Museums on Tumblr?

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Permalink Reply by Robert Neff on August 18, 2011 at 11:38pm

All forms of social bookmarking are encouraged. They support information dissemination and assist in the web site's page ranking. Hence this supports Search Engine Optimization.

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Permalink Reply by Danny Birchall on August 24, 2011 at 2:19am

My current favourite is this, from Tate & Creative Review

http://blastbless.tumblr.com/

 

Other nice ones I've come across recently:

http://biomedicalephemera.tumblr.com/

http://nypl.tumblr.com/

http://yumuseum.tumblr.com/

http://artgalleryofontario.tumblr.com/

http://biomedicalephemera.tumblr.com/

http://todaysdocument.tumblr.com/

 

We're also thinking about setting up a tumblr or two; where most use tumblrs to disseminate their own material, I'm interesting in ones that make selections from existing tumblrs and other websites to provide a thematic companion to an exhibition or collection.

 

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Permalink Reply by Lasse Nielsen on August 31, 2011 at 11:37pm

How is tumblr working out for you and your institution?

I'm new to tumblr but am coonsidering it for the institution I represent. Im interested in all feedback aswell :)

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Permalink Reply by Sophie Mullen on September 14, 2011 at 9:41pm

Hi, Lasse,

 

I thought I'd report back as we near the end of 'phase 1' of our Tumblr experiment, on the off-chance that there's anything useful you can glean from our experience. Initially, we created two Tumblrs - a placeholder Tumblr account for the museum itself, for when(/if) the institution decides to Tumbl more formally and which we can use to like and follow relevant Tumblings under the museum's name. That placeholder account also links to the intern group Tumblr, to which myself and the other interns here have been posting over the past month or so.

 

Take-up was initially somewhat slow, both internally and externally; much the same as any other incarnation of social media, people were rather wary when it came to getting to grips with a new platform. This was both helped and hindered by the nature of Tumblr and the sort of content it suits - once you get a handle on both the interface and the tone of the conversational environment, so to speak, it can be a very organic experience, but until it clicks, it can be a little hard to pin down the appropriate register. For this reason, I'd highly recommend that if you plan to have a group Tumblr rather than one person manning the helm, that you encourage everyone involved to explore Tumblr on their own, follow blogs of interest, share content with each other as well as on the museum Tumblr, create a non-work-related personal Tumblr, and generally just get used to it as a casual venue.

 

Likewise, since our Tumblr was not yet official and therefore not linked from the museum website/twitter/etc., we have struggled a little to accrue followers. Again, this is a common social media issue: the more followers you have, the more potential followers you have, but it's getting the ball rolling that's the problem. What followers we have, we've gotten up 'til now via a combination of tagging posts and liking/reblogging/following other museum-related Tumblr users; however, our Tumblr has recently been featured on the newsblog chez the interns' alma mater, and is being forwarded around departmental staff, so we may see a resulting uptick in followers. Conclusion: over time, follower growth should ideally reach a tipping point where it starts to become organic, and certainly slavish crossposting between Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/etc. is something to be avoided - but at the beginning, a certain amount of shameless self-promotion is necessary.

 

All that being said, the various powers that be in charge of deciding these things seem to like what the Tumblr has evolved into so far; a collection of snapshots of life in, around, and behind the scenes of the museum, bite-sized ruminations on museum-related issues, and links to other content of interest. They have elected to keep using it - for regular staff as well, but particularly as a platform that might suit short-but-frequent contributions from volunteers and casual employees. Our internships finish at the end of the week, so we're currently shuffling things around and preparing to hand over the reins.

 

A handful of thoughts, to close:

 

- Keep marketing away! Tumblr is not Twitter is not Facebook is not Flickr is not Wordpress. Moreso than perhaps any other platform, Tumblr's strength lies in its ability to showcase more than the usual exhibit promotion and customer feedback that constitutes so much of social media efforts. It's idiosyncratic and individual, and content that works in other venues won't necessarily work there. I like to think of it like so: where other social media platforms promote a museum's brand, Tumblr is the place to shine a spotlight on a museum's personality.

 

- If possible, make Tumblr a group effort. Encourage users to embrace the fact that they're sharing with and talking to each other, as well as the outside world; to reblog the things they like; to record their thoughts. As above, Tumblr favours individuality and quirkiness; let followers see the human faces of the museum and get a sense of the human connections they have with each other, instead of the same Web Guy who speaks for the museum in all its other online incarnations, broadcasting out into the ether.

 

- Tags. Tags, tags, tags. Like Twitter hashtags, Tumblr tags are not just for helping you find the content you want; they're a vernacular and a means of communication/commentary all their own. Likewise the use of image macros and reaction .gifs as a means of expression. This is why familiarising oneself with Tumblr on an informal basis is so important - to get used to the language, and to learn how to speak it.

 

...Well, that ended up being a little longer than I thought it would, but I hope that somewhere in that disjointed mess, there are some useful nuggets of information. Do let me know how Tumblr works out for your institution!

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Permalink Reply by Lasse Nielsen on September 14, 2011 at 10:54pm

Dear Sophie

Thank you so very much for that reply - for taking time out of your schedule!

I'm still in the proces of getting to know tumblr on a personal level - I find it quite difficult to grasp. But I can definetely use your thoughts on the matter - both in terms of the nature of tumblr and tumblr as a toll for the institution.

I'll keep you posted regarding our institutional experiences!

Thanks again!

 

All the best

Lasse

(lassejn.tumblr.com)

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