Is social media hurting the onsite visitor experience? Data suggest that in today’s world, museums need to be masters of both offsite communication (social/earned media) and onsite, face-to-face communication in order to be successful. Increasingly, a museum’s business strategy cannot thrive without one or the other.
Here’s a handy (pun intended) concept that I recently presented for thinking about the relationship that “digital touch” and “physical touch” play in driving museum visitation and maximizing visitor satisfaction.
I was honored to have had the opportunity to take part in the Western Museum Association’s first-ever WestMusings: Ten Minute Museum Talks in October in Salt Lake City. What Museums Can Learn From Online Dating briefly traces a museum visitor from the visitation decision-making process through a museum visit and demonstrates how “digital touch” and “physical touch” work together to “seal the deal” of getting folks in the door to experience sparks of informal learning.
Here are those slides about reputation up close (what motivates the visitation decision and the diffusion of messaging).
While I spoke about museums in connection to online dating, I had the opportunity to take part in the WestMusings initiative with three, fabulous museos who imparted their own wisdom regarding museums and their connection to similarly creative topics: Scott Stulen of the Walker Art Center spoke about cat videos, James Pepper Henry of the Heard Museum spoke about culture clashes, and Carrie Snow of the Church History Museum spoke about roller derby (in full roller derby attire, no less)! Intrigued? Check out their WestMusings here.
