Image taken from Devon Smith´s presentation The science of social media building. |
The
social media are still a rather new means, which has not been adequately
studied yet by the majority of us in terms of purpose, possibilities and
impact. I am talking specifically about Facebook, the one I use the most.
Following the activity of a number of institutions (both cultural and other), I
reach the conclusion that, as a social medium, Facebook is, first of all, just
that: a space to socialize. As a friend of mine says, we should look at it as a
café, a public space where people converse and share – ideas, opinions,
experiences, information. It´s a space where we want to be because... everybody
else is there, because we want to be part, because we don´t want to be left out,
because we also want to converse (especially about ourselves...). Based on my
personal experience, organizations that do just that, converse, are the ones I
feel more involved with, meaning I give like´s, I share and I comment (thus
contributing for a specific post´s larger visibility). In the case of
organizations that limit themselves to promoting their calendar events (and
which also exagerate in the number of posts or post a number of them
consecutively), I pass over them or even hide them from my news feed, letting
my ‘friends’ do the sorting out of what´s more relevant and interesting (and
then, yes, I do pay attention).
This has
been my experience with using Facebook at a personal and professional level. In
the meantime, and although the majority of us have not properly explored these
means yet, this area has already got its specialists. I was very fortunate to meet one of them during a seminar at the Kennedy Center last July. Her
name is Devon Smith, she is very young, clearly a specialist, and she holds the
post of Director of Social Media in Threespot, an agency that designs digital
engagement strategies for not-for-profit organizations. I learned a lot in that
seminar (the presentation is available here and it´s very clear), while, at the
same time, I saw one of my greatest suspicions being confirmed: Facebook
doesn´t sell tickets...
This is
exactly why we should carefully consider why we are there, which is the best
way of guaranteeing our presence and what we expect to get out of it. Among
what I learned with Devon Smith, my experience as a user and my ideas on what
communication means for a cultural institution, here´s what I think:
Why
are we on Facebook
- To talk
with our ‘friends’, people who like us, who like our way of being, who like
what we have to say, who like our work;
- To
strengthen our brand, that is, the idea we want people to have about us, about
what it is we stand for;
- To
multiply our ‘friends’, because through the ones we have already got we can
make more, helping to spread our word further and further and, thus, broadening
our base of supporters.
How
should we be on Facebook
Before
anything else, I should say that I feel it is essential that our voice in this
conversation is concrete, recognizable, the one our ‘friends’ are interested in
listening to. Some time ago I wrote a post called Faces, where I was writing about the importance of humanizing our institutions, of giving them a face, because
it is a way of creating a relationship with people, of involving them. In this
case, it´s about the importance of also giving them a voice. And as Marc Sands,
the brilliant Director of Marketing of Tate Modern, puts it, people don´t want
to listen to him, they wish to ‘listen’ and ‘talk’ to Nicholas Serota, the
museum director (it´s worth watching the video How to engage with new audiences in the gallery). The impact of a post is totally
different when it is a museum director, an artistic director, an orchestra
conductor, a director, an artist, talking about the event, inviting us, telling
us why we cannot miss it, revealing secrets, sharing his/her inspirations,
emotions, concerns. Afterwards, this is the voice that will be ‘shared’ and taken further and further by our
‘friends’ (those who are ‘friends’ with Jorge Silva Melo on Facebook know what
I am talking about).
Image taken from Rijkmuseum´s page on Facebook. |
Having
said this, I believe there are a few more points we should be paying attention
to:
-
Conversing means abandoning our dry, institutional language and use a more
human, direct, everyday tone, with a sense of humour. The best example among
the institutions I follow is Rijksmuseum (it is worth watching the video
Rembrandt´s timeline, the objective of which was to
increase the number of fans of the museum´s Facebook page, or to follow the
monthly voting for the Misses that will be part of a calendar the museum will
produce)
- Conversing means talking, but also listening. And answering. Quite often, questions and comments by ‘friends’ and fans (mainly on the pages of known personalities, run by them or by their agents) remain unasnwered, putting an end to ‘communication’ (very good examples of portuguese artists conversing with their fans on personal pages are those of Mísia and Aldina Duarte). It is equally important to know how to deal with controversial or unpleasant comments. On of the best examples I´ve seen recently is the way Woolly Mammoth theatre dealt with the controversy around the re-staging of Mike Daisey´s monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (read here and here). The theatre answered all comments on Facebook and did not hesitate to post on its page articles that severely criticised the option to re-stage the play, proving to be totally open to dialogue and encouraging more and more conversation... about itself (those posts are no longer available on the theatre´s timeline, but it´s worth becoming a fan of Woolly Mammoth, one learns a lot).
Answer of the Editor of Multimedia of the newspaper Expresso to a reader´s comment. More on the blog PiaR. |
Finally, some common practices I think should be revised:
- It seems to me that it does make sense to consider the number of daily
posts, should we really wish to keep our ‘friends´s´ attention (there are
institutions that really overdo it, without having anything special to add to
the conversation);
- Although posts containing photos generate more ‘conversation’ (likes,
shares and comments), it doesn´t seem to make sense to post photos of a
specific event one by one, in consecutive posts, instead of organized in an
album; as it doesn´t make sense to post photos which our out of focus, badly taken,
various shots of the same scene or of the same moment in a conference or
debate;
- Posts with calendar information are not interesting at all, they have
little or nothing to do with Facebook´s nature, they don´t stimulate
conversation (much less sell tickets). They actually give you the feeling that
a seller is trying to impose something on you, something that... doesn´t sell
(with or without a good reason).
So, in the end, what do we expect to get out of all this? A
conversation. A good conversation. Moments of wonder, of laughing, of surprise,
of discovery, of pleasure, of complicity, which make our ‘friends´seek our
company more and more, both virtual and... real company.
More
Devon Smith, Case studiesof theatres using social media (presentation)
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