A Hint for the Future of Museums: Europe is Looking to US Aquariums

In my line of work (developing predictive data) and my spot in that line (analyzing and applying data on behalf of organizations equally concerned with social and fiscal bottom lines), opportunity often comes from keeping a pulse on the market. Along these lines, I’ve recently experienced shifts in my professional world that may be illustrative of the future of museums and the broader nonprofit community.

"7 hours and 57 minutes until I am officially based out of Chicago AND London! Let's do this!"

“7 hours, 57 minutes until I’m officially based out of Chicago AND London! Let’s do this!” (4/1/13)

In April, I officially joined the ranks of part-time expatriates (and long-haul commuters) when IMPACTS asked me to help open our London office while also maintaining a “home base” in Chicago. Preparations for our London office enabled me to hire a Digital Marketing Manager to provide additional support to our projects, and also challenged me to be more thoughtful about how I could focus my efforts to best serve our clients. A few months removed from my hop across the pond, I’ve been reliably asked two questions from colleagues, other museum professionals and even friends and family – the answers to which are closely related and may provide interesting insight to the museum industry:

1) Why London?

The obvious answer: proximity. I am in London largely because it is an accessible base for much of the work that IMPACTS is currently performing on behalf of visitor-serving organizations (e.g. museums) throughout the Americas, Europe and the Middle East.

The more interesting answer: market demand in Europe for the American nonprofit business model. You read that right! Any quick glance at the news tells stories of shifting economies that have created an unprecedented struggle for many of Europe’s most treasured museums. While not-too-long ago many of the elite European institutions might have politely sneered at the suggestion of adopting a more “American model” of doing business (especially “nonprofit business!”), these sentiments are quickly shifting.

The “American model” (as it is colloquially referred to in my dealings) is a euphemism for a visitor-serving business that doesn’t rely on government support (or grants or endowments) and, instead, is a market-driven enterprise whose success hinges on engaging a diverse, sustainable constituency.

In other words, many of the world’s greatest museums – the ones that we Americans revere and admire with a distant and mysterious “otherness” – are looking to U.S. visitor-serving organizations as sources of inspiration, innovation and know-how when it comes to reinventing their business models to best respond to their current economic conditions.

2) Why do you spend so much time working with aquariums?

It’s true. I do find myself increasingly spending more time and energy working closely with aquariums. Here’s the end-game: We have an interest in aquariums because they are often cited by our clients as best-in-class practitioners of the “American model.” (Stick with me, other-types-of-museum folks. I’ll connect the dots…)

IMPACTS works with nearly every form of visitor-serving organization from art museums and symphonies to science centers and botanical gardens, and there’s one thing that we’ve found to be generally true: The market-driven practices developed by aquariums may have the greatest impact and “usability” for exalting the entire visitor-serving industry. While the role of aquariums as models may seem surprising to many of America’s most venerable museums, the relative esteem with which U.S. aquariums are internationally regarded evidences itself in my work on a daily basis. In fact, the European organizations (including many art museums) that I work with have less interest in the “best practices” of American art museums and, increasingly, more interest in those of American aquariums.

Here’s why. There are two conditions that make U.S. aquariums of particular interest to the global museum and visitor-serving industry:

A) The U.S. aquarium business model is motivated by market demand (and not overly dependent on grants, endowments, or government funding)

This is not to say that aquariums do not seek to obtain grants or secure government appropriations – but, as a group, the chart below indicates that aquariums tend to rely least on contributed and dividend revenues when compared to other types of visitor-serving organizations:

Theoretically, if government funding were to cease on a macro-level tomorrow, aquariums (as well as select museums, theaters, science centers and other more self-reliant organizations) may have the greatest chance of keeping their doors open long-term.

Also, after evaluating a representative sample of 224 U.S.-based visitor-serving organizations, aquariums generally have the smallest endowments relative to their annual operating budgets – perhaps suggesting that aquariums must be particularly attuned to the market since they have less “cushion” in their revenue streams. We see outcomes of this market responsiveness all the time: While some museums are hiring extra grantwriters and expanding their lobbying efforts for funding, many aquariums are hiring social media and online community managers because they understand that digital engagement helps drive attendance. Of course, smart museums also realize this and are hiring these kinds of people, too – but as the chart below illustrates, the lack of a “safety net” places a particular financial imperative on aquariums to be responsive to market opportunities:

B) Many aquariums regularly invest in active, global, social missions that extend beyond education and research

I can hear you now: “But all museums aim to change the world!” I know. This does not mean that other missions are any less important – simply that many organizations with which I work consider aquariums to be at an interesting intersection between topic expertise and “right now” relevance…particularly when it comes to prominent, controversial issues such as climate change and other environmental topics. In short, while the social missions and operations of aquariums tackle education and research (two critical items that are also common among other, select visitor-serving organizations), they also take up the battle of ocean conservation. The initiatives attendant to this addition are particularly timely, global, and live in a rather elusive “save the world” space.

It’s a seemingly at-odds and extreme combination: Aquariums may be considered among the most “for profit” of organizations in that they rely heavily on earned revenues, but they also aim to be among the most globally impactful among organizations pursuing active, social missions.

I “go deep” in my work with aquariums because helping them evolve and perfect their business model to remain solvent in both fiscal and social terms provides the lessons that help other organizations achieve their similarly aspirational ideals.

I’m intentionally speaking in terms of sector generalities – not all zoos rely on government funding, not every museum lives on its endowment, and, for that matter, not all aquariums are truly bringing their A-game to the “save the ocean” effort. The organizations operating with the objectives of being both market-relevant AND “big mission-serving” (aquarium or not) may be our best models for the future of museums. They can survive on their own, and they can do it while serving a very large-scale social mission.

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Posted on June 4, 2013 by colleendilen in Big ideas, Leadership, Management, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, Public Management, Public Service Motivation, Social Change, The Future, Words of Wisdom 2 Comments

Non-Nuclear Proliferation: Who is REALLY Visiting Museums Nowadays?

Is your nonprofit or museum still operating under the assumption that most of the folks visiting zoos, aquariums, museums, and performing arts venues are doing so with their nuclear families? Think again. Data concerning visitor-serving organizations (VSOs) reveals that travel party constructs have evolved. While only seven years ago a majority of visitors attended VSOs with their nuclear families, the majority are now visiting with significant others.

Why does this matter? Well, if you don’t know who your audience is, then it is more difficult to target them or retain their support. And keep in mind: Your “audience” is a dynamic group comprised of both online and onsite persons, as well as would-be and actual visitors alike. In other words, just because you are marketing your nonprofit to families and households with children doesn’t necessarily mean that they comprise the majority of your audience.

In fact, my colleagues and I at IMPACTS have observed this evolving reality within many of our client VSOs. Several clients who have been predominantly marketing to their perceived, “traditional” base (i.e. the nuclear family) have had to adapt their engagement strategies to recognize the emergence of persons who visit without children.

To illustrate this change, I’ll present two sets of data: one for the U.S. composite audience (which includes travel party construct data for a representative sample of the total US population), and another for high-propensity visitors (HPVs, or those persons possessing the demographic, psychographic, and behavioral attributes that tend to suggest an increased likelihood to visit a VSO). One quick note: The data represent “discretionary consumer behaviors” – that is to say, it does not contemplate educational groups, field trips, and other group-motivated activities.

Let’s start by examining the change in travel party constructs for the overall U.S. population:

Notice that the dominant travel party construct has changed from “with family” to “with spouse.” Currently, nearly 50% of the overall U.S. population visiting a VSO is doing so without a child (quantified above in the “By self” + “With spouse” + “With friends” categories). This same cohort grew by 11% during the relatively brief tracking period!

Now let’s take a look to see with whom high-propensity visitors (HPVs, or, the folks that largely butter your bread) are attending organizations…

For HPVs, we witness a similar decline of people visiting with children…and, keep in mind, this behavior is amongst those persons most likely to visit your organization in the first place! Here are four noteworthy takeaways from the data:

1) The number of families attending VSOs has decreased

During the quantified duration, VSOs experienced a 10% decline in family visitation (from 41.8% in year 2006 to 37.5% in year 2012) and a 13% decline amongst HPV families. Part of this decline relates to our evolving demography – there is a corresponding decline in “birth over death rate” amongst the educated, affluent populations that have historically comprised many VSOs core audiences. Fewer children means fewer “traditional” families…so if your VSO’s primary selling point is “great for the kids,” then you may expect to see a fall off in your attendance numbers.

2) The number of folks attending VSOs as couples has increased

Among the overall US population, the percentage of people visiting VSOs with their spouses or significant others increased 14% during the assessed duration. For the same period, “HPV couple” visitation increased by 10%.

Many organizations are observing this increase in “couples” visiting VSOs and are tailoring their marketing efforts accordingly. At IMPACTS, we are often tasked by clients to assess the relative “favorability” (i.e. do people “like” the campaign) and “actionability” (i.e. how likely is the campaign to motivate visitation) of potential advertising campaigns, and what we increasingly find is that while “family-centric” advertising may risk engaging adults without children, more couples-focused messaging generally does not alienate family audiences. Why? The market has an intrinsic understanding that many VSOs are well-suited for families and children… often the “break-through” market for additional engagement is couples without children.

3) Grandparents are the new babysitters

Grandparents are increasingly important decision-makers when it comes to bringing a child to a VSO. This may be symptomatic of more dual-income households or of a broader societal trend toward more grandparents raising their grandchildren, but the prominence of grandparents as both heads of households and proxy parents is clear. Many VSOs have acknowledged this trend by re-imagining their family membership programs to be more contemplative of grandparents. Other organizations are adjusting their marketing and communication techniques to better engage this growing market segment.

4) The evolution of the travel party construct is not a museum phenomenon, but a reflection of the overall market

When you consider all of the data, the shifts that we’re observing in terms of travel party construct aren’t at all surprising. Rich, white folks – who still make up a substantial number of HPVs – are having fewer children. From a societal point of view, the traditional “family” has undeniably evolved. Baby boomers – another demographic that has a high percentage of traditional HPVs – are bringing their grandchildren to their favorite museums, operas, and botanical gardens. And, of course, the Baby Boomers are a huge generation – so a corresponding increase in people visiting with grandchildren makes chronological sense. Generation Y – the largest generation of all – is taking over the market, having children later in life (and, thus, are more likely to visit with friends or significant others), and also having children out of wedlock (and, thus, are more likely to visit without a spouse).

At IMPACTS, we develop specific data for our VSO partners and it yields very similar findings across the board. In nearly every case, the organization is a tad surprised to learn that while they had their noses to the grindstone, the world turned. These changes affect not only how VSOs target audiences for marketing purposes, but also how they cultivate members, gather financial supporters, create appropriate programs, and engage with online and onsite audiences.

Still not a believer? Though the percentage of movement may seem small, it is indicative of a significant trend. If you can, take a moment to visually survey your current visitors. Suddenly, you may realize that the world is changing and it’s taking your museum with it.

*Top image photo credit belongs to Margaret Middleton’s On Exhibit

Posted on March 6, 2013 by colleendilen in Community Engagement, Generation Y, Marketing, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, The Future, Words of Wisdom Leave a comment

Two Critical Reasons To Target Your Fundraising & Nonprofit PR Strategy Toward Millennials (DATA)

It seems as if everyday I’m seeing another “best-in-class” organization announce a smart, new nonprofit PR strategy designed to better engage millennials. Millennials are the largest generation in human history, and represent the second-largest demographic in terms of buying power. Millennials also think and communicate very differently than their generational predecessors – and, accordingly, require different marketing and communication strategies.

There has never been a better time to have a public service mission because millennials are (relatively speaking) optimistic about their financial futures, and they consider themselves to be particularly generous. Data concerning millennial perceptions point toward two, informative reasons to target Gen Y with marketing and fundraising efforts:

1) Millennials are less worried about their families’ financial futures than are older generations, making them beneficial comparative targets for fundraising and marketing efforts.

Chalk it up to unique characteristics of Gen Y or the general optimism of youth, but millennials are not only less worried about the financial futures of their families than older individuals, but they are less worried than they were in 2008. Older individuals, however, are more worried. This suggests that there’s an opportunity to cultivate affinity with this demographic, as they may perceive themselves as being able to support your nonprofit in the future if they cannot support you right now.

While millennials certainly are feeling the effects of being the “screwed generation,” data suggests that we remain optimistic about our long-term futures…even more so than folks who could be considered “less screwed.” And, while millennials are spending more than they earn, they are still spending (and, thus, could be supporting nonprofit charitable causes if engaged adequately).

Regardless of whether members of this demographic have the money right now to make up your major donors (some do!), they believe that they will – and they are rather confident about it. Engage this demographic now so that the payoff will be there later. When they get the money (if they don’t have it already), make sure that your organization is top-of-mind and a quality relationship is already intact.

2) Millennials consider themselves to be particularly generous compared to the self-perception of older individuals, presenting a potential opportunity for organizations to tap into Gen Y’s sense of self.

When IMPACTS pulled this data, the company CEO called me and asked, “On a scale of one-to-ten, how generous do you consider yourself to be?” I said eight. He burst out laughing and said, “and so do all of your buddies!”

Perhaps I should be embarrassed, but I’ll own up to the truth behind that finding! The self-perceived generosity of “my buddies” has been stable over the last few years – and it’s rather high! It is especially high compared to the dip in self-perceived generosity that older individuals have experienced.

This is good news for museums and nonprofit organizations because this data suggests that generosity is built into our own self-perception. We think of ourselves as “giving” people. Conceptually, giving to nonprofit organizations fits nicely with our own personal brands. It’s our job as nonprofiteers to match up the desire to be generous with social missions. Marketing your nonprofit and targeting engagement initiatives toward members of Gen Y will pay off in the future (if it hasn’t already) – but engagement needs to start now. Increasingly, nonprofit organizations’ “bread is buttered” by this new, enormous demographic.

Given this (and other compelling) data, doesn’t it seem silly that any organization would continue to exclusively target their efforts toward individuals who are more financially “worried” and consider themselves to be less generous than those who make up a significantly larger, more optimistic generation?

Posted on November 14, 2012 by colleendilen in Community Engagement, Generation Y, Management, Marketing, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, Public Service Motivation, The Future Leave a comment

How Generation Y is Changing Museum and Nonprofit Membership Structures (DATA)

Looking for a copy of the address that I delivered at the Iowa Museum Association Conference last week? You can find it here.

Millennials (folks roughly between the ages of 18 and 33) are the largest generational segment of the U.S. population. This generation has different values and mindsets than those of the generations that preceded them – and they are far too large in number for museums and nonprofit organizations to ignore. Organizations that are not marketing to millennials are not only missing an opportunity to reach a new audience, but failing to engage the audience that will increasingly dictate their organization’s operations for the next 40 years (at least).

But it isn’t just marketing departments that have begun incorporating changes to appeal to Millennials. The changes must be incorporated into a larger community relations and nonprofit PR strategy. Because online engagement is increasingly critical for buy-in among all generations, it must be applied not only to marketing, but also to fundraising. Membership teams, in particular, will need to re-work their operations and offerings in order to sustain and grow their number of supporters. In fact, IMPACTS has already uncovered the need for museums to revise how they tell the story of membership benefits.

While conducting research on behalf of a prominent visitor serving organization (VSO) with a conservation-related mission, IMPACTS uncovered an interesting finding. We asked respondents a series of questions related to identifying what they consider to be the primary benefits of membership to the organization. Once compiled, we found that sorting frequency of mention and strength of conviction information uncovered a telling divide between potential members above and below age 35.

Free admission was the pronounced, primary benefit of membership for both age groups. However, benefits two–through–five on the lists do not have any additional commonalities. Moreover, the type of benefits are very different.

Extant data indicate that members of Generation Y are public service motivated and appreciate a feeling of belonging and connectedness with one another and with a cause. This is consistent with the responses gathered from millennials in the data above. Instead of being interested in the more “transactional perks” of membership, this generation desires a feeling of connectedness with a broader social good.

Because members of Generation Y want different things from museum membership than generations before them, museums will need to adapt how they are selling memberships – or at least work to increase connectivity-to-a-cause vibes. Would a person considering membership to your organization feel that they are “making a positive impact” more than simply receiving “advance notice of upcoming activities?” Museums and visitor serving organizations must sell memberships by focusing more on their public services and social responsibilities than the traditional, more transactional benefits that motivated membership in the past.

Posted on October 30, 2012 by colleendilen in Branding, Community Engagement, Management, Marketing, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, Public Management, Public Service Motivation, Social Change, Social Media, Technology, The Future 5 Comments

The Early Adopter Phase on Pinterest is Coming to an End (or, 5 Reasons for Museums to Get on Pinterest Right Now)

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.

Create pins that fit into these categories and they’ll be much more likely to be shared and repinned.

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.

Posted on April 9, 2012 by colleendilen in Branding, Community Engagement, Marketing, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, Social Media, Technology, The Future 7 Comments

Why Your Nonprofit’s Number of Social Media Followers Doesn’t Matter

(…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.

Posted on January 23, 2012 by colleendilen in Community Engagement, Management, Marketing, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, Public Management, Social Media, Technology, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Top 8 Tips for Museums and Nonprofits to Engage Millennials in 2012

Last week, Tina Wells wrote an article titled, Top 10 Generation Y Trends for 2012. Her predictions draw upon topics that research has already discovered to be true of Generation Y: our public service motivation, social connectedness, and technological savvy, to name a few. And thankfully, she graciously leaves out some of our more… well… negative qualities identified in the workplace and beyond. Her article provides insight to logical next-steps for how organizations can best connect with Millennials in 2012. Actually, nearly all of these things were even true throughout 2011. Here’s How Tina’s predictions translate to the ZAM (zoo, aquarium, museum) and greater nonprofit world. If organizations can move forward in these arenas, 2012 Just might be the year for Millennials and museums.

1. Tap into our conscious consumption by selling your Admission. Wells points out that Millennials are still consuming- but we consume products that support philanthropic causes. Gone are the days of covering up good deeds and “disguised” learning. Helping out philanthropic causes is cool in our book. If your zoo or aquarium is rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing animals, tell us. If your museum is bringing informal art lessons to areas of our community that are underserved, let us know. Studies have shown that we care about “doing good” and are the most socially aware consumers in society to date. This is good news for nonprofits that offer admission, as those funds funnel back and often help fuel the organization’s philanthropic initiatives. Remind us of this to attract potential Gen Y visitors.

2. Capitalize on the experience of visiting the museum or being involved with the nonprofit. Millennials care about positive and unique experiences. Wells argues that, “ the real winners in Millennial marketing will understand how important it is to this demographic to have ‘once in a lifetime experiences.’” Marketers don’t need to sell life-altering, move-to-Africa-for-three-years experiences to capitalize on this. It’s simply a matter of understanding what makes up the unique experience of visiting a museum or cultural center. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s extremely successful Share the Love campaign realized that quite often, it’s the experience of visiting the aquarium and who you are with that matters most. The key motivator for visitation was a shared experience with loved ones. This campaign appealed to all generations through several methods, but the bottom line of this campaign may be critical for connecting with Millennials: sell the experience. Show Gen Y why this particular time and place is unique and important and what it means to them, personally.

Combine this with the tip above and you’re advocating a product in which Millennials see innate value (a unique experience) and reinforcing that this unique experience supports the public good (a consumption motivator). Museums that do this effectively will rule the school in 2012.

3. In marketing communications with Millennials, get to the point and do it quickly. Instanity (a term that Tina Wells coined) refers to Gen Y’s “insane focus on having everything now.” Technology has come a long way in the last ten years and processes that took hours then (or weren’t possible) are almost instantaneous now- like snapping a photo and sharing it with the world via social media. Also, Millennials have segmented engagement, meaning that there are seemingly a million tidbits of information fighting for folks’ attention. When communicating critical messages to Gen Y, content is still king, but make that content known and make it known quickly. “The incredible story of our 18^th century XYZ” isn’t going to cut it as an engaging story or link title, and is not likely to get much traffic. Tell stories, but make sure that they are timely, organic, and accessible in tone.

4. Create exhibits that are technology-based and aim for social initatives. Here’s why: First, Millennials generally have a severe and permanent case of “Technoholism.” As Wells points out, we are “completely consumed by technology.” Technological endeavours are more natural life occurences to Millennials than they are rare feats of intelligence and innovation. (Remember: the oldest among us were hooked up to America Online by middle school). We expect technology and we are generally pretty good at using it- especially to connect with our friends and curate experiences (see point #5).

Second, we are consequently better at using technology as a general group than our elders. Also, Teens and Tweens are “swapping up” their gadgets with their parents, who are less crazed about having the latest and greatest new tech items, Wells reports. If you are developing a new exhibit using the latest technologies, please keep the Millennial audience in mind.

5. Let everyone be a curator (and understand that your own curator is less important). Curators are no longer the celebrity rockstars of the museum world… the visitors now hold that title. This shift from revolving around the business to revolving around the consumer has taken place throughout the business world, but the role of (and even the word) “curator” has experienced a particularly speedy evolution over the last year. Millennials have played a big role in this cultural shift… and this generation’s “Warholism” is likely to keep rocking the boat. Wells explains that Millennials know that fame is easily attainable in this day and age. Moreover, Wells predicts that Millennials will be continually less intrigued by celebrities over time. What does this mean for museums? Having knowledgeable, academically-celebrated staff may be extremely important for content accuracy and other functions… but for this over-educated generation, your celebrated curator’s “celebrity” isn’t the key to increasing reputation. That key is in appealing to us personally and lending control and content creation to the people.

6. Take audiences behind the scenes physically and virtually to show Millennials “how the cake is made.” This tip has been tried and tested over the last few years and is more a current and lasting reality than a prediction for the future. Taking audiences behind the scenes with engaging content is a common best-practice for organizations on social media. But it’s a good best practice off-line, too. According to Tina’s article, Gen Y is more interested in the process of making a cake than, say, buying a cake. Would we buy-in to the process of “visiting the museum or cultural center” or putting exhibits and programs together? Signs point to “yes.” And this will likely be an easier task for museums than other businesses that can show “behind the scenes” (“Our office dog Rex says ‘Good Morning!’”) but cannot as easily take audiences there (“Come see this Duchamp in person now that you’ve seen the process of acquisition”).

7. Put your collection online and make resources sharable. The Millennial culture is not about “owning” information as much as “renting and sharing” information. Wells uses Spotify to illustrate this Gen Y trend. She points out that Millennials are committed to the music that they love, but they don’t want to buy it. They’d rather rent it and share it with their friends. There may be a lesson here for museums as guardians of private content. Information is more valuable to this generation when it can be shared. From the point of the museum, this isn’t a bad thing. Sharing museum content often means sharing inspiration and an educational resource that aids in fulfilling the museum’s mission. From a marketing perspective, it means improving the museum’s reputation as a credible source for information.

8. Tap into our desire for “profitable purpose” by making it personal to get donations. We’re public service motivated and we’re likely to respond to face-to-face requests for donations from nonprofits. This point wraps up many of the points above. “Millennials want to feel a personal connection to the brands they’re supporting,” Wells reports. These potential donors don’t want to just give their money (when engaged), we want to give our hearts. This sounds simple, but it means that nonprofit organizations will need to be aware of the needs and desires of this generation and work hard to appeal to them by connecting to potential Gen Y donors and engaging them personally through experiences, interactions, and effective storytelling. Oh- and for smaller gifts, let us give them online.

*The photo above is based on a picture by Lance Iversen of Generation Y professionals enjoying the popular Nightlife program at the California Academy of Sciences

Posted on January 16, 2012 by colleendilen in Big ideas, Branding, Community Engagement, Generation Y, Marketing, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, Uncategorized 4 Comments

Know Your Own Bone’s 15 Most Popular Posts of 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)

Posted on December 30, 2011 by colleendilen in Blogging, Community Engagement, Generation Y, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, Social Change, Social Media 5 Comments

30 Creative Ways Museums are Celebrating the Holidays Through Social Media

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!

Posted on December 23, 2011 by colleendilen in Community Engagement, Marketing, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, Public Management, Social Media, Technology 4 Comments

Why Your Organization Needs You to Build a Personal Brand

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

Posted on December 8, 2011 by colleendilen in Blogging, Branding, Community Engagement, Leadership, Marketing, Museums, Nonprofit Marketing, Nonprofits, Public Management, Social Media, The Future, Words of Wisdom 3 Comments

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