On the Do’s and Don’ts of Social Networking for Arts Institutions

I recently came across an interesting article on the Do’s and Don’ts of social networking for Arts institutions on the Founder of Art Journal, Don McLennan’s, blog Diacritical entitled “10 Ways to Think About Social Networking And The Arts (the zen of "free" as a strategy. ”  (Available from:  http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/2009/05/power-in-numbers-there-ought.html)

In his post, McLennan begins by outlining some of the most compelling reasons for Arts institutions to adopt Social Networking tools such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter such as the need to replace aging core art audiences with younger audiences and the need to build strong brand connections in an increasingly competitive arts landscape. After establishing the context, he then proposes a list of the 10 most important things for Arts institutions to remember when they are about to get involved with social networking. This list includes: avoiding an “Institutional voice” in communication; providing incentives to membership such as discounted or last minute tickets to shows/events, or special applications; and resisting the urge to use social media exclusively as a tool to sell tickets by supplementing your sites with interesting links, feedback from the institution, video, photographs, etc.

As someone interning this summer in the marketing department of a museum, I found this article interesting because it tied back the issues we have been reading/discussing in class to Arts industry. I was also excited to see an article on social networking featured in a widespread Arts Journal because it demonstrates that Arts institutions are starting to become savvier about their marketing campaigns.  In my opinion, social networking is a very worthwhile tool that cash-strapped Arts institutions such as museums can leverage to promote their brands and connect to new audiences and that institutions that do not capitalize on this tool in the next couple of years will ultimately miss the boat.

Before signing off on this post, I wanted to just mention as an aside that McLennan just posted a really interesting post on the current Facebook Fanpage fueled battle between New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz and the staff at MoMA over the MoMA’s relative lack of artwork by female artists in its permanent collection entitled “When The Mob Turns Angry, What’s a Museum to Do?” (Available from: http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/2009/06/when-the-mob-turns-angry-whats.html ). This post really highlights how viral Facebook posts can really damage an institutions reputation if not handled properly.