{"id":5982,"date":"2016-11-06T08:08:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-06T12:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=5982"},"modified":"2016-11-06T08:15:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-06T12:15:22","slug":"museums-social-media-and-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=5982","title":{"rendered":"Museums, Social Media and You"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3images\"<\/a>Talk about a mash-up. Perhaps the most ephemeral of social media channels, Snapchat, is being used to pair pop lyrics with images of centuries-old paintings or artifacts. The images last on a device for up to 10 seconds.<\/p>\n

If it seems incongruous to juxtapose an ancient objet d\u2019art with an image that disappears in a blink of an eye, that\u2019s exactly what the Los Angeles County Museum of Art<\/a> has been doing \u2014 to much fanfare. Last spring, its Snapchat account won a Webby Award<\/a>, an internet honor from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body with more than 2,000 members.<\/p>\n

READ ON THE NEW YORK TIMES<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This emoji-oriented app, aimed at millennials and teenagers, is bringing a prominent collection front and center for a new generation. \u201cOur strategy is to appeal to the younger audience to get the word out there about Lacma,\u201d Lucy Redoglia, the museum\u2019s social media manager, said, using the museum\u2019s acronym. \u201cThese are people who may not be interested in art right away, but might find a connection through something that we post.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every museum wants a younger, more diverse audience, said JiaJia Fei, 29, digital director at the Jewish Museum in New York City<\/a>: \u201cSocial media has been a huge part of outreach and engagement as a tool of education.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInstagram, Twitter, Snapchat are the primary way that people in my generation interact socially,\u201d Ms. Fei said, so having a presence on the channels is important in reaching them.<\/p>\n

Like those at the Los Angeles museum, in recent years social media managers at institutions around the world have been reaching out to audiences via witty posts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. They\u2019re delivering quirky, educated content to capture new audiences with short video gallery tours led by a curator or a guest on camera on Facebook Live, or via Instagram real-time feeds, Twitter chats and more.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles museum, however, may be the winner in seizing the imagination of a youthful demographic. It was the first major museum to join Snapchat, in 2014, and its profile has more than 220,000 followers and roughly 85,000 views per snap. Snapchat continues to skew young, with 46.8 percent of its users between the ages of 18 and 24 as of last December.<\/p>\n

Ms. Redoglia, 32, roams the collection, which includes more than 130,000 objects dating from antiquity to the present, snapping pictures, then coupling them with pithy one-liners for posting on Snapchat. For instance, she matched a photo of Fran\u00e7ois Boucher\u2019s 1742 canvas \u201cLeda and the Swan<\/a>\u201d with the caption: \u201cStop looking at me, Swan,\u201d from the \u201990s film \u201cBilly Madison.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For the Los Angeles County Museum of Art\u2019s Snapchat channel. Lucy Redoglia, the museum\u2019s social media manager, couples museum images with pithy one-liners for Snapchat. Credit via Los Angeles County Museum of Art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Ms. Redoglia also weaves together \u201csnap stories\u201d that can stay up for 24 hours and that illustrate lines of songs, like Queen\u2019s \u201cBohemian Rhapsody<\/a>,\u201d with pictures of artworks.<\/p>\n

The museum has a strong presence on other channels. Last year it gained 500,000 followers (it now has nearly two million across all of its platforms), reaching more than 89 million viewers, Ms. Redoglia said. On Facebook, more than one million users stop by the museum\u2019s page weekly. Some posts have reached over three million people \u2014 far exceeding the 1.4 million visitors who go to the museum each year.<\/p>\n

On Instagram, where the museum has 468,000 followers, \u201cUrban Light<\/a>\u201d appeals to visitors, who share pictures of themselves on their accounts, using the hashtag for the work, #202lights. A 2008 installation by the Conceptual artist Chris Burden<\/a> in front of the museum\u2019s entryway, it features 202 restored vintage street lamps from the 1920s and 1930s.<\/p>\n

At other museums, the uptick in social media audiences is also noteworthy. Since 2011, t<\/a>he Art Institute of Chicago<\/a>\u2019s audience has exploded. Facebook followers jumped to around 447,000 from 55,000. On Twitter, followers have increased to 159,000 from 25,000. And there are over 100,000 Instagram followers.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Bedroom\u201d by Vincent Van Gogh, left, is recreated for an Airbnb location by the Art Institute of Chicago. Credit The Art Institute of Chicago.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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In February, its social media outlets lit up when the museum decided to promote the exhibition \u201cVan Gogh\u2019s Bedrooms<\/a>\u201d by creating a model of the artist\u2019s bedroom in the Yellow House in Arles, France. The room was recreated in an apartment in the River North section of Chicago, and people could reserve a night\u2019s stay via Airbnb and get two tickets to the show. Robby Sexton, 35, the Art Institute\u2019s social media manager, stayed overnight in the bedroom on Feb. 14 to kick-start the offer and posted about it on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.<\/p>\n

Reservations rolled in. For availability, a guest had to tap into Facebook, then book at Airbnb. \u201cWe made Facebook our focal point,\u201d Mr. Sexton said, \u201cand we used social media to highlight aspects of the Airbnb room that also highlighted aspects of the exhibition.\u201d It worked. More than 433,620 people came to the show, making it the most popular one in more than 15 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve also had great results experimenting with Instagram takeovers,\u201d Mr. Sexton said. \u201cThe artist Frances Stark<\/a> was our first, and it offered a creative and spontaneous extension of her ongoing exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a younger audience is not the only target. \u201cInitially, we were trying to reach out to younger audiences on Facebook and other platforms, but over the years, the platforms have broadened in terms of their demographics and diversity,\u201d Mr. Sexton said. \u201cSome of our Facebook followers are easily in their 80s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another recent Snapchat convert, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston<\/a>, posts a weekly emoji art history lesson. \u201cWe then duplicate that posting as an Instagram<\/a> story, where we have nearly 145,000 followers,\u201d said Karen Frascona, the museum\u2019s director of public relations. \u201cAnd through short video-and-still-image gallery tours, too, we\u2019re trying to explain things and expose our works of art to people who may have never come to our museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The social media learning curve is ever-changing \u2014 a good thing for museums, which have long been thought of as set in their ways and stodgy. \u201cThere\u2019s no rule book for social media, and that\u2019s exciting,\u201d Ms. Fei said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0By KERRY HANNON<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n
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