At the time of writing, museums the world over are being forced to close their doors to the public because of COVID-19. They will hopefully re-open at some point. In the meantime, a study published in the International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism discusses the nature of so-called stakeholder engagement on Facebook among the world’s most popular museums. This may well have implications during the current crisis as museums seek support through the closure period.
Vincenzo Scafarto of the Department of Human, Social and Health Sciences at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, in Cassino, Federica Ricci and Gaetano della Corte of the Department of Law and Economics of Productive Activities, University of Rome ‘Sapienza’, and Carla Morrone of the Department of Business and Economics at the University of Naples ‘Parthenope’, Italy provide the details. They point out that social media and social networking have become one of the more immediate ways in which organizations can connect with their stakeholders. There are many advantages in terms of marketing new exhibits when it comes to running a museum as well as gleaning feedback from visitors in a way that was never possible with the conventional “suggestions box” at the exit approach of yesteryear.
However, the team has found that some museums have struggled to embrace the new technology and its opportunities for any number of reasons. They have now looked at the most well-attended museums and their Facebook activity to see whether insights can be garnered as to whether that particular realm of social media is engaging potential and past visitors in a positive manner. They found that on the whole, museums were simply using social media as a one-way promotional tool and not recognizing the importance of the true dialogue that the new tools offer the provider and the customer.
They suggest the museum stakeholders must use more finely grained metrics to investigate their own activity and the visitor response on social media. During the current “lockdown” of so many such attractions the world over, the time may well be ripe for museums to fully engage with their putative and past visitors before they re-open their doors once the crisis is history, as it were.
Scafarto, V., Ricci, F., della Corte, G. and Morrone, C. (2020) ‘Stakeholder engagement via Facebook: an analysis of world’s most popular museums’, Int. J. Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp.6–21.