Tips to Maximize Your Online Presence
Cultural workers, as creative people want to tell their stories in innovative and exciting ways. Using today’s digital content development tools we can help you achieve your goals.
Since we relaunched our arts and culture consulting company in 2020, we’ve worked with recent graduates of Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Creative Industries, Humber College’s Cultural Management program and seasoned professionals to help art galleries and heritage museums enhance their online presence.
Check out our Digital Transformation Services for more case examples and online resources to increase digital literacy for GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums).
- You can view highlights from Series 2 of WikiWednesdays, Digital Literacy for GLAM here.
- Review past newsletters and presentations here.
In Canada, the Department of Heritage provides a glossary of key terms to guide museums as they digitize their collections and provide their content online. One area we’d like to highlight from the glossary is:
Digital Content Development
A process that creates, organizes, and edits digitized assets and other information together to produce and distribute digital content that will entertain, inspire, educate, and persuade audiences and that will help an institution meet its specific goals. Digital content is often delivered online and can be published using a variety digital programs, platforms, and channels, either as a single occurrence or simultaneously. Digital content opportunities are limited only by available technology and can include social media posts, virtual exhibitions, interactive media, collection portals, apps, games, immersive environments, and other digitally enabled experiences.
Government of Canada, Glossary – Museum Assistance Program
Over the past couple of weeks, we added some more details and tips on digital content development to help creatives and cultural workers. As we find more helpful advice, we will add these links and suggestions below.
Website
Your website is like a virtual entrance door to your organization. Ensure it is visually striking, user-friendly, and easy to navigate. Utilizing programs such as Google Analytics to monitor visitor interaction and improve content regularly is very essential. Use SEO techniques to enhance your presence in search results. For more tips, visit HubSpot’s guide to website optimization.
Blogging
Sharing in-depth narratives and thoughts about your work via blogs is a powerful strategy. Concentrate on producing valuable, high-quality content that connects with your audience. To increase SEO and draw in more readers, use natural keyword usage. Interact with your readers by leaving comments and promoting conversation. Learn more from Neil Patel’s guide to starting a successful blog.
Social Media
Utilizing social media platforms is vital to connect and interact with your audience. To ensure consistency, schedule your content and include images in your postings. To find out what performs best, use the analytics tools offered by Twitter Analytics and Facebook & Instagram Insights. Check out Hootsuite’s social media marketing guide for more insights.
E-newsletters
E-newsletters are an effective way to stay in touch with your readers regularly. Make your emails more individualized to foster trust and boost interaction. Double-check they are mobile-friendly and have a simple, clean appearance. Include clear calls to action to guide your readers. For best practices, refer to Mailchimp’s e-newsletter tips.
Nik Nanos, Chief Data Scientist and Founder, of Nanos Research recently provided a key insight regarding e-newsletters in a session hosted by Business for the Arts. During this session, he indicated that arts and cultural audiences that have more highly engaged consumers prefer emails and e-newsletters as a chosen method of engagement. He also linked this choice with his observation that consumers of culture were interested in building trust relationships with cultural organizations.
When reflecting on this observation, it is interesting to explore key leading industry practices in e-newsletter design. We want to build dedicated audiences for our cultural products by increasing these trust relationships. In a previous insight, we explored these themes to build a loyalty loop for culture, by using multiple channels to increase attendance and revenue.
Recently one of our project funders for the Wiki Wednesday (Digital Literacy for GLAM) Series 2 webinars remarked that our fall 2023 newsletter was a positive outcome for the project and he was interested in sharing this example with others.
Wiki Wednesday Project Newsletter – September 27, 2023
What would be the best balance of visuals, calls to action, links, storytelling, etc, that would increase the connection to cultural organizations?
We found the following guidance from LinkedIn for how to balance your e-newsletter elements:
Storytelling and visuals are great tools to make your email newsletters more compelling and memorable, but they should be balanced with other elements to ensure your newsletters are effective and professional. When crafting a newsletter, consider the length: keep it concise and focused, generally around 300 to 500 words. Additionally, use a clean and consistent layout with white space, headings, bullets, and fonts to organize your content. Lastly, use a conversational and friendly tone that reflects your voice and brand. Write as if you’re talking to one person, using personal pronouns, contractions, and humor to make it more engaging.
LinkedIn – How do you use storytelling and visuals to make your email newsletters more compelling and memorable?