Museums are finally going digital

Museums are finding it increasingly difficult to compete in the evolving digital space. This is a shame, as their collections are often untapped assets of historic innovation and inspiration. In fact, most museums do not have even half their collection on view, and even fewer museums offer their assets digitally online. Yet, they are competing with the world of instant gratification, where museums face competition from their peers, but also from Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Museums compete more fiercely with media outlets than they do with peer institutions, for the most part. And media outlets already control the digital space. Museums need to evolve beyond the reputation as keepers of lost artifacts and into the thought-leadership space. Thus, museums are looking at ways in which they can leverage their unmatched assets to build a community digitally. Some early adopters, like MoMA, have created digital Pinterest boards and Instagram posts to reach out to the broader community that would not normally visit a museum. The Met has moved its entire collection online, allowing digital “visitorship” through its website as another touchpoint. The result is 2 million objects available for free with over 20 million digital “visitors” per year. The Met believes that these digital visitors eventually translate to onsite visitors, driving attendance from those who did not know the breadth of content that was available. This content is made available as a resource, but also as a tool to drive onsite and digital visits. The Met has three distinct physical locations, but calls its website its fourth. The Tate Modern in London considers its digital space to be its fifth gallery. The challenge now is finding the balancing act between using the online content as a resource (thus fulfilling the institution’s mission) and monetizing this strategy.