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Social Media and Online Communications

The Alliance has compiled this set of attendance resources from amongst its own offerings as well as those throughout the nonprofit and museum sector.

Alliance Resources

Creating a Social Media Strategy

Presenters from the Technology, Interpretation, and Education (TIE) 2010 online conference share a white paper on Creating a Social Media Strategy (PDF, 5 pages) to help museums understand the importance of strategy when implementing social media activities. It includes 4 elements to consider when developing a strategy and 5 ways social media can help a museum interact with visitors, members, and supporters.

Marketing and Communications Report Template

Marketing and communications professionals know it’s critical to track your work. From email open and click-through rates to social media followers and website conversions, marketing staff manage a lot of data. Tracking this data over time can help you better understand the efficacy of your work but deciding what to track can be a challenge. Download a copy of the marketing and communications report template in either PDF or Word to help you get started. This report template is meant to serve as an example to start from and should be customized based on your museum’s needs. 

Sample Documents

Tier 3 museum members can access a number of sample social media policies.

Social Media Case Study

The Alliance provides a handout from its 2013 annual meeting, which offers a case study of the Woodland Park Zoo’s social media and email campaign “Give Ten for Tigers” that raised $149,000 in two weeks.

Social Media Response Decision Tree Template

Social media continues to be increasingly important to museums as they reach larger audiences within their own communities, nationally, and globally. Staff members responsible for social media management are not only crafting content for social media, they’re also tasked with managing comments and feedback, both positive and negative. Making these decisions can be a difficult and nuanced task. Having a set of standard protocols can help make decision-making consistent and streamlined. To assist in helping you create your social media response strategy, download a PDF copy of this social media response decision tree. This decision tree is meant to serve as an example to start from and should be customized based on your museum’s needs.


Other Resources

31 Blog & Social Media Content Ideas for Museums

This quick list of content ideas for museums, from Landslide Creative, will spur thinking about outside-of-the-box posts to try with your audience.

Digital Strategy for Museums Guide

Digital media agency, Cogapp, provides this helpful blog post all about creating a digital strategy for museums, including a downloadable guide.

How Museums Can Use Social Media

MuseumNext addresses questions of finding the right tone and approach as the social media landscape continues to evolve.

Six Steps to Social Media Success for Any Museum

The Western Museums Association breaks down the fundamentals of social media management into six steps.

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