Mobile Social Media and Emerging Business Models

Tours and mobile programs are beginning to include popular social media functions as standard now, such as 'Tweet this!', share to Facebook and commenting functions. But does this make them mobile social media? What are the different kinds of conversations and audience relationships that arise from different ways of using social media in mobile platforms, and how do these support new business models for the museum?

Here are some premises for my talk - I'm keen to hear what you think!

• In the age of social media, the museum is enmeshed in a distributed network of platforms, analog and digital, on which audiences engage with its collections and content, whether it wants to be or not.
• Over half of these platforms are already mobile, and we should not expect visitors to leave their mobile 2.0 habits at the door when they enter the museum or download our apps. But is simply adding 'tweet this' or 'post to Facebook' enough?

• Here are some ideas for how to leverage mobile social media to create the kind of conversations that can help sustain the museum’s relevance, and hence its business, in the age of social media:

1. Know our audiences: use metrics, question-gathering, good old audience research to understand how they are already engaging with museum content and collections through mobile platforms;
2. Give them ownership and the pleasure of recognition, through functions to 'like', 'favorite', 'collect' and make micro-donations to support objects from the collections.
3. Delight them through serendipitous discoveries: creating unexpected encounters with our collections in the digital and physical world through recommendations, location-based services, augmented reality, social tagging.
4. Create Commons: through mobile APIs and greater access to the creative inspiration of museum collections and scholarship.
5. Encourage and cultivate citizen curators, scientists and interpreters through giving them meaningful work to do that supports the collections.
6. Offer freemium experiences, that tie back to the permanent collection through mobile apps, digital catalogues, games and the like.
   

Speaker's bio:

With a PhD in American art history and a background in filmmaking, curation and art criticism, Nancy Proctor published her first online exhibition in 1995. She co-founded TheGalleryChannel.com in 1998 with Titus Bicknell to present virtual tours of innovative exhibitions alongside comprehensive global museum and gallery listings. TheGalleryChannel was later acquired by Antenna Audio, where Nancy headed up New Product Development for nearly 8 years, introducing the company’s multimedia, sign language, downloadable, podcast and cellphone tours. She also led Antenna’s sales in France from 2006-2007. When Antenna Audio was acquired by Discovery Communications in 2006, Nancy worked with the Travel Channel’s product development team and subsequently headed up research and development for the nascent Discovery Audio brand. She joined the Smithsonian in 2008 as Head of New Media at the American Art Museum, and in 2010 took on the role of Head of Mobile Strategy and Initiatives across the Institution. She continues to teach, lecture and publish widely on museum interpretation for digital platforms, while managing MuseumMobile.info and its wiki and podcast series on mobile interpretation, content and technology for cultural sites. In 2009 Nancy was appointed Digital Editor of Curator: The Museum Journal. This year Nancy is Program Chair for the 2010 Museums Computer Network (MCN) and co-organizer of the Tate Handheld conferences.