Why Offering Discounts Through Social Media Is Bad Business for Nonprofit Organizations
May 21, 2012
There’s significant data compiled by multiple sources indicating that “getting discounts” is the top reason why people engage with an organization’s social media channels. So it seems logical that if you want to bump your number of fans and followers, offering discounts is a surefire way to go. And it works – if your sole measure of success is chasing these types of (perhaps less meaningful) metrics. But, before you go crazy with the discount offers on Facebook and Twitter just to get your “likes” up, here’s another thing that’s true: Offering discounts through social media channels cultivates a “market addiction” that will have long-term, negative consequences on the health of your organization.
I recently wrote a post called “Death by Curation” within which I shared data indicating the non-sustainable cycle that museums enter when they must rely on new, progressively more expensive “special” exhibits in the hopes of achieving attendance spikes (what has since been referred to by a reader of this blog as “Blockbuster Suicide”). In many ways, offering discounts creates a similarly vicious cycle whereby a visitor-serving organization finds itself realizing a diminishing return on the value of its visitation.
When an organization provides discounts through social media it trains their online audience to do two not-so-awesome things:
1) Your community expects more discounts
Here’s where your organization breeds an online audience of addicts accepting discounts…and, strangely enough, becomes addicted to offering discounts itself. Posting a discount to attract more likes on Facebook (or to get people to engage with a social media competition, etc.) will very likely result in a bump in likes and engagement. But know that in doing this, you are verifying that your social media channel is a source for discounts. Discounting for “likes” attracts low-level engagers (they are liking you for your discount, not your mission), and prevailing wisdoms increasingly suggest that your number of social media followers doesn’t matter. It is far better for your brand and bottom line to have 100 fans who share and interact with your content to create a meaningful relationship, than to have 1,000 fans who never share your message and liked you just for the discount.
I can hear the rumbling now: Some of you are thinking, “But we’ve used discounts to attract more likes and it worked” (i.e. it generated more likes). Over time, however, these low-level engagers will stop following you if you do not continue to offer discounts. That is, after all, the reason why they followed you in the first place…and you have shown them that, yes, you will post discounts on social media. This is the start of the addiction: In order to keep these likes, you need to offer more discounts.
Try this: Simply stop offering discounts. Over the course of a few months, your number of likes will go down (because these people only liked you for the discount, not your awesome, socially conscious content). They were not actual evangelists – and cultivating real evangelists to build a strong online community is the whole point of social media. You want folks who actually care about what you’re doing and will amplify your message (not the “we are offering a discount” message – which is the content that, unfortunately, frequently gets the most shares and perpetuates this cycle).
2) Perhaps more importantly, your community waits for discounts
Here’s where becoming an addict takes a toll on the organization’s health. Data indicates that offering coupons on social media channels – even once – causes people to postpone their visits or wait until you offer another discount before visiting you again. Worse yet, the new discount generally needs to be perceived as a “better” offer (i.e. an even greater discount) to motivate a new visit. This observation is consistent with many aspects of discount pricing psychology, whereby a stable discount is perceptually worth “less” over time. In other words, the 20% discount that motivated your market to visit last month will likely have a diminishing impact when re-deployed. Next time, to achieve the same outcome, your organization may have to offer a 35% discount…and then a 50% discount, etc. You see where I’m going with this…
Here is the debunking of another popular misnomer that some organization’s use to justify their discount tactics: You are not necessarily capturing new visitation with discounts. In fact, data from the company for which I work suggests that the folks using your discount were likely to visit anyway…and pay full price! This is a classic example of an ill-advised discounting strategy “leaving money on the table.”
To compound matters, instead of hastening the re-visitation cycle, the “waiting for a discount” phenomena may actually increase the interval between visits for many visitors. The average museum-going person visits a zoo, aquarium, or museum once every 19 months. If you offer a discount, while you may not attract a larger volume of visitation to your organization, you may accelerate your audience’s re-visitation cycle on a one-time basis. This sounds great…until you realize the significant downsides to this happening: Your audience just visited your organization without paying the full price that they were actually willing to pay and they likely won’t visit your organization again for (on average) another 19 months. On top of all this, IMPACTS data illustrates that the steeper the discount, the less likely visitors are to value your product and return in a shorter time period.
Think of it this way: A visitor coming to your museum in May 2012 would likely visit again in December 2013 (i.e. in 19 months). Let’s say that you offer them a discount that motivates them to visit in October 2013. Now, you’ve linked their intentions to visit to a discount offer…and decoupled it from what should be their primary motivation – your content! And, by doing so, you’ve created an environment where content as a motivator has become secondary to “the deal.” In other words, you will have moved your market from a 19-month visitation cycle to a visitation cycle dependent on an ever-increasing discount. Can your organization afford to keep motivating visitation in this way?
So, how do museums get addicted to discounts, too? Well, we sometimes confuse the response (i.e. a visit) to the stimuli (i.e. a discount) with efficacy. Once a discount has been offered to motivate a visit, we regularly witness the market “holding out” for another discount before visiting again. And what are museums doing while the market waits for this new discount? Sadly, often times the answer is that they are panicking.
If you run a museum, you’ve probably spent some time in this uncomfortable space – we observe the market’s behavior (or, in this case, their lack of behavior), and begin to get anxious because attendance numbers are down. What’s a quick fix to ease the pain of low visitation? Another discount! So we offer this discount…and, in the process, reward the market for holding out for the discount to begin with. This is the insidious thing about many discounting strategies: They actually train your audience to withhold their regular engagement, and then reward them for their constraint. We feed their addiction and, in turn, we become addicted ourselves to the short-term remedy that is “an offer they can’t refuse.”
Like most addictive – but ultimately deleterious – items, there is no denying that discounts “work” – provided that your sole measure of the effectiveness of a discount is its ability to generate a short-term spike in visitation. But, once the intoxicating high of a crowded gallery has passed, very often all that we’re left with is a nasty hangover. My advice to museums and nonprofit organizations contemplating a broad discount strategy on social media: Just say no!
Are you a fan of this kind of information? Like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter for updates on nonprofit marketing.
Four Critical Reasons Why Nonprofit Organizations Must Not “Go Dark” on Social Media on Weekends
May 14, 2012
It is important for nonprofit organizations to maintain a presence on social media and manage their communities online. In fact, social media is the most influential and fastest growing marketing channel – with particular benefits in regard to targeting audiences (reach) and spreading messages (amplification). But those benefits only apply if you “do it right.” That is, you build your organization’s reputation by aiming for transparency, touchability, tone and timeliness in your online communications. Let’s talk about timeliness.
While banks and post offices may reliably post narrow hours of operations, most nonprofit organizations depend on the evenings and weekends to maximize their engagement. For many nonprofits – especially visitor-serving organizations such as museums, zoos and aquariums – the evenings and weekends are times when many constituents may be most likely to engage with your brand. By “going dark” on the weekends and evenings (or only posting and monitoring social media when someone is in the office), an organization risks ignoring its audience at the precise moments when they may be most apt to communicate, and leaves the organization particularly vulnerable to negative brand sentiment or a possible PR crisis.
Ignoring your online community for any extended period of time is likely to have a detrimental effect on your brand. And, at the very least, it “leaves money on the table” because you are failing to capitalize on an opportunity to engage online evangelists – a critically important constituency with the power to credibly re-communicate your messaging. Viewed in the worst light, it leaves you voiceless, powerless and ignorant of your reputation for 76% of the week (all hours of the week except the traditional eight hours when a social media manager is “in the office”). This is a big miss. In fact, it’s borderline negligent.
Does this mean that all organizations must have somebody sitting and exclusively watching social media channels like a hawk all week and throughout the night? Absolutely not. It simply means that organizations should aim to respond to social media inquiries within an average of 4 hours (to demonstrate accessibility and transparency) regardless of the day of the week, and post content outside of working hours and on weekends so as to remain top-of-mind.
Here are four, important points to consider regarding the value of social media and weekend social media activity:
1. No amount of advertising can make up for a lack of social and earned media.
When an organization goes dark on the weekends, that organization is missing an opportunity to engage audiences and secure reviews from trusted sources. Social media is a great creator of these trusted reviews, which carry significant weight with regard to promulgating messages.
The Bass Model below illustrates the bottom-line of the mathematical equation measuring paid media (Coefficient of innovation) and reviews from trusted sources (Coefficient of imitation). The take-away is clear: reviews from trusted resources (word of mouth, social media, peer reviews) are 12.85 times more powerful in the market than paid media. Therefore, there is no practical amount of paid media that can overcome a deficiency of social media interactions, peer reviews, and resulting earned media. Considering buying another billboard on the highway? Instead, why not pay your social media community manager a bit more and make sure you are managing your community throughout the weekend? (As a side, data suggests that buying billboard space may not be the best use of marketing funds anyway.)
2) Weekends may be a particularly important time for your audience to connect and engage
There’s a whole host of data from several entities boasting the best and worst times to post on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. While there has been a bit of debate about the generic “best” time to post across all industries, it has been shown that organizations that post outside of business hours have 20% higher engagement rates on Facebook than organizations that do NOT post outside of traditional business hours.
Saturday has been dubbed the best day of the week to share on Pinterest. Saturday has also been cited as the best day of the week to post on Facebook… But let’s not get carried away. To make matters more confusing than they already are in the always-evolving world of social media, bitly just released data that displays particularly low click through rates on Facebook and Twitter over the weekends. The unfortunate bottom line for organizations looking for a magical, cheat-sheet timeframe to post on social media? It doesn’t exist (yet). That timeframe depends on the industry, and it depends on the behavior of your organization’s demographic on Facebook.
There is no “one size fits all solution.” The best way to determine an individual optimization strategy for your organization is to simply test it yourself. Try out times and content and see what yields the highest amplification, conversation, and applause rates. Your own experience with your organization’s unique content will be most useful in determining this timeframe.
3) “Going dark” makes your organization passive on social media and leaves a gaping hole in reputation management
If you’re like most visitor-serving organizations, you have the most visitation on the weekends. “Going dark” is generally never a good idea on social media as it leaves your viral, online community unmanaged. If something happens on Saturday and someone posts an alienating, inappropriate, or untrue comment that is not addressed, the brand could already suffer significant reputation damage by Sunday. But going dark during this particularly critical timeframe for your organization’s business is bad practice. Again, if you’re like most visitor-serving organizations, you get the most pictures and comments over the weekends from visitors. It is important to respond to and thank these guests for both their support and their online engagement. The nature of social media emphasizes real-time reactions and ongoing accessibility.
When writing up Diagnostic Audits for nonprofit, visitor-serving clients concerning their social media practices, I’ve encountered some urgent comments left by potential weekend visitors that were left unanswered and resulted in a decline in the organization’s online sentiment for that month (and a decline in overall reputation). I have seen frantic visitors wondering if the museum is open – which has caused others to ask the similar questions. (“Why wouldn’t you be open? Does this person know something that I don’t know? I’m not coming today.”) Perhaps the most painful examples are those wherein an inappropriate or untrue comment is left unaddressed over the weekend that calls into question the transparency of the organization and diminishes trust in the entity (someone accuses the organization for acting politically or engaging in activity that is at-odds with their mission – and the organization has posted too-little information on the topic for others to weigh-in in the organization’s favor). If you’re a zoo or aquarium and somebody asks you on Facebook if one of your animals is still alive or if a certain creature is “alright” (even if it’s out of the blue), it’s important to be present to answer the question. Immediately.
Prioritizing a practice to “not go dark” on the weekends is an important risk-management practice, and allows organizations to play an active role in its reputation management. (Aren’t we all sick and tired of always “putting out fires” on Monday?)
4) Posting over the weekend allows you to remain top-of-mind as a weekend destination (if you are a visitor-serving organization)
This is simple. The weekend is a popular time for leisure activities (as is likely mirrored in your visitation trends). Posting something to enter your supporters’ newsfeeds during this leisure time mindset simply keeps your organization top-of- mind. If you’re a visitor-serving organization only posting between 9am and 5pm on weekdays, then you are entering people’s newsfeeds at a time that folks likely couldn’t visit you, even if they wanted to (IMPACTS has uncovered that schedule is a key driver of visitation). Are most of the people who see the clever photo that you posted to your organization’s Facebook page going to shut their laptop, funnel their kids in the car, and visit you immediately? No, probably not. But they might chuckle and think (in their moment of downtime), “Gee, I haven’t been there in a while…” and start planning their next visit.
Simply put, going dark is a “you” customer service problem, not a problem that should be borne by your constituents. Allow them to ask questions and communicate with you at the time that works best for them - regardless of the time and date. This will create optimal engagement rates and maintain the greatest chances of capturing evangelists.
It may take a bit of extra time “outside of the office” to post content and remain accessible during the weekends, but it will be well worth the effort. Regardless of when you post, it is critical that you do not “go dark” and leave your online audiences hanging. Also remember: content is still king. What you post (whenever you post) matters and will affect your engagement rates.
Like this stuff? Like me on Facebook for updates related to nonprofit marketing.
Reach, Trust & Amplification: The Importance of Social Media in Nonprofit Marketing (STUDY)
April 23, 2012
(Dear readers: I very recently started a Facebook Fan Page to keep folks updated on these posts and other items regarding nonprofit marketing. I hope that you’ll please take a moment to fan the page for ongoing information. Thanks to all for reading and contributing your brainpower to pushing the sector forward!)
I am pleased to have the opportunity to share recent IMPACTS data (collected in real-time through the end of last month) regarding the comparative importance of different marketing channels. The key finding? Data indicates that social media is the fastest growing and most influential marketing channel.
A few weeks ago, I shared data indicating that websites and mobile platforms – followed by word of mouth, social media, and peer review sites - play a disproportionate role in encouraging visitation decisions to visitor-serving organizations compared to more traditional marketing mediums such as radio and print media. With the help of coworkers at IMPACTS, I’ve drilled deeper into available data in order to answer the question of how these platforms play a role in the current marketing world. To do this, we looked at these mediums through three parameters: reach, trust, and amplification. Then, we calculated the weighted influence of these parameters to assess the overall value of each channel.
We measured the following information channels/marketing mediums:
- Web – an organization’s website or an online news site, for instance
- Social media – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, and other social networking sites
- Word of mouth (WOM) – Person-to-person sharing of information
- Email – Good ol’ email.
- Mobile web – web accessed via mobile device or mobile platform
- Peer review web – TripAdvisor, Yelp, and other online review sites
- Television – both commercial and public broadcasts, news programming, information acquired through television
- Radio – both satellite and terrestrial programming
- Newspaper (print)- Any newspaper source in print (content accessed online are included in the “web” category. In other words, the print edition of The New York Times falls within the “newspaper” category, whereas content accessed via nytimes.com would be considered a “web” resource.)
- Periodicals and magazines (print) – Magazines and periodicals in hardcopy (again, online versions are included in the “web” category)
- Direct mail – That stuff that physically arrives to your home/office and clutters your countertop
- Other print – Brochures, flyers, other informational, printed material
- Other – billboards, bus signs, posters, etc.
1. Reach
This parameter quantifies the relative efficacy of each channel in terms of that channel’s ability to expose an individual or household to a message within any defined duration. In other words, we’re trying to understand how effective any medium is at “reaching” an overall population (or, for that matter, a targeted audience such as women aged 35-54, etc.)
As you can see above, in terms of “reach,” websites are the primary channels used by the market to acquire information. An interesting item of note here is the growth in the importance of web/mobile platforms (web, mobile web, peer review web, and social media) compared to the June 2011 baseline data. In fact, every defined marketing channel that was NOT web or mobile-based (except word of mouth, which is the only channel based on person-to-person interaction) experienced a decline within the past year in terms of its reach.
2. Trust
This parameter quantifies how credible these channels are perceived to be as information sources. In this metric, we still see traditional, printed materials leading the way. We sometimes refer to this as the “Publication Effect” – there has been an observed tendency for the market to “believe” information obtained via mediums with higher barriers to publication (e.g. newspapers and magazines) than those with relatively easy publication thresholds (e.g. online forums). And, this perception may be reality. Not only do more traditional publishers employ “credibility protectors” such as fact-checkers, researchers and editors, the physical nature of the medium tends to imply a certain level of gravitas that a more ephemeral medium simply cannot achieve.
Still, the web and mobile platforms have generally displayed the most positive change in terms of being identified as trustworthy sources of information, and I expect for this trend to continue as more traditional publishers develop increasingly robust online presences.
Self-published content such as direct mail are among the least trusted sources of information. (Interesting finding: Upon reviewing data from previous years, we know that the trust value of direct mail tends to further plummet during election seasons when mailboxes are littered with campaign propaganda – and we may reasonably expect this in the upcoming seasons.) Other printed materials (e.g. brochures) are also considered to be comparatively untrustworthy sources of information.
This data should be of considerable note to nonprofit organizations (or any company) spending a significant portion of their budget on printed materials while largely ignoring its online reputation – especially if the organization could alternatively invest an equivalent amount to hire a resource to manage its online engagement and social media platforms.
This data is particularly intriguing to me because it illustrates a very unique moment in terms of the evolution of marketing and information-share. Perhaps the way that we think of printed materials such as direct mail will someday soon join payphones, Polaroid pictures, Blockbuster video stores, road maps and telephone books in the pantheon of obsolescence.
3. Amplification
Amplification quantifies the re-distribution potential of the respective information channel. Marketers should care about amplification because this measure potentially indicates the amount of “marketing bang” that an organization will get for its buck – a particularly relevant item for cash-strapped nonprofits. This parameter measures how likely folks are to share these marketing channels with others. In my line of work, we sometimes refer to an information channel’s amplification value as its “sneeze factor” – how many other people can we infect with this message? (Quick apology to health-related nonprofiteers reading this post!)
As you can see, web and mobile-based sites generally have higher amplification rates and are easier to share than more traditional marketing channels. This seems sensible. It is, of course, easier to forward an email than it is to share a radio spot with a friend… but some interesting habits of the general population and how they use/relate to these channels emerge in these numbers. For instance, when compared to other printed information sources such as newspapers and direct mail, we generally find a higher amplification rate for magazines because they often have much higher production values (i.e. look and feel “nicer”). Because of this, magazines are more likely than other printed channels to occupy a spot on the coffee table until the next month’s issue arrives. During that time, friends coming over may see these magazines, flip through their pages, and presto! The magazine as an information channel has achieved amplification.
Unfortunately for many museums and nonprofits spending large amounts of money on printed materials, less substantial brochures do not have the same fate and are tucked away in private spaces or ultimately land in the trash before they can be amplified.
Though high in credibility value, word of mouth has a low amplification rate because it is difficult to reproduce and scale an in-person interaction.
4. Overall Value
The overall value represents the weighted, relative values of these information channels after collectively considering the reach, trust and amplification metrics. The results here may be stunning in their comparative value – especially for marketing traditionalists or web and social media “nonbelievers.” All of the web and mobile-based information sources experienced growth from June 2011 to March 2012 (i.e. web, social media, mobile web, and peer review web). No other media channels experienced growth. Email also experienced a decline, and though this is indeed a medium that is dependent upon the web, it does not represent a “living” platform with rotating, changeable content and thus functions differently than social media, peer review web, etc.
Social media is an enormously important component of your overall marketing and communication strategy. In fact, data suggests that it is the most important channel to engage your users and constituents. The overall value of social media increased 49.2% from June 2011 to March 2012. This is (quite obviously) the most significant change observed across the quantified information channels.
This data serves as yet another reminder of the recent, rapid evolution in the ways that people communicate, spread information, and find value in marketing messages. This is more than just anecdotal word on the street; it is compelling evidence of the way that our society behaves. CEOs and managers slow to “believe” in the power of online platforms and social media may need to lower the printed brochure in their hands, put away the flyers, and move their communications into the present.
Findings such as these present the contemporary nonprofit organization with a handful of basic choices: Relevant or obsolete? Solvent or destitute? Growth or regression? More or less? And, perhaps most importantly over time: Life or death?
The Early Adopter Phase on Pinterest is Coming to an End (or, 5 Reasons for Museums to Get on Pinterest Right Now)
April 9, 2012
Pinterest is a virtual pinboard and social photo-sharing site that allows folks to organize and curate theme-based collections (boards) of pictures and images (pins). The site’s mission statement says it all: “to connect everyone in the world through things they find interesting.” Though the site launched in March of 2010, this social platform has experienced incredible growth throughout the last few months. And one thing’s for sure: it’s worth paying some attention – especially if you are a zoo, aquarium, museum (ZAM), or cultural center with high potential for visual engagement.
Nonprofits will benefit by getting on Pinterest right now. It’s late enough in the platform’s development for us to have indication that it’s worth these organizations’ often-limited resources, but it’s soon enough that ZAMs have not “missed the boat” in getting on Pinterest. Also, this platform may have some tremendous word of mouth benefits. While the boom of folks and organizations getting on Pinterest may indicate that the “early adopter” phase is coming to an end in the next few months (if it hasn’t happened already), it’s important for ZAMs – in particular – to be there. Why? Here are five reasons why your organization should consider developing a presence on Pinterest – and doing it soon.
1) Pinterest is big and it’s getting bigger very quickly.
With 2.2 million active daily users and 12 million active monthly users, Pinterest is now the third most-used social media platform in the United States. It ranks in after Facebook and Twitter, and before LinkedIn (by over 18 million views in the month of February 2012 alone). The platform experienced an increase in total unique visitors of 2,702.2% since May 2011, and its usership continues to grow. With 91% of all adults who are online using social media regularly, social media platforms – especially the most popular ones that communicate directly with museums audiences – are a smart place for museums to be.
Social media platforms are one of the primary and most powerful methods used by potential visitors to gather information and make visitation decisions. As the third most-used social media site, ignoring Pinterest means missing an opportunity to be present with a steadily growing online audience. There are 12 million active monthly users on Pinterest (so far). A part of your audience is already here… and might be looking for you.
2) Pinterest serves multiple functions that have a positive impact on your museum’s bottom lines.
Cultural nonprofits generally have two, key goals: to spread their message in order to educate, inspire, or ignite some form of positive change, and to meet a financial bottom line (i.e. to attract visitors, members, and donors to remain economically sustainable). Pinterest can help do both of these things by effectively and creatively reaching people online.
For instance, Pinterest allows for organization’s to build personal relevance with audiences. This kind of personal sharing done by Pinterest users can have high word of mouth marketing value – and this can drive qualified traffic to conversion sites. Pinterest allows users to express themselves with pictures and images that are relevant to their lives. Content produced and pinned by ZAMs has the capability of being repinned and integrated into user’s boards – which are often personal with high word of mouth value. In fact, Pinterest creates more referral traffic than double that of Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn combined, and a new study shows that Pinterest creates more referral traffic than Twitter. Simply put: Pinterest will get you more clicks to your website (if that’s where your pins link), than Twitter will bring to your website. Moreover, Pinterest is engaging and retaining users 2-3 times more efficiently than Twitter did at a similar time in its history. This is important, because conversion sites (ticket buying and membership purchasing pages) are often accessed through an organization’s homepage… and Pinterest can help get you those qualified clicks by referring Pinterest users to your webpage or social media hub.
…and they ARE often generally qualified clicks. Pinterest – simple as the concept may seem – functions as a tool to allow potential visitors to self-identify with the organization. In other words, individuals who pin photos from your venue or repin your pins are actively identifying themselves as fans of your organization or your organization’s offerings. Pinterest also can appeal to audiences that are at different stages of engagement with the museum. Here’s how (adapted from Mashable):
- Potential advocates and influencers repin and share your organization’s links and images on Pinterest. This serves as a form of online product recommendation or a review.
- Near-future visitors may be using your content as a bookmarking or online wishlist function, allowing them to share and remember things that they’d like to do in the future.
- Immediate visitors, or those interested in visiting in very short order, may conduct a targeted online search for your museum on Pinterest in order to do a bit of research and assess the organization before scooping up the family – or grabbing their partner’s hand – and heading out the door.
- Long term/future visitors who take their time making visitation decisions may be using Pinterest much like window-shoppers; they’re scoping out the photos and visual offerings of museums in order to make a decision to visit (or not to visit) in the future.
In sum, Pinterest functions as a widely used tool that allows ZAMs to spread your museum’s message, remain top of mind, and increase your organization’s relevance on a steadily growing, online platform among real and potential visitors.
3) Pinterest’s (current) frequent users represent a powerful social demographic that many ZAMs are trying to target: The potential (now and future) moms of America.
There are a lot of great reasons why museums often aim to target moms in addition to other demographics. To name a few, moms in the US spend 2.1 trillion dollars each year and they control 85% of household income. A staggeringly high 79% of moms identify themselves as being active on social media on a daily basis. Also, individuals in this demographic trust one another and frequently look to other active “mommy bloggers” or mommy social media users to make purchasing decisions or recommendations. In other words, turning moms into museum/cultural center evangelists has the potential to not only “drive the gate,” but to inspire entire families of ocean advocates, scientists-in-training, little (and big) anthropologists, creative thinkers, art lovers and musicians-in-the-making. We already know that who folks visit a museum with is more important than what they see. Targeting moms has terrific real and emotional potential for long-term engagement and becoming part of a family tradition and perhaps making museum-going a way-of-life.
This audience is on Pinterest: As of the end of February of this year, 68.2% of Pinterest users were women- and half of all Pinterest users have children. Women between age 25 and 44 make up 49.5% of all Pinterest users. These are America’s moms and future moms- and engaging these ladies may have significant payoff for museums and cultural nonprofits.
And this audience is “into” museum sweet-spots: ZAMs may be in a better position to integrate this platform than giant corporations because museums – by their very nature of existing to educate, inspire, and tell stories – produce some innately “pin-able” content. Here are some of the most popular board themes according to a recent study by JRMetrics:
- Arts & Crafts, as a theme, takes the lead as the most popular theme on Pinterest – making up 12.4% of all boards. An art museum may pin pointillism crafts. Science centers, zoos and aquariums may feature “green” crafts or projects that can help families save energy. The possibilities are perhaps as endless as staff creativity.
- Food is one of the most popular pin board themes on Pinterest, comprising 10.5% of all boards across the platform. It is also the fastest growing theme and predicted to trump fashion-themed boards on Pinterest in the near future in terms of frequency of pinning and board creation. This is good news for aquariums pushing sustainable seafood, science centers hoping to share information about nutritional science, and even location-based historic sites that may have some recipes that represent a taste of the times.
- Inspiration/Education makes up 9% of all Pinterest boards. This category may be a no-brainer for creative ZAMs with a social message.
- Travel, as a theme, makes up 1.9% of all pin boards. In fact, “Favorite Places & Spaces” is the sixth most-popular pin board name. If your museums or cultural center looking to also function as a travel destination (or, a destinations that folks visit when they travel for other reasons), this theme also plays to an area of potential strength.
4) Pinterest makes people curators – and that concept has a museum association.
ZAMs often have plenty of stunning visual content attendant to the positive social message they share. Moreover, these kinds of informal learning environments allow for visitors to take their own pictures and tell the story of your museum as it relates to their own lives – so the stories are coming from both the organization and from visitors alike.
The word “curation” may be a loaded one in our field and its definition (or rather, who does it and what that means) seems to be in a critical stage of evolution. As social technology puts the power of information in online users’ hands, we’re seeing more and more experiments around crowd curation in museums. Pinterest allows people to be curators of collections and its popularity may be a sign for museums who are reluctant to let go of the traditional “curation control” and experiment with radical trust. Forbes has featured stories about The Rise and Rise of Pinterest and Our Love of Digital Curation.
Pinterest also encourages sharing and accessibility – areas where ZAMs could perhaps use some reputational TLC. Attendant to this “pro,” however, are discussions related to the online accessibility of collections in regard to copyright issues and putting collections online. It should be noted that Pinterest just changed their policies –including their copyright policy and pin etiquette - so that they were more fitting for the uses of this growing platform. They are worth checking out.
5) Now is the time to get on Pinterest. (Read: Don’t wait)
To put it simply, as more and more folks get involved on Pinterest, the likelihood that you will be organically searched increases. If you’re not there, you’ve missed a powerful engagement opportunity. It’s worth noting again that individuals utilize social media platforms to gather information in order to make visitation decisions. Several large corporations and important entities are thriving on Pinterest. Nonprofits are on Pinterest. President Obama is on Pinterest. SeaWorld just created a Pinterest account. For a fitting platform in a world that’s all about relevance and remaining top-of-mind among the “noise,” this is not a time to be (visually) silent.
While Pinterest is still evolving as a platform and we are not certain what the future will hold in terms of audience engagement in the long run, this platform may very well be worth the time and energy to set up and maintain. At least, signs are pointing that way. It’s true that Pinterest may not be for every organization (This infographic may help you decide, though it lacks information on the relevance/efficacy of the platform within the industry.) But the outlook is good for the visually engaging world of zoos, aquariums, and museums …So collect your favorite photos, set up some Pinterest share tabs on your pages, and start listening, measuring, and providing content for real and potential visitors, members, and donors to pin. Show the world that museums are not places of the past, but instead indicators of the future. In short, now is the time to be ahead of (or at least on) the curve.
I’m also keeping tabs on museums and libraries on Pinterest, as well as zoos and aquariums on Pinterest. Have ZAMs to add? Tweet at me (@cdilly) or leave a comment below. Better yet, post it on my brand new Facebook wall and let other folks know! I’ll be sure to update accordingly.
Potential museum visitors access information about the organization and decide if they want to visit by using web-based sites such as a museum’s website, social media platforms, and peer-review sites over more “traditional” forms of advertising. In fact, when comparing how folks get their information about leisure activities, it’s not even close: web and mobile platforms (including social media) are disproportionately influencing your museum’s visitation and attendance.
The following data indicates how the American public accesses information in order to make visitation decisions regarding leisure activities – such as the decision to go to a visitor-serving organization. This data has been compiled by IMPACTS Research & Development (the company for which I work) based on information from the National Awareness, Attitudes & Usage Study - the largest survey of the American public concerning visitor-serving organizations heretofore conducted in the United States. HPV stands for “high propensity visitor” and indicates persons in the United States with the demographic, psychographic and behavioral attributes typically suggestive of a likely visitor to a zoo, aquarium, museum, botanic garden, historic site, or other VSO. In short, HPVs are high-potential museum-goers.
The categories above were determined by how the American public itself identified information channels and categories. Here’s an explanation of what they mean:
Web + mobile: This category refers not only to the organization’s web and mobile platforms (its “sovereign” content) but also information found on other websites – including mobile websites – that pertain to the information being sought regarding the VSO. For example, this would include information found on nytimes.com – but exclude the print edition of The New York Times as this information channel has been separately quantified within the “Newspapers (print)” category.
WOM: This stands for “word of mouth” and represents person-to-person testimonials and social media. Here, we are acceding to the market’s definition of WOM. The data indicates that they believe that social media functions as a form of testimony and/or endorsement (potentially both positive and negative). Since the market regards social media as a form of WOM, it has been so categorized accordingly.
Peer review web + mobile: This refers to TripAdvisor and Yelp (and the respective mobile web/apps for each), and other platforms with similar peer-reviewed content. “Peer review web + mobile” is considered separately from WOM because, again, this is consistent with the market’s perception and use of the informational channel. The market separately distinguishes social media and WOM from peer review sites because the former is perceived as “point-to-point/person-to-person” while the latter is perceived as a repository/aggregator. In other words, for people seeking information, WOM is a review meant for “my” consideration, while a peer review is meant for general consideration. One is personal; one is general.
For this very reason, strong WOM will generally outweigh a peer review on Yelp, TripAdvisor, or a similar peer review site. In other words, a person will generally be more likely to give consideration to a positive recommendation from a friend on Facebook than a one-star review from someone that they do not know on TripAdvisor. However, the reach of a peer review makes it functionally impossible to counter every negative peer review with a positive, first-person endorsement. It takes both attention to word of mouth marketing/social media AND peer review sites in order for an organization to maximize its endorsement opportunity.
Implications:
Museums must prioritize web and social media… and make sure they have adequate resources and support to manage online communities. When it comes to annual budgeting for marketing, many museums allocate “last year’s budget plus five percent” to the effort without assessing how methods of communication and accessing information have changed. Time and time again, organizations say, “we cannot afford to hire a full-time social media person.” All too often, these are the same organizations that think nothing of spending $40,000 per year for glossy brochures and collateral materials…which, data indicates, have 11.5x LESS value as an information channel than does word of mouth marketing and social media to high propensity visitors– and 7.8x LESS value as an information channel than peer review sites. Increasingly, organizations that experience visitor growth will be those that have social media and online community management support… Stunning how growth flatlines when nothing changes, isn’t it? (said with a smile). We see this all the time. Growth depends upon adjustment according to timely awareness, attitude, and usage data.
Museums cannot “buy” their way to prosperity (as they may have once thought more brochures meant more business). According to the Bass Model, the initial sale of something depends upon the number of people interested in a product (called the coefficient of innovation, or “P”). Advertising represents “P.” However, all other sales are based upon the number of folks drawn to the product after seeing friends use the product (Coefficient of imitation, or “Q”). Word of mouth marketing represents “Q.” According to IMPACTS data, “Q” (Word of mouth) is 12.85x that of “P”(Advertising). In other words, word of mouth marketing has 12.85x more power than traditional advertising. So, while who a person visits with matters more than what they visit, so too does word of mouth matter more than advertising. Of course, both advertising and WOM work together to maximize marketing opportunity. Advertising is not unimportant. However, no pragmatic amount of advertising can reliably overcome lousy WOM and not-so-great peer reviews.
Two points of clarity on the data so that it is not “used for wrong”: 1) The slide above is not intended to be an all-inclusive means of indicating information channels. Instead, it quantifies the relative proportion and influence of the indicated information channels when compared to one another. 2) The data indicates how HPVs and the total American population access information about VSOs and leisure activities in order to make visitation decisions. It does NOT intend to make budgeting recommendations or take into account how much money should mathematically be spent in each category (i.e.- 3.8x more for Travel magazines than printed brochures), though a good application of this data may be in considering an organization’s marketing and communications investment by media channel.
This post contains 20 embedded YouTube Videos. If you are receiving this article via email, please consider visiting this article on Know Your Own Bone in order to play the videos.
Social media video sites such as YouTube and Vimeo can be critical tools for nonprofits looking to encourage engagement regarding their mission and brand. This is no different for zoos, aquariums, and museums (ZAMs). In fact, with the double bottom line of spreading a mission and “pushing the gate,” these videos aim to serve a dual function. With the rise of Pinterest and a Facebook shifting its focus to prioritize engaging content, it seems as though we may be at a turning point with the way that we use social media. In other words, ZAMS may find themselves producing more and more organic and/or creative, timely videos than they have in the past. We may be in the midst of this trend. Just check out the creative online initiatives that ZAMs took up for the 2011 holiday season.
In order to keep a pulse on YouTube views and subscribers in the ZAM community, I have compiled the “most viewed” videos from several institutions, which I chose by popular vote and visitation. While there are several similarities among the list in terms of type of videos with significant viewership, there is no magic formula for a popular video. I have compiled viewership information from twenty leading zoos, aquariums and museums. Here are the ZAMs that I monitored, in order of their number of subscribers (with links to respective YouTube channels):
- Museum of Modern Art- 17,684 subscribers
- American Museum of Natural History -13,605 subscribers
- Metropolitan Museum of Art - 4,613 subscribers
- San Diego Zoo -3,513 subscribers
- Cincinnati Zoo – 3,154 subscribers
- Monterey Bay Aquarium -2,689 subscribers
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - 1,866 subscribers
- Wildlife Conservation Society -1,808 subscribers
- Georgia Aquarium - 1,494 subscribers
- Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum – 1,136 subscribers
- Columbus Zoo - 1,029 subscribers
- Saint Louis Zoo – 560 subscribers
- Shedd Aquarium – 539 subscribers
- The Henry Ford Museum - 423 subscribers
- National Aquarium- 348 subscribers
- Museum of Science and Industry – 244 subscribers
- Newport Aquarium, Cincinnati - 234 subscribers
- Children’s Museum of Indianapolis - 150 subscribers
- Pheonix Zoo - 125 subscribers
- Oklahoma City Zoo - 94 subscribers
Method: How did I decide this list? Recently, 10best.com held an open, online voting competition which allowed web users to vote for their top-ten favorite zoos, aquariums, and museums. I included #1 – #5 from the list of zoo, aquarium, and museum winners. Because this competition can be easily rigged by stakeholders, I also included a few of the most visited US museums that are recognized globally (MET, MoMA, ect), and I also added the San Diego Zoo and WCS in order to represent the highest-visitation zoos. I only recorded the top two most-viewed videos for each institution to prevent one organization from dominating this list and to provide a more inclusive overview. A thing to keep in mind while viewing these videos: while YouTube views provide an indication of the spread and share of a message/video, an institution’s subscribers (or, self-identified folks signing up to be kept in the loop on that organization’s video happenings), indicate a higher level of evangelism than views alone. In other words, subscribers (above) are a better score-keeper for folks looking to “rank” these organizations.The following article features YouTube videos from the organizations on this list based upon this methodology- It is not inclusive of all ZAMs and does not necessarily represent the ZAMs with the most views.
Of these institutions, chosen by popular vote and visitation, here is a countdown the YouTube videos that had the most views as of Sunday, March 4th, 2012:
20. Tour the Georgia Aquarium (110,855 views)
Promotional video for the Georgia Aquarium
19.Primordial Soup with Julia Child at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (119,627 views)
“Julia Child cooks up a batch of primordial soup and explains how these simple ingredients produce amino acids – the building blocks of life. This video played in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Life in The Universe gallery from 1976 until the gallery closed.”
18. Stadivari Violin, “The Antonius,” Played by Eric Grossman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (127,659 views)
This video features Eric Grossman performing the chaconne from JS Bach’s Partita no. 2 in D minor on a violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1717.
17. A Day at Shedd Aquarium (146,026 views)
Promotional and informational video regarding a trip to the Aquarium. “Charting your course to a fabulous day at Shedd can be smooth sailing! We want to make it easy for you to plan your visit. From ticket prices to directions to daily dive times, visit www.sheddaquarium.org to connect you to all the information you need to come face-to-fins with the fun stuff.”
16. Fantasea at Shedd Aquarium (164,404 views)
Official trailer for “Fantasea” which premiered in October of 2009 at Shedd Aquarium. “Dolphins soar, belugas dance, and penguins parade in Fantasea, the new aquatic show at Shedd”
15. Cute Baby Sea Otters at Monterey Bay (223,852 views)
This video of baby sea otters at Monterey Bay Aquarium discusses the Aquarium’s Sea Otter Research and Conservation Program.
14. Seahorses Mating from the National Aquarium (233,026 views)
“Did you know it’s the male seahorse that becomes pregnant and delivers the baby seahorses? See how the female transfers the eggs to the male!” This risqué video was created as a Valentines Day promotion for special couple’s packages in 2011.
13. Pallas Cats at the Prospect Park Zoo (246,351 views)
“They may look like the fattest felines you’ve ever seen, but the Prospect Park Zoo’s new pair of Pallas cats, Nicholas and Alexandra, aren’t full on lasagna—they’re built for the chilly climate of central Asia.”
12. Freshwater Otter Plays the Piano at Monterey Bay Aquarium (254,925 views)
“Dua, an Asian small-clawed otter at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, plays the piano as a behind-the-scenes enrichment. This activity was created to give Dua something interesting to do and extend his feeding time, while showing off his species dexterity.”
11. Tim Burton MOMA Spot (270,928 views)
Promotion for the Tim Burton exhibit on view at MoMA November 22, 2009-April 26, 2010
10. Beco’s Tub Toy at the Columbus Zoo (276,898 views)
“So what kind of toy do you give a 600 pound baby elephant? How about a 2-foot round blue plastic ball? Enrichment items such as Boomer balls are commonplace in zoos today. These toys and activities add variety and exercise to the animals lives and help to encourage their natural behaviors. As for Beco and his Boomer Ball that enrichment has double benefits it also helps mom Phoebe get a break from looking after 600 pounds of bouncing baby elephant energy.”
9. Jell-O Enrichment for Squirrel Monkeys at the Bronx Zoo (332,503 views)
“In the Bronx Zoos Monkey House, squirrel monkeys receive a holiday treat unlike anything they’ve seen-or felt-before. Keepers offer them Jell-O with blueberries, a jiggly concoction that immediately stimulates their foraging instincts.”
8. Kookaburra Calls at the Cincinnati Zoo (416,869 views)
“The Kookaburra has one of the most identifiable calls of all birds. The Cincinnati Zoo has one trained for its Wings of Wonder bird show, to call on cue.”
7. Otter Pups Swim Lesson at the Columbus Zoo (667,013 views)
“Otter pups arent born with any innate knowledge of how to swim or handle themselves in the water. And since otters depend on water to survive, mom has to teach her babies how to be as home in the water as they are on land. In March, Audrey, the Zoos North American river otter female, gave birth to three healthy male pups. At around 30 days old, the pups are strong enough to begin their swimming lessons although sometimes, theyre not the most enthusiastic students much like kids everywhere.”
6. Voice Piece for Soprano & Wish Tree at MoMA. Summer 2010 by Yoko Ono (802,659 views)
A video of Yoko Ono performing in conjunction with the exhibition Contemporary Art from the Collection at the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition was on view through May 9, 2011.
5. Cheetah Sets Record at Cincinnati Zoo (812,604 views)
“Many have asked why our cheetah only averaged 36.5 mph. This was a run based on time, not top speed. A sprinter can be faster than another but if he stumbles and doesn’t finish it doesn’t matter. There is a cheetah in South Africa, Zaza who will be doing the same thing in October to try to beat Sarah. The cheetahs are starting from zero, not full speed because that’s how the previous time of 6.19 seconds was set. The previous rules also stated that the record was based on 3 runs, so even though we are sure Sarah can run faster we don’t get a redo. People have also commented on the lure not being far enough ahead, if the lure gets to far away the cheetah will stop, not wasting energy on something it can’t catch.”
4. Baby Hippo Ballet at the San Diego Zoo (888,474 views)
This video is simple, organic, short, and has an outstanding number of views. The popularity of this view may illustrate that simplicity (without too many bells and whistles) can go a long way.
3. Baby Elephant Born at the San Diego Safari Park (923,340 views)
On March 11, 2007 17-year-old African elephant Litsemba gave birth at the Safari Park. This video shows the little guy and features commentary from staff experts.
2. Science Bulletin: Whales Give Dolphins a Lift from the American Museum of Natural History (1,559,880 views)
This video is also from the American Museum of Natural History. “Many species interact in the wild, most often as predator and prey. But recent encounters between humpback whales and bottlenose dolphins reveal a playful side to interspecies interaction. In two different locations in Hawaii, scientists watched as dolphins “rode” the heads of whales: the whales lifted the dolphins up and out of the water, and then the dolphins slid back down.”
1. The Known Universe by the American Museum of Natural History (9,856,645 views)
This video by the American Museum of Natural History takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. This film was created by the Museum as part of an exhibition, The film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition: Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan
Most Viewed YouTube Videos from US Zoos, Aquariums and Museums: #21 through #40
21. Moving the U-505 Submarine. Museum of Science and Industry- 107, 841 views. Over several days, the team guided the U-505 submarine 1,000 feet to its new home. From the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago
22. September 11 FAA Closure of US Airspace. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum - 99,037 views. This animation was created by NASA using FAA air traffic control data from September 11, 2001. It shows the rapid grounding of air traffic across the US, and redirection of incoming international traffic, in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
23. Sharks Invade Georgia Aquarium. Georgia Aquarium - 86,544 views. A video celebrating the Aquarium’s new sand tiger sharks.
24. The Harvesters. Metropolitan Museum of Art - 83,823 views. Metropolitan Museum staff members discuss The Harvesters (19.164) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder with producer Christopher Noey.
25. See what wonders await you at the National Aquarium. National Aquarium - 78,518 views. Promotional video of the Aquarium experience.
26. Ford Model T Assembly Line. The Henry Ford Museum - 64,472 views. Opens with shields and running boards being positioned and secured, followed by views of Highland Park workers on the assembly line assembling the Ford Model T. Includes crane lowering chassis to body, securing the fenders, installing the radiator, placing the hood, installing and filling the gas tank, assembling the dash, and attaching wheels and tires. Close-ups of engine, transmission, starting button, and generator. In closing, a Model T is driven on a deeply rutted road.
27. Jellyfish Gallery Video Preview. Newport Aquarium, Cincinnati - 38,861 views. The Jellyfish Gallery contains eight tanks containing hundreds of these amazing creatures, as well as new, fun interactive elements and state-of-the-art displays.
28. The Hope Diamond. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - 34,584 views. “45.52 carats – The Hope Diamond–the world’s largest deep blue diamond–is more than a billion years old. It formed deep within the Earth and was carried by a volcanic eruption to the surface in what is now India. In 1958, Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Museum, and it now belongs to the people of the United States.”
29. Quadricycle. The Henry Ford Museum - 28,108 views. A video of a man riding a quadricycle in Greenfield Village.
30. MEanderthal. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - 22,511 views “Try morphing yourself backward in time with MEanderthal, the Smithsonian Institution’s first-ever mobile app. You might be surprised when you see your face transformed into the face of an early human.”
31. Month at the Museum Finalist: Kate McGroarty. Museum of Science and Industry- 18,545 views. This was Kate’s original audition video for the museum’s first, famous Month at The Museum initiative.
32. Tree Kangaroo Feeding. Saint Louis Zoo -18,132 views. In this soundless video, “Zookeepers use target training with Matschie’s tree kangaroos Kasbeth and her 1 ½ year old son Teptep. The ‘roos are given treats when they touch their nose to the object on the end of the target. Training is enrichment for the animals and gives the keepers the opportunity to observe each animal closely.”
33. Tree Kangeroo Joey. Saint Louis Zoo - 16,684 views. “A little Zoo present has popped up just in time to give a pounce of holiday cheer! “Nokopo” (pronounced NOH-koh-poh), a female Matschie’s tree kangaroo joey, has begun poking her head out from within her mother’s pouch at their habitat in Emerson Children’s Zoo at the Saint Louis Zoo in December, 2010.”
34. Lego Master Builder at Work. Children’s Museum of Indianapolis - 14,713 views. Speed video. of builders creating a castle for The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis traveling exhibit – Lego Castle Adventures. The museum’s second most popular video is similar.
35. A King is Born. Newport Aquarium, Cincinnati - 13,303 views. “After the announcement of three new Gentoo chicks last month, Newport Aquarium revealed another hatching: a King penguin chick was hatched at the Aquarium. Making it noteworthy, this King chick is a second-generation Newport Aquarium penguin. Its parents were both born at the Aquarium four years ago.”
36. Polar Slide. Phoenix Zoo - 4,938 views. “ 200 Feet of Excitement. The Phoenix Zoo and Summit Adventure Systems bring you simulated snow technology created by Neveplast in Italy. The surface is used by professional skiers and snowboarders in Europe to train in the off-season. We are the first zoo in the world to have this technology and we’re very excited about it! The Polar Slide is fun for all ages! It’ll have you and your kids smiling the entire way down the 200 foot track!”
37. Bear. Oklahoma City Zoo - 3,428 views. Promotional video to visit the bears at the Oklahoma City Zoo.
38. Lion. Oklahoma City Zoo - 3,385 views. Promotional video to visit lions at the Oklahoma City Zoo.
39. Journey Tribute Band. Children’s Museum of Indianapolis - 2,343 views. “ Frontiers, the nation’s top Journey Tribute Band, helped us kick off our rockin’ summer at the opening of Rock Stars, Cars, and Guitars!”
40. Meerkat PSA. Phoenix Zoo -1,846 views. “A little Zoo present has popped up just in time to give a pounce of holiday cheer! “Nokopo” (pronounced NOH-koh-poh), a female Matschie’s tree kangaroo joey, has begun poking her head out from within her mother’s pouch at their habitat in Emerson Children’s Zoo at the Saint Louis Zoo in December, 2010. “
Why Your Nonprofit’s Number of Social Media Followers Doesn’t Matter
January 23, 2012
(…nearly as much as most organizations think that they matter)
Would you rather have 100,000 Facebook “likes” from folks who never visit your museum or donate to your cause, or 10 Facebook “likes” from folks who do?
It’s important to have an ongoing presence on social media because customer interactions build powerful word of mouth marketing opportunities, it is important to be accessible, and transparency is an increasingly important social priority for successful businesses. However, I’m always surprised when I start working with an organization and the marketing department’s social media strategy focuses on gaining Facebook likes or Twitter followers rather than engaging online audiences or getting people through the door. This happens all the time. Really... it happens all the time. It’s a good idea to aim for high quality followers, but focusing on collecting sheer numbers is a waste of time and using this as key metric for success is a distraction. Having thousands upon thousands of social media followers is not necessarily indicative of an engaging online presence and may not be working to your organization’s benefit at all.
Your number of social media followers can and should be used to track growth and engagement, but aiming simply for high numbers misses the boat. Here's a photo tip from John Haydon.
Social media follower numbers are a big tease. They are displayed prominently on social media sites and organizations yearn for a way to measure ROI for social media. Thus, organizations often measure success based upon the pure number of people who follow them. These marketing managers are distracted. Goals for social media should be no different from the greater goals of the organization. At the end of the day (for museums, for instance), that goal is to increase visitation, evangelism, and educate or inspire the public. An organization’s ability to do this is not dependent upon the number of followers or likes that they have, but the quality and level of engagement of those followers. Stop focusing only on this number and making it a single point of celebration.
The value of social media followers:
To reference a metaphor that I use frequently, engaging folks online is like managing and setting up a community marathon race. If getting runners to complete the marathon means that you’ve converted the individual into a donor, then getting a “like” means that somebody has signed up to join your training program. Generally, training programs are important to have for many reasons and there’s reason to pay attention to the number of people who sign up. However, not everyone who joined the program will finish the marathon… and many more people will likely complete the marathon who haven’t signed up for the program (or who aren’t represented in your “likes” on Facebook).
Though number of “likes,” followers, and subscribers is far less important than the quality of the evangelism in these folks, likes actually do have some value on their own- it’s just not as significant as some make it out to be. It’s important to understand how this number (alone) can actually help your organizations reach its goals on social media:
- Social media followers are self-identified evangelists and collecting followers increases the likelihood that people will see your message thanks to placements in newsfeeds or the Facebook Ticker. However, they do not mean that people will share, promote, or engage with your message- or even that their level of evangelism reaches beyond that single “like” or “follow” click. Focus on engaging audiences and inspiring conversation (which increase your reputation, a proven driver of visitation to a museum) instead of increasing your sheer number of low-level followers.
- An organization’s number of social media followers often indicates credibility to potential donors or visitors. However, a small number of followers isn’t likely to deter high-level evangelists who feel a connection to your organization. This benefit of having sheer high numbers of social media followers does not outweigh a misdirected effort to focus on this metric above all else. Try to get social media followers when you can, but aim for individuals who are likely to communicate your message and don’t make sheer numbers your top priority.
What should you measure instead of focusing entirely on your number of social media followers? Your organizations’ conversation rate, amplification rate and applause rate are good places to start.
The whole point of collecting social media followers is to get them to do something.
Recently, Rick Schwartz (@ZooKeeperRick) of the San Diego Zoo aimed to prove the “power of social media” by taking on a challenge to get 30 new Twitter followers in 3 days. Rick more than succeeded; he reached 30 followers in just the first day and collected over 96 new followers by his deadline three days later. The goal of this was- very simply- to gain followers… Any followers. In this case, it was likely that the audience reached in this initative could be classified more as social media fans than zoo advocates so it’s hard to say if this experiment demonstrates a certain level of evangelism or even strengthens Rick’s online influence… But he achieved his goal and made a point: “social media can get the word out, and quickly.” All too often, this is where social media goals end: after the initiative to get more social media followers ends. But what’s the point of having any followers at all if not to spread a message? Why exert an effort to get followers if there isn’t even more effort put into getting these followers to do or support something?
On social media, Rick is a huge marketing asset for the zoo. He is engaging, fun, and tweets great conservation and animal information. In several ways, he is a living message and accessible personality for the zoo who helps fulfill the zoo’s goal to educate and inspire. He’s proved that getting numbers can be achieved (especially when it’s timely and urgent), but he has his eye on the greater point of social media for nonprofits:
Focusing efforts on achieving high social media follower numbers misses the point of social media and does not even guarantee that followers will be active, engaged, or share your message. However, making efforts to attract high quality evangelists online is a worthy goal that helps your organization achieves its mission in the long run. Design your social media strategy for an outcome that meets the organization’s goal (inspiring visitation, securing donations, or raising awareness) and don’t be sidetracked by sheer follower numbers. The goal isn’t just a high number. The goal is a high number of high-quality social media followers who will actively support your cause. One person who believes in your organization is worth far more than one million people who don’t.
Know Your Own Bone’s 15 Most Popular Posts of 2011
December 30, 2011
- After playing with a bunch of pictures from this year, I’m going the “goofy face during a presentation” route. The world has enough pictures of stuffy presenters, doesn’t it? Thanks for making 2011 great, readers!
Happy New Year!
As 2011 draws to a close, I’ve been doing that all-too-typical “blogger thing” wherein I look back at all of the posts collected here and all of the terrific museum, nonprofit, and social technology professionals that I’ve had the opportunity to meet over the last year. I continue to be amazed by the power of social media to bring people together around ideas in an effort to bring an industry together and propel a whole sector forward.
It has been a very big year for me. I earned my masters degree (MPA) in Nonprofit Management and started working for an innovative company that supports nonprofits in a big way. My love for social media and online engagement has found a terrific home with this company specializing in predictive technology. I moved from Los Angeles to Chicago (It’s freezing here), but I travel very often and I spend more days visiting zoo, aquarium, and museum clients than I spend in my own bed. I would not change a thing. I’ve been blessed with publications, speaking engagements, and a terrific network of thought leaders. I am truly lucky to be immersed in such a powerful online community and to have such thought-provoking readers. It has been a big year for Know Your Own Bone, too. Starting it’s third year, this blog has more readership than ever, great circulation, and a talented tribe of readers and subscribers from the nonprofit, museum, and marketing world. Thanks for reading and being those folks, folks! To wrap up the calendar year, I’d like to share the fifteen most popular posts from 2011.
1. 38 Ways Zoos and Aquariums are Engaging Audiences Through Social Technology
“Check out some of the classic, creative, charming, and kooky ways that zoos and aquariums are using social technology to make waves in their communities and beyond. I created this list in preparation for a talk at the Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s Mid-Year Meeting.” (March 10, 2011)
2. You Have To Be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable- One Line Lessons in Leadership
Though I know that I shouldn’t be, I’m always a bit surprised when more “personal” posts turn out to get the most readership and circulation. ”Here are my favorite one-liner lessons/quotes on leadership from professors in graduate school.” (May 4, 2011)
3. Personal Branding for Museum Directors- A Look At Two Industry Leaders
“Here are two, stellar examples of museum CEOs with terrific personal brands. Both of these museum directors use their personal brands to their- and their institution’s- advantage…and they do it in different ways.” (December 12, 2011)
4. What Facebook’s Changes Mean for Visitor Serving Organizations
“Mark Zuckerberg has explained that Facebook is about to roll out some big changes and new features in the next few weeks. These big changes will affect how brands interact with people online, and change up the way that museums are connecting with the public. Here’s what Facebook’s changes mean for museums and visitor serving organizations.” (September 26, 2011)
5. Curator 2.0- The New Duties of an Evolving Job
“The occupation of curator was recently ranked one of The 50 Best Careers of 2011 by U.S. News and World Report. While we may find this true over the course of the next year, one thing becomes more and more certain as we continually embrace the information age: the role of the museum curator is changing.” (January 13, 2011)
6. On Nonprofits, Detroit, and Doing the Hardest Thing
I only wrote two posts with a personal bent this year and they both made this list! (Note to self: good lesson for 2012…) “The nonprofit sector is generally both under-respected and fiercely important. Like the city of Detroit, It’s worth more than the reputation that we bestow upon it. Aside from being unfairly judged, nonprofit work and the city of Detroit have a lot in common. Most importantly, they represent “the hardest thing.”‘ (February 8, 2011)
7. Social Media and Museum Fundraising: 3 Easy Ways to Jump-Start a Relationship
“Social media informs. It educates. It creates connections….So why aren’t fundraisers getting with these new tools like the marketers? Here are three easy, low-resource ways that social media can help museum development departments build connections and keep a pulse on donor engagement.” (April 26, 2011)
8. Barriers for Adopting Social Media: Radical Trust
This post presents a case study that comes up frequently in my line of work. ”In order for social media to be effective, institutions must place a great deal of trust in their online audiences. Here’s how the Shedd Aquarium displayed radical trust in order to win the hearts of online audiences in what could have otherwise been a PR crisis.” (July 5, 2011)
9. The Key to Modern Day Marketing- Is Your Museum Using Free Agents?
“Changes in the way we communicate and build networks due to social technology, combined with the growing influence of Generation Y in the workplace, have created a new force to be recognized by your organizations marketing and development departments: free agents. Is your organization utilizing these connected individuals?” (February 1, 2011)
10. Millennials and Social Media: Why Nonprofits Need Them to Survive
“Understanding both the growing importance of Generation Y and online engagement are absolutely necessary in order for organizations to not only remain relevant, but to inspire individuals to create positive, social change. Extrapolating (completely independently) from the powerful points made in John Racanelli’s AZA keynote, Millennials and social media – both separately and combined- provide some not-so-secret sauce for moving organizations forward. Here’s how.” (November 14, 2011)
11. 4 Valueable Resources for Museum Futurists. No… Right Now-ists.
“If nurturing nonprofit networks creates high-impact nonprofits, then certainly nurturing nonprofiteer networks leads to even higher-impact nonprofits. On that note, these are four basic online resources for arming museum professionals with the social technology tools needed to embrace new media and encourage both social capital and sector innovation. ” (February 16, 2011)
12. We Can’t Keep Our Mouths Shut
“Generation Y. Millennials. Generation “Me.” The Obama Generation. However you identify these 20-somethings working in your museum, one thing’s for sure: We function differently than older generations in the workplace.” This article on the benefit of Generation Y in the museum workplace was written and published in the American Association of Museums May/June issue of Museum Magazine. Special thanks to Editor and Chief, Susan Breitkopf, for contacting me and also to Sushannah O’Donnell of AAM for her terrific edits. (May 12, 2011)
13. Nonprofit Management: 3 Ways Social Media Builds High-Impacts Museums
“Social technology plays a leading role in helping organizations meet more than half of the critical and famous ‘six practices of high-impact nonprofits’ outlined by Crutchfield and McLeod Grant in their celebrated Forces for Good. Chances are, social media will continue to evolve so that we can even better utilize social media to take on these critical functions to strengthen nonprofit organizations. Here’s how.” (March 1, 2011)
14. Barriers to Adopting Social Media: Uncertainty
“Adopting social strategies- such as taking on innovative social media initiatives- requires tackling an amount of uncertainty. Here are 5 things that you need to know when developing and carrying out a social media strategy for a zoo, aquarium, or museum. Featuring cartoons by Tom Fishburne. ” (August 8, 2011)
15. 6 Reasons Why Your Organization Needs a Social Media Hub
“A hub is a place where social media links are directed and content is aggregated. Not to mention, having a hub is resourceful and it makes achieving online goals a whole lot easier. Here are six ways that your organization will benefit from having a social media hub.” (October 10, 2011)
Happy holidays, everyone! This is a great time of the year for zoos, aquariums and museums online. There’s an opportunity to engage with timely, intimate content that already has a personal connection with audiences. It’s also a time to be with loved ones- and zoos, aquariums, and museums are places that people can go with the folks that they care about. There are wins all around.
We are seeing a lot of the expected annoucements online being pushed through social media: reminders that the gift shop has something for everyone on your holiday list, friendly reminders that memberships make great gifts, promotions for holiday programs, and some of those end-of-the-year requests for donations. But there has also been a lot of more creative online engagement this holiday season as well! In fact, I found that often, the museums that had taken on more creative initiatives this holiday season really went for it and took on more than one fun project (hence some repeats in this list). It’s clear that the organizations that took the time to think about engaging audiences this season really capitalized on the potential during this time of year! Here are 31 ways that zoos, aquariums, and museums are engaging audiences online this holiday season.
Interestingly, I keep tabs on an even mix of zoos, aquariums, and museums.. but aquariums really had a lot going on this season! Getting this post via email? I suggest clicking here to see all of the great videos posted.
1) Turns out Santa takes breaks from managing elves to hang out in the fish tanks of aquariums. The photo above was shared on Facebook by the California Academy of Sciences.
2) This year, museums have produced some downright silly, touching, and artistic holiday videos. Haven’t laughed yet today? Check out the holiday video below (complete with puppets AND the aquarium’s CEO) by the National Aquarium. My other favorites include this classy video by Museo Guggenheim Bilbao and this nice video by the South Australian Museum. I love that it has an intimate feeling about it with staff members presenting artifacts throughout the museum. Oh, and this holiday video makes me laugh from the Saint Louis Zoo, too!
3) The Smithsonian wants to know: which Santa is the scariest? My vote was for the Wild-Eyed Santa… but A Santa Hold-Up is a tad alarming.
4) The Tennessee Aquarium highlighted a six-armed Bat Star (typically with five arms) that looks like the star of David. Simple and sweet.
5) Can a person die of cute-overload? Presenting: San Diego Zoo’s Special Moments of 2011:
6) Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is rocking the holidays on social media– especially in regard to making santa accessible. They conducted a live chat from the museum with him the week before Christmas.
7) The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis also has spunky YouTube interviews with Santa. Spoiler: his favorite cookie? Chocolate chip. And his favorite reindeer? Olive, obviously.
8) An important aspect of being part of a community is sharing the love and promoting other things that bring out the holiday spirit. So I need to include the Exploratorium’s cool blog post and informal interview video about Weaver’s Winter Wonderland.
9) The Contemporary Jewish Museum is using Flickr to highlight one picture for each day of Hanukkah 2011. It is simple and rather lovely.
10) Speaking of Hanukkah and the Contemporary Jewish Museum… they want to know:
11) Check out the Wreath-cycled challenge conducted by the Shedd Aquarium! Facebook fans could vote for their favorite wreath created by local K-12 classrooms made entirely out of recycled materials.
12) Okay. This one is random. The Museum of Science, Boston has created cup holders (perfect for this cold, holiday season) to promote their Pompeii exhibit. The cup holders change color when they get hot, which is cool… but there’s something about the seriousness, attempted silence, and scrappiness of this Facebook video that makes it kind of funny and rather charming.
13) How fun is this? The Shelburne Museum shows us how to print holiday cards on their 1954 Heidelberg Press:
14) Who doesn’t love Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Herbie Hippocampus? He’s in the holiday spirit and spunky as always.
15) There were LOTS of create-and-send your own holiday e-card options from zoos, aquariums, and museums this year. Some examples: Monterey Bay Aquarium, Woodland Park Zoo, and the Chicago Zoological Society.
16) On a related note, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art lets you tap into high-resolution pictures available without restriction so that you can make your own holiday card. Three cheers for image accessibility and sharing!
17) Georgia Aquarium staff conducted a surprise attack holiday dance party on site:
18) They also have a Singing Holiday Grouper:
19) The Smithsonian shared mistletoe facts from one of their botanists.
20) Museums represent! The Museum of Science, Boston asked Facebook fans to vote for them as their favorite gingerbread house. You can vote for the New England Aquarium’s gingerbread house, too. Eek. Stiff competition.
21) The Tennessee Aquarium took members on an expedition to Antarctica this holiday season. That’s cool, right? It’s cooler that they are reporting back with videos from the adventure.
22) A twist on the traditional donation request, the St. Louis Zoo is sharing and promoting an Animal Wish List this holiday season.
23) Love the pictures and little story about Ollie the Otter’s First Snowman from the Aquarium of the Pacific.
24) Simple and sweet, the Art Institute of Chicago says Happy Hanukkah.
25) To celebrate the new year, the Newseum will ask online audiences to vote for the best headline written this year through Facebook.
26) The Victoria and Albert Museum showed off photos of their stunning Christmas Tree by Studio Roso
27) The Henry Ford has a blog category for weddings and a sweet post and slide show of a “winter-wonderful” wedding.
28) The Shelburne Museum hosted a Brick House Holiday Party for museum members and captured the experience on Flickr.
29) Did you know that the Statue of Liberty has inspired a Hanukkah lamp? I know that now, thanks to the Skirball Cultural Center. And while we’re at it, who doesn’t want a delicious latke recipe?
30) Santa visited the Shedd Aquarium’s sea otters and, of course, gave them a big disk of fish paste. Yummm…
Do you have more examples to share? Post them in the comments section to contribute to the list!
*A little reminder in holiday good spirit: If you use or reprint this post, please give proper attribution to Know Your Own Bone. Similarly, if you use this post as a significant lead for an article that you are writing yourself, please be kind and show some love. Happy holidays!
Why Your Organization Needs You to Build a Personal Brand
December 8, 2011
If you’re reading this, then you’re probably the kind of person who already knows that professional resumes have transcended the boundaries of a sheet of paper. They’ve transcended beyond our LinkedIn profiles and seeped into everything that we do… because much of what we do (and what happens in the world) is online. Information about you is online whether you put it there yourself or not. There are pipl and spokeo profiles that can give the heebie-jeebies even to people who are quite certain that they do not exist in an online space… and those are just online white pages. Combine that with industry news, social media profiles, and public records… and someone can find out a good amount about you and your interests. Think you can benefit by NOT being online? That may indicate that you have not done anything worthy of recognition within your industry- and that’s not usually a positive perception either. You very likely exist online and therefore already have an online reputation (a lack of an online presence says something, too). You can let that reputation go unchecked or you can manage it. Many people argue that you should manage it- and for very good reasons. If you’re a museum or nonprofit professional, there’s another good reason to manage your personal brand:
Because during this particular time of social media evolution and frequent Facebook change-ups, your organization needs you to have a personal brand.
An online reputation is often called a personal brand. For many people– especially nonprofit professionals who do not work in marketing– the idea of having a personal “brand” feels somehow insincere or contrived. It’s not. In fact, the best personal brands are authentic and transparent. Personal branding means knowing what people are saying about you, being diligent and conscientious, and helping to paint an accurate picture online.
And (contrary to a possible knee-jerk misconception associated with the word “brand”), personal brands aren’t always self-serving. In fact, when it comes to museum and cultural nonprofit professionals, developing and maintaining a strong, personal brand can be an incredible asset for your institution. Professionals with strong personal brands carry their social missions into their online identities and can be incredible assets for telling the kinds of stories that spawn change.
Thanks in large part to the rise of social media, the traditionally-stark line between peoples’ “personal” and “professional” lives has become blurry online. Last week, I gave an overview of some museum professionals who are successful in not only representing their museums in an online space, but in moving those organizations forward in online engagement through their own personal brands. Though we always represent the institutions for which we work, some museum professionals go beyond merely “spreading the word” about their cause by actively blogging, tweeting, and engaging audiences online to strengthen both their own and their institution’s brand. There are a lot of great resources out there to help you establish a personal brand. But why do it? Here are four, important ways that personal branding and becoming engaged online helps strengthen your organization in the long run:
1. Personal branding increases your organization’s reputation, a key discretionary motivator for visitors. Through a recent, large-scale study on museum awareness, attitudes and usage, IMPACTS has found that perceptions of a museum’s reputation plays a very important role in whether or not a visitor will decide to attend a zoo, aquarium, or museum (ZAM). In fact, reputation is a top-five influencer for the U.S. composite and it is one of the top-two driving motivators for the average high propensity visitor at a ZAM. In sum, managing a ZAM’s reputation is critical to achieving visitation and reaching the organization’s financial bottom-line. A good way to increase an organization’s positive reputation is to align it with someone who already has a positive reputation. The brands strengthen and lend credibility to one another. Let’s give a written fist-bump to a side-step of the transitive property here: if a person working for a nonprofit is perceived to have talent, then the nonprofit is perceived to have talent. A goal of personal branding is to manage your online reputation and paint yourself (ergo, your organization) in the best light possible. Brand management is reputation management.
2. Personal branding allows the organization to reach more targeted audiences with increased credibility. ZAMs have high propensity visitors. That is, people who are most likely to visit… and they have relatively specific profiles. All nonprofits have these specified audiences and it is up to the organization to know who these people are, where to find them, and what these people like to do so that they can be most effectively engaged. Effective, broader marketing strategies target these high propensity visitors. However, maintaining a personal brand alongside the institution allows you to engage other audiences or more closely target a subset of your high propensity visitor. This may be an audience of industry professionals (if you’re the CEO), an audience of history buffs (if you’re a curator), an audience of mommy blogging friends (if you’re a mommy-blogging PR rep), or an audience of Gen Y socialites (if you’re the well-connected visitor services intern)… You catch my drift. In other words, building a personal brand allows you to connect more personal friend-circles with the things that excite you about your profession. In this way, professionals are important evangelists for the causes for which they work. Word of mouth marketing is powerful, and positive messages to the inner-circles in which professionals are personally involved allows the organization to reach a targeted group with more built-in credibility.
3. Personal branding increases opportunities for transparency and provides an alternate avenue for engaging storytelling. Just look at how some top CEOs are using Twitter; they do it with their own style and authenticity… and that’s why it works. They lend a tone and message to their organization. This can be an especially terrific asset if your organization has a more formal, less-personal informational Twitter account. Tweeting about your day-to-day life (to an extent… too much of this looks solipsistic real fast…) shows folks online that the organization’s leader is a living, breathing, relatable human being with hopes, dreams, desires, a sense of humor, and sometimes-terrible spelling skills. A professional with an online presence can also be an avenue for telling engaging, personal stories. Putting a face, or a storyteller, to a story can make a big difference. A quick favor to branded professionals who engage on their organization’s Facebook wall: disclose your relationship with the nonprofit in your comment, or it looks like you are playing us as fools. Love always, the online community who will chalk up “untrustworthy” points for organizations that try to play us (whether they mean to or not).
4. Personal branding can inspire earned media. Twitter users are three times more likely than other social media platform users to be critics (think Yelp reviewers) or creators (think mommy bloggers). From that perspective alone, personal branding with relation to your organization has a huge benefit: instead of one, faceless account Tweeting for a cause, online advocates can tweet from their personal accounts, increasing opportunities for earned media. This is strongly connected to reaching new audiences and increasing reputation. Earned media often functions like word of mouth marketing— it is media for which the organization did not have a monetary transaction. It is often organic and timely. Having advocates online, whether they work for the nonprofit or not, creates opportunities for securing earned media. Branded professionals can be seen as go-tos for information on cause-related information. This happens organically and it can be heaven for the organization if online employees are advocates of the mission… but it can backfire faster than the Formula Rossa roller coaster at Ferrari World with staff members who may be online and are unaware of the important role that they play in word of mouth marketing for the organization. (A solution here? a social media policy). In sum, earned media is an important aim for online engagement, and developing a personal brand can help your organization increase the likelihood of spreading word of its mission and inspiring this kind of media.
What can museum professionals do to get started on a personal brand? There are a lot of terrific resources out there. This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg, but it sure is a good place to start:
- Read up on personal branding to ease your fears. Here are two helpful blogs: one by William Arruda and another by Dan Schwabel
- Use social media to build your personal brand. Here’s my favorite 101 overview by Rosetta Thurman. She has many great posts on this topic.
- Start Tweeting
- Get to blogging (there’s some tough love, there) You can get started on free platforms like wordpress or tumblr
- Use LinkedIn
- Hop on Facebook (just in case you aren’t there already…)
- Link all of these accounts together so that you are accessible on all platforms and easy to find
- Comment on blogs and forums within your community and answer questions
- Build your “tribe”
- Make sure your brand is genuine.
- As a side, it doesn’t hurt to do some public speaking
I work with zoos, aquariums, and museums in the realm of audience engagement using social technology. I specialize in creative community involvement, new media, nonprofit sector evolution, and the role of Generation Y in the workplace. Learn more about me 
