I’ll brag about that when it starts to pay off.)
However, what I noticed is that strategy is only one. There’s also the practical side of becoming active on social media websites. I didn’t read a word about that. I simply used my experience as a user and the small things I did in the past and thought this would work for a large ambitious museum as well.
That proved a learning experience. Looking back on the first month, I can already identify things that I could and should have done better. Therefore I’d like to share my practical experiences with developing a social media presence with you. Please share your experiences as well to avoid others to make our mistakes. Read the rest of this entry »
