Profile Group Case Study – UCL Museums and Collections Blog
‘Fantastic post and excellent find! I’m really happy to see such a fun
mix of pop culture, archaeological insight, and UCL’s hoard of
amazing finds. Some of the best museum digital outreach I’ve seen’
(Blog comment by ‘Colleen Morgan’)
Over the past two years UCL
Museums and Collections staff
have collaborated in blogging
about the life and work of the
department. Subjects as diverse
as the life of Francis Galton, the
annual thylacine day, and the true
definition of a curator have
earned the blog a growing
following with online audiences.
Background
The UCL Museums and Collections Blog was established in January 2011 and detailed some of the
everyday activities that occurred within the department, notably including the Grant Museum’s
reopening. Up until May 2013, the blog was visited by over 65,000 unique visitors1, and has been
used to raise the profile of the department, engage with new and existing audiences and to promote
upcoming events and activities. The interactive nature of the blog has also opened up conversations
with visitors, providing them with new ways to discuss museum-based topics with staff.
The blog continues to be regularly posted to, however it has enjoyed a steady increase in visits over
this period:
Figure 1: Unique visits to the UCL Museums blog in the first two years
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That is, users of different devices
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Initially the blog was set up as a forum for those interested in the museums to find out about what
was happening. However because of the innate openness of the web, many other groups have
followed or engaged with the blog. For instance, the blog has received many visits from international
locations:
Figure 2: Worldwide visits to the UCL Museums blog (dark shades represent the most traffic)
However the blog does undoubtedly receive most attention from within the London, appealing
mostly to those who may hopefully visit the museums themselves:
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Figure 3: UK visits to the UCL Museums blog (dark shades represent most traffic)
Description
There have been over 380 blog posts since its inception, with strong representation from all
museums and collections. Posts of all types receive many visits, however those based specifically
around museum life (e.g. museum professions, systems, etc) and museum objects appear to be most
popular. Posts attract attention from other social media channels, web searches, and from those
who are updated from RSS feeds.
Blog posts are beneficial to many groups, both within the department, and outside of it. Staff
members have an easy way to publish details of their activities, and freely promote activities to the
public. It the only part of the museums’ website which is designed to be updated with news. As a
kick-starter for networking opportunities – it is clear that it is read my many colleagues in other
museums who consider it a worthy model. Several museum professionals have described the Grant
Museum’s social media output as “best example they know of social media in museums”. Outside
the department, the public can get a unique insight into facets of museum life, and be encouraged
to attend events, or get involved further. However the blog also raises our profile to those from
further afield who may have never heard of any of the museums, and who may encounter blog posts
through searches, or through posts being shared on other platforms (notably Reddit2). The blog
therefore offers a unique way to promote our work to those overseas, or those who would simply be
unlikely to encounter us using traditional means.
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Reddit is a social bookmarking platform, which has pushed thousands of new visitors to
the blog in the past six months.
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Blogging has proved to be an extremely time efficient way of engaging audiences with our activities.
“Given the amount of time and resources we place in delivering a lot of our
projects, be they exhibitions, collections management or events, spending an
hour to write up the intentions, process and outcomes is a really valuable
output. In this way we can generate interest but also provide content for
external agencies to link to. The need to make our work visible is ever-more
crucial.
Blogging has really helped to crystallise our aims when talking to visitors and
stakeholders, and to visualise what the real outcome of an initiative is.
Otherwise we often don’t give ourselves the time to think about it. It also
gives our audiences a really personal, rather than institutional insight into the
museums” Jack Ashby, Grant Museum Manager
Successes
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The blog has become an easy way to engage with museums professionals,
enthusiasts, and the online public (many of whom will have never heard of UCL
Museums before). Audiences can not only find out about the inner workings of
the museums, but they can have ‘direct’ access to staff through discussions in
blog comments.
Increase in news coverage. Journalists have got in touch directly as a result of
reading the blog and engaging with our other social media outlets.
The blog has increased awareness of museums issues to completely new
audiences. For instance, Mark Carnall’s post ‘How to tell an archaeologist from a
palaeontologist’ (discussing the confusion of whether a scientist worked in
biology or archaeology) was read by almost 5,500 different visitors from around
the world (mostly from the U.S.)
The blog provides an easy, and free, way to promote museum activities. For
instance, the Art by Animals blog was read by nearly 1,500 different visitors,
many of whom went to the main website to then, presumably, find out more.
The blog provides a new way for online visitors to find out about museum
objects, particularly through personal posts about objects (e.g. the Grant
Museum’s Specimen of the Week series
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The way forward…
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We want to encourage more staff in the department to use the blog as an easy way to engage
the public with their work
We want to evaluate how visitors use the blog, and how they consider it, which will help to
develop future content.
We want to use the blog as part of any major MPE activity, and in some instances as part of a
digital media campaign to promote it (e.g. If there's a new exhibition, we could start considering
organised DM campaigns involving our social channels, and also developing interactive content,
with particular aims of e.g. promoting it to new audiences, or increasing attendance.
We want to develop more outputs that work across more than one category (i.e. collaborations
between more than one museum, collection or working unit.
We want to increase the use and profile of student interns as our news journalists
Resources:
UCL Museums and Collections Blog:
http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/
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