The Art of Social Media Analytics, Part 1

Summer is the “off-season” for many of us in the arts world. Why not take this time to refresh your social media strategy? This is part 1 of our three-part series on social media analytics tools.

This is your brain on social media. Image from Your Social Move.

Social media marketing is an artistic endeavor as well as a scientific one. We use the right side of our brains to create the perfect message that will engage our audience and the left brain to crunch numbers on views, comments, etc. We know instinctively how to talk to our audiences, but we don’t always know how they are reacting to that message beyond a peripheral “feel” of the importance and sentiment behind the comment or action. There is often not an obvious way to categorize or quantify reactions to gain insights into your audience’s thoughts and feelings and to chart your own impact.

With the economic situation as it is right now, nonprofit employees are under more pressure than ever maximize their productivity and capacity. With technology, and social media in particular, as the most nebulous, mysterious, and constantly shifting elements of an organizations’ marketing/PR operation, it can be frustrating to track social media interactions and to gain resources from management for social media. Often initiatives face “death by delay” or end up being based on assumptions rather than data. At the Center for Arts Management and Technology, it’s one of the issues we talk about most often amongst ourselves and to clients.

It’s not just the arts, though.

In the non-profit arts world, we have the tendency to think that we are insulated and that our problems are due to a lack of time or resources. Some of these questions are ones that the social media field as a whole is trying to answer. While in the Masters of Arts Management program, I participated in a Social Media Analytics class where we had real-life clients. My team was working on the account of a major sportswear manufacturer. At first I thought that the questions that this company would have about social media would be very different than the ones that I worked on at the Center for Arts Management and Technology for our mostly non-profit arts clients. However, the more we worked with our client, the more similarities I noticed in the questions they asked about ROI, tracking, and analysis of social media initiatives.

Throughout the research that I’ve done and the conversations that I’ve had, I’ve heard social media right now described it as “the wild west”. Like web analytics was in its infancy, we are just now building the hallmarks and benchmarks for social media analytics. It’s an exciting time, and an extremely fast-paced one. If you have been keeping up with how businesses are using social media for the last five years or so, you’ve seen Facebook dominate MySpace, then Twitter edge its way in. As we moved to mobile, a slew of geo-location platforms arrived on the scene and now we’re trending toward game-based platforms.

As much as social media trends change, it is imperative to have a social media strategy, not just to spend your marketing dollars most effectively, but also to get to know your audience better. How do you get a social media strategy? You need information first. That’s where analytics come in. There is a wealth of information about your patrons hidden in their interactions on social media—like your own on-going focus group. But (A) how do you get to that information and (B) how do you draw conclusions from it?

A. As of today, what are your options for social media tracking? There are thousands of analytics tools out there and more being developed every day. Nonprofit arts organizations are faced with a dual bottom line: to serve the community and to create, present or preserve great art. Which tools are most useful to a nonprofit arts organization in gauging how they meeting the dual bottom line? In Part 2 of this series, we’ll take a look at some popular analytics tools and how to evaluate the tools out there given your organization’s more specific goals.

B. How can you use analytics data to make management decisions? There are many ways to slice and dice the data you might get from those tools. What are some strategies for using the current tools available? How can you make a confident decision about what is essentially a moving target? Given the tools and tactics in the above questions, when is it worth it to pay for analytic tools? In Part 3, we’ll address the problem of structuring your social media tracking efforts to find information relevant to your day-to-day decisions.

Museum crowd-curation and the way we live now

Should more museums follow the Brooklyn Museum’s lead?

Recently, I helped curate Split-Second: Indian Paintings, a show for the Brooklyn Museum.  To do so, I simply visited their website and participated in an online activity.  It took me about ten minutes, and it involved briefly looking at images, clicking on those paintings that I found most intriguing and rating other paintings on a sliding scale.

My participation in this process got me thinking not only about Indian art, but also about how my own perceptions of art in general might be shaped, and how my aesthetic tastes might compare to the sensibilities of the general public.  Even more interesting to me was that this experiment in crowd-curation felt like the inevitable extension of the movement towards a more participatory culture.

What is it?

Museum crowd-curation enables the general public to become a part of the curatorial process by helping to determine, through an online platform, the artwork to be included in a physical exhibition displayed in a museum’s gallery.

The Brooklyn Museum pioneered crowd-curation three years ago with its photography exhibition Click! . First launched through an open call for artists to submit photos related to the theme of “The Changing Faces of Brooklyn”, the artwork was then made available online for anyone to curate.   Perhaps most interestingly, the Brooklyn Museum staff took a transparent and scientific approach to the experiment, publicly sharing data and thoughtful analysis every step of the way.  Check out Brad's Technology in the Arts podcast with Shelley Bernstein from 2008 to learn more about Click!

Selection of photographs from Click! by the Brooklyn Museum

Now, Bernstein and the folks at the Brooklyn Museum are offering a new spin on crowd-curation by injecting theories of connoisseurship to Split-Second: Indian Paintings. Based on ideas from the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, Split-Second seeks to explore how our first impressions might affect our perceptions of art as well as the production of a museum exhibition.  In the end, we’re left with an engaging viewer/curator experience that subtly mixes the professional with the amateur.

Why is crowd-curation so intriguing?

Increasingly, we are becoming a culture of curators, especially in the virtual world.  We spend our time organizing media according to preference, grouping our memories into online photo and video databanks, and “liking” and commenting on things that other people share.  What this means is that arts audiences are coming to the gallery with a newly emboldened sense of organizing and presenting content.  Arts organizations therefore need to play an active role by creating opportunities for meaningful engagement.

Screen shot of Split-Second's crowd-curation process by the Brooklyn Museum

Organizations that are at the forefront of online audience engagement are presenting ideas that go beyond simply offering information about programming.  Instead, they are experimenting with different ways that audiences can become co-creators of content, which can then lead to a sense of ownership in the institution.  But crowd-curation should not be simply a matter of presenting art works and having a voting contest in the sense of American Idol.  Rather, arts managers need to envision a place of meaningful dialogue between their organization and their audience.

Crowd-curation is exciting because it is a clear illustration of the changing dynamics of the audience/museum relationship.  It takes creative online participation and literally translates the collective online vision into physical space.  Along the way, it can stimulate creative thinking by:

• Getting the participant/curator to think about her own internal perceptions of art, and perhaps inspire her to dig even deeper through self-reflection. What struck me most in my experience as a curator of Split-Second was how successful the exercise was in getting me to think about not only the art in the show but also my own understanding of visual culture.

• Creating discussion, based upon the collective decisions of the audience, about big-picture questions, like: How is artistic value determined? Is general consensus achievable in determining artist merit?

By putting the internal and collective processes together, crowd-curation has the potential to achieve multiple levels of meaningful contemplation.  Of course, arts managers may feel like they are taking a significant risk.  They may fear that the artistic content chosen by the masses will not constitute a “quality” exhibition in the traditional sense.  And, perhaps worse, if crowd-curation IS able to produce a quality exhibition, then what is the point of having all of these professionals around?  However, as sites like Wikipedia or perhaps the “comments” section of any website have shown, opening up the production of content to crowds is precisely the time when professional, articulate viewpoints are needed most.

This is not to argue that crowd-curation methods should or will replace traditional curatorial models.  In fact, it doesn’t make sense for all art museums to try it (based on a number of factors such as the nature of the audience, resources available, the nature of the exhibit, etc.)  Even so, crowd-curation is an innovative approach to breaking down the barriers between art museum and audience, and it’s a fascinating reflection of the way we live now.

Social Media Spotlight: Crowdsourcing Archives with Richard McCoy

Welcome to the sixth installment of the Social Media Spotlight, our monthly feature focusing on arts organizations’ social media strategies.

Making the arts a more participatory experience is an exciting idea being developed by many arts organizations across the globe. Visitors to some institutions can now digitally tag artwork with their own unique descriptions or add photos of themselves to a community Flickr pool. Taking the role of participation even further, some organizations are turning to crowdsourcing, inviting the audience to help in the creation and documentation of art.

I recently had a chance to chat with Richard McCoy, Associate Conservator of Objects & Variable Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, about his use of crowdsourcing and public access tools to get the public involved in documenting public art.

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How did you get interested in documenting artwork online?

By 2008 basic versions of all of the tools that cultural institutions use to create, store, and share documentation about their artworks were freely available online (Wikipedia, Flickr, and YouTube), so I’d say my interest really got serious around this time.  I know it’s a bit nerdy, but I keep a pretty good record of my interests in documenting artworks online over on my Wikipedia User Page.  My basic thought was why not do it?  The investment is low and the potential for return is enormous.

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Why involve the public in the process?

To properly care for an artwork you have to care about an artwork; you have to recognize its existence within your community.  Many public artworks on display around the world are overlooked, their context and meaning forgotten on daily basis.  So to have the public involved is an important aspect of this project.  The more people that are involved in caring about and for public art and helping to document it, the better.

I think Clay Shirky has done a good job over the years explaining how the participatory web is radically different from our traditional notion of information sharing and collaboration.  His 2005 Ted Talk is still ahead of its time.  I agree with him in that we are just waking up to the notion of a large-scale participatory process that involves broad audiences using their “cognitive surplus” productively.

My interest has been more in community than public, though.  Documenting public art should be a community effort.  While it’s not the easiest thing to do, it’s a process that we have taught and developed with more than 40 IUPUI students.

We’re at a point where we can begin seeing that this is a project that should be operating on a global scale.  Right now there could be folks documenting a mural in L.A. and a small town in India.

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Where did the choice to use wikipedia as a teaching tool come from?

I first started using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in the fall of 2009 when professor Jennifer Mikulay invited me to co-teach an IUPUI Museum Studies Program graduate-level course, Collections Care and Management.

We created a project for our class to document all of artworks on and around IUPUI’s campus.  That semester our students created 42 new Wikipedia articles and uploaded 375 new images of the IUPUI artworks into Flickr. The result culminated in the creation of the IUPUI Public Art Collection and the beginning of WikiProject Public Art, which was first called Wikipedia Saves Public Art.

This year I taught the course by myself. I used WikiProject Public Art as a final project to document the artworks inside and around in the Indiana State House.  My students made 37 new Wikipedia articles and uploaded 272 images into Flickr.  We did all of the work within the confines of Wikipedia.  My hope was to model a project that could and should be repeated all over the country.

In addition to creating the Indiana State House Public Art Collection, I assembled all of the articles into in an easy-to-download book.  I wrote a summary of all of this documentation work in the article New Systems for Documenting Public Art on Liam Wyatt’s blog.

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I understand you and the class were recently recognized by the State of Indiana for this work.  What was that like?

We were tremendously honored to have both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the State of Indiana recognize our work with Concurrent Resolutions.  I’m most pleased about this recognition because it furthers the mission of the project: to raise awareness about the artworks at the Indiana Statehouse.

While  this recognition can be personally gratifying, the project is designed with the hope that the students will take ownership of it and its outcomes, as they are the ones who did the lion’s share of the documentation.

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Can you talk about the Public Art Documenter Project? How does it work and what are your goals for the project?

For a long time, I’ve wanted a mobile app that would allow for the easy documentation of public art.  The most basic component of any kind of documentation involved three components: location, photography, and the basic tombstone information about an artwork.  This would seem fairly easy to do with a mobile app.

Image via appbrain.com

When I found the mobile app creator, EpiCollect, which was developed at the Imperial College London, I was pretty excited.  With this tool I was able to quickly make the Public Art Documenter.  There are some down sides to this app, mainly in that it was developed with Google Apps, so it works really well on Droid phones, but not so well on the iPhone.  It’s also pretty tech-heavy, so it’s not all that easy to use.   I’ve been in conversation with the folks at Imperial College London who are in the process of creating the next version of this app which apparently will improve a lot of the iPhone bugs.

Also, with a number of friends, I’ve experimented with the potential for location-based applications such as Gowalla and Foursquare to serve this function.  With Gowalla, I’ve made a couple of “Trips” including the “Top 10 Public Artworks in Indianapolis” (http://gowalla.com/trips/557).

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Was there a specific reason you chose not to go through process of building an app of your own?

We’re really in an experimental stage with a mobile app.  We’ve considered applying for grants to develop and expand the project, including creating a mobile app.  But more than money, what the project really needs is a few institutional partners that are interested in using current technologies to document public art, or artworks in general.  While we’ve explored this with what would appear to be a few natural partners, including the Smithsonian Institution, who holds the archives for the important project Save Outdoor Sculpture!, we’ve yet to get anyone to directly support any aspect of the prospect.

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Crowd-sourcing archives is an exciting idea, but I can see some people arguing that it cannot compare to traditional documentation methods. How do you view your projects fitting in with current and past archival and documentation techniques?

This is a really interesting point to consider, and it goes not only to the storage of information, but the ownership of information and data.  When you work in Wikipedia you are applying a Creative Commons license to the information you create.  Also you are working collaboratively with a shared goal in a system that can be updated instantly by anyone in the world.  Because the information is built with this structure, it’s then actually owned by everyone and really no one.  This is a fantastic notion to consider vis-a-vis traditional documentation and sharing methods.

For example, compare our project to Philadelphia’s MuralFarm.org, Indianapolis’ Public Art Locator, or the Save Outdoor Sculpture! data. While this is all good data and information about public art, it’s stuck behind a website that is controlled by a very small handful of people.  All of these systems were designed to increase access to information about public art, but none are able to offer the kind of inclusion that’s possible with Wikipedia.

Plus in using Wikipedia you are actually invited to download the whole data set and keep it for yourself.  In fact, the information is licensed such that if you wanted to, you could use their book creator tool (the one I used to make the book about the Indiana State House Public Art Collection), create a book and then sell it for a profit, or just print it and have it on hand.  This is what the State House did with our information, so now they have the most complete records of their artworks in the more than 100 year history of the State House.

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Your projects all focus on primarily documenting public art, do you see these ideas and methods working well for other areas of the arts?

Of course! I recently had an intern working for me at the museum that developed an e-volunteer program that invites people to create Wikipedia articles about artworks in cultural instituions.  While we have a pilot underway at the IMA, we hope that other cultural institutions follow suit and invite their patrons to help document their collections.

Not only do many institutions lack the resources to basically document their collections, but few have recognized the value of incorporating a participatory audiences in the process.

The lack of cultural institutions with decently documented collections was famously spelled out in the Heritage Health Index Results, and reinforced in the 2009 Salzburg Global Seminar, “Connecting to the World’s Collections: Making the Case for Conservation and Preservation of our Cultural Heritage”, but few have recognized the need to open the doors and encourage a broad spectrum of participation.

Upcoming Webinar - Google Analytics - Boot Camp for Beginners

Google Analytics - Boot Camp for BeginnersTuesday, March 8, 2011 2:00pm - 3:30pm Eastern Register today for $25 Presenter: David Dombrosky

Google Analytics is by far the most widely used website analytics software, and it's free.  Yet many artists and arts managers pay little attention to what the analytics data is telling them about their websites.  Very few of us actually use the data to inform decisions about the design of our sites and the content that we post on our sites.

In this 90-minute webinar, we will:

• Explore the various types of data captured by the Google Analytics service
• Review methods for charting traffic to your site driven by your social media accounts
• Discuss what the numbers actually mean and their implications for your site and your visitors
• Articulate strategies for utilizing Google Analytics to make decisions regarding website design and content

David Dombrosky is the Executive Director of the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT), an applied research center at Carnegie Mellon University investigating ways in which arts organizations can use online technology to more effectively meet their goals. He frequently presents technology and social media workshops for arts conferences – most recently for The Association of American Cultures, Performing Arts Exchange, Chorus America, Opera America, College Art Association, and Grantmakers in the Arts.

Do You Have Trust Issues? - Data Sharing and the Arts

This post also appears as a featured article on artsmarketing.org, hosted by Americans for the Arts.

I recently had the privilege of facilitating a roundtable discussion in New York City focusing on issues related to data sharing among arts organizations. As Tiffany Bradley, Development and Marketing Specialist for Fractured Atlas, recently wrote:

As more organizations lead collaborative efforts, the implications of sharing data come to the forefront. Data sharing – whether for marketing, ticketing, fundraising purposes – raises a host of issues. Does pooling information about patrons lead to greater revenues for all parties? Or do organizations risk a negative response from patrons?

Hosted by Fractured Atlas as part of their “Issue Brunch “series and streamed live on the Internet via Ustream, the conversation featured the thoughts and voices of six arts professionals working with arts organizations, including NAMPRadio’s Maris Smith. While the roundtable covered a lot of ground surrounding the benefits and challenges of sharing data between arts organizations, the issue of trust emerged as the bonding force at the heart of all data sharing relationships.

Let’s face it. The idea of giving our data to someone else is anxiety-producing for most organizations. How do we know that they will abide by our agreement and use the data ethically? Yet, if we never place our trust in others, thereby initiating the relationship-building process, then we will never reap the benefits that may come from a data sharing relationship.

Now before someone out there becomes paralyzed with data sharing anxiety, relax. You already engage in data sharing relationships based upon trust. For example, many of us utilize Google Analytics to track visitor interactions with our websites. When we agreed to use Google’s service, we also agreed to share our data with Google. We acquiesce that Google will use our data to contribute to the web traffic data they have aggregated over time and for particular types of websites. However, we trust that Google will never give our websites’ specific data to anyone else without our permission.

Okay, I can hear some of you out there saying, “But that is an example from a service provider; it’s different to talk about sharing data with another arts organization.” No, it’s not. Data sharing relationships between arts organizations should have clearly articulated agreements detailing the data to be shared, the limits of what may be done with that data, and what contributors of the data will receive in return. Yes, these should be written agreements – or at least electronic agreements executed with digital signatures.

And just in case you skimmed over the last item of things to be detailed in data sharing relationships, I’ll rephrase myself. Data contributors should receive something in return for contributing their data. We are talking about data sharing relationships, not data giving relationships. Now, the quid pro quo of a data sharing agreement may simply be that the data collecting organization will provide contributors with overall or customized reports. That’s fine as long as the data contributors have a clear understanding of what they will receive in exchange for adding their data to the larger pool. Far too often, organizations may feel pressured to participate in data collection initiatives and surveys. One of the most important ways that you can maximize your data sharing relationships is to make certain that it is mutually understood by all parties what you will be receiving as a result of contributing your data.

While trust must be given, it must also be earned and respected in order for any data sharing relationship to grow. For example, Elliott Marketing Group has been working on two data sharing projects with numerous arts organizations in Pittsburgh, PA. In 2004, they worked with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to establish the SmArt database linking patron files for arts organizations in the city’s downtown cultural district for targeted marketing campaigns. In 2007, they partnered with the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council to launch the STAR Direct Marketing Database, which allows smaller and mid-sized arts organizations in the Pittsburgh region to pool their patron data and utilize consulting services as well as “best prospect” lists for more efficient, targeted promotions.

The success of these data sharing programs did not happen overnight. The arts service organizations, the organizations contributing data, and the marketing group have spent years developing trust relationships with each other. Now, they have years of collaborative data, and the participating organizations clearly understand what they must contribute to the project and what they will receive in return. With each successive year, the data deepens. Correspondingly, the level of trust each of the contributing organizations has with the arts service organizations and the marketing group also deepens.

A final note on trust in data sharing relationships – don’t break it. Once trust is broken in any relationship, it rarely, if ever, regains its previous depths. For many of us, our data is a precious resource not to be taken lightly. So when a partner breaks our trust with them, our instinct is to take our data and end the relationship. When you negotiate the agreements for your data sharing relationships, always be certain to include an exit clause.

As I mentioned at the top of the article, the issue of trust is just one of many areas that we discussed during the roundtable on data sharing. To learn more about the roundtable, check out the preview video below or view the full discussion at Fractured U.

Data Sharing & Arts Organizations - Take Part in the Conversation

Our friends at Fractured Atlas are relaunching their Issue Brunch series and have asked me to facilitate a discussion on the benefits and challenges of data sharing among arts organizations. As Tiffany Bradley, Development and Marketing Specialist for Fractured Atlas, recently wrote:

As more organizations lead collaborative efforts, the implications of sharing data come to the forefront. Data sharing - whether for marketing, ticketing, fundraising purposes - raises a host of issues. Does pooling information about patrons lead to greater revenues for all parties? Or do organizations risk a negative response from patrons? Integrating the range of software that arts organizations use is also a problem in its own right.

This panel discussion will be streamed live on February 11, 2011 at 1:15 pm EST via UStream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/fracturedatlas. Online participants will be able to engage one another in discussion and submit questions for the panel.

Panel participants include:

• Deborah M. Abramson - The Pew Charitable Trusts
• Joe Harrell - Alliance for the Arts
• Adam Huttler - Fractured Atlas
• Barbara Janowitz - Theater Subdistrict Council/City of New York
• Chrisopher J. Mackie, Ph.D - Open Health Tools
• Maris Smith - Situation Interactive

So what has your experience been like with data sharing among arts organizations?  What benefits have you received?  How did you approach the organizational and technological challenges?  Leave a comment below and be sure to join us on Friday for what is certain to be an engaging conversation.

Top Technology Trends: What’s Ahead for Arts Marketers in 2011

This post also appears as a featured article on artsmarketing.org, hosted by Americans for the Arts.

In this tough economy, most of us have encouraged ourselves and others to look ahead to brighter times. But, what exactly lies ahead in the next year for us? How can we make the most of our future?

In 2010, technology influenced our field tremendously. Some predicted trends, like Google Wave and Google Buzz, failed to take off, and many unexpected trends, like group-manipulated pricing and Ask a Curator, flourished. The following are some major trends that have gathered momentum in the past year and/or are poised to take off in 2011:

Group discounts and group-manipulated pricing Group discount sites exploded in popularity in 2010. While many organizations have a group sales manager or special deals for groups, these sites allow people to opt in to a deal that will only go live if enough people opt in, encouraging people to sell to their friends. Groupon now boasts 35 million subscribers and 18 million Groupons sold in North America. However, marketers question their ability to attract repeat visitors. Now that the initial novelty has worn off, hopefully the knowledge we’ve gained will result in smarter offers. I recently heard from a colleague about a ballet company that didn’t cap their Nutcracker offer and lost revenue on their offer.

Since the advent of these group-buying applications, many variants have cropped up. For example, Uniqlo’s Lucky Counter makes clear to the consumer the advantage of group buying, by lowering the price on the offer in real-time as more people sign up. Arts organizations also started implementing dynamic pricing, similar to the way in which airlines price their tickets.

iPhone sunset in the Andes by Gonzalo Baeza Hernández via Flickr.

Go mobile or go home: mobile app development and mobile ticketing In 2010 Wired reported “The Web is Dead”, meaning that the way people use the Internet is moving away from web access on a desktop or laptop computer to mobile applications. Arts organizations have started asking themselves if their website is mobile friendly and, along with companies like InstantEncore and Pop Media, have started to develop apps.

Pop Media has developed Cloudtix, which uses Tessitura to sell tickets in real time through mobile apps and download a scanable ticket to their phone.

Bill Predmore of Pop Media compares the rise of mobile apps this year to website development in 1997.  “Arts orgs started out with a ‘brochure site’ and slowly began to evolve as they realized their capabilities. Things will happen a lot more quickly this time.”

So if the web is dead, which is worth more investment: mobile websites or mobile apps? And if you are going to develop an app, which platform do you develop it for? While Apple’s iOS devices (including iPad, iPhone, and iPod) still outnumber Android devices, Android phones have overtaken iPhones in terms of market share.

Predmore advises companies to begin to look into all three: iOS, Android and mobile websites. “Things are changing rapidly and it’s difficult to know what’s going to be there a year from now. For this reason, many organizations are reluctant to make an investment. But patrons are going to expect you to be there and if you’re not, there’s a problem.”

Changing media consumption At the same time that Internet usage is shifting to mobile devices, the way audiences consume entertainment is changing. The introduction of tablet-style devices like the iPad  and 4G-capable phones running on Android means more people are consuming mobile entertainment, especially video , than ever before. iPad users are also more likely to complete video ads (63%) than desktop video viewers (53%).

In the past several years, performing arts organizations have started taking their performances outside of the theater and concert hall with initiatives like the Met’s Live in HD, San Francisco Opera’s Opera in the Ballpark, and most recently, L.A. Phil Live. In 2010, we saw a shift to more online streaming video. Sites like Tendu TV and classicaltv aggregate video of performances. Streaming on platforms like Livestream has become more commonplace, notably Chris Elam’s efforts with Misnomer Dance Theatre.  Recently YouTube announced that it would offer live streaming to its content partners, several of which are arts organizations.

Are you in the cloud? Photo: James Jordan via Flickr.

The privacy debate Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of how they are being tracked by marketers. At the same time advertisers are under more pressure than ever monetize their online investments as they cut offline budgets. Last year was notable in that two major companies have made privacy faux pas: Facebook over profile information and Google over Buzz. These controversies as well as the rise in location-based apps and ever-nichified Facebook ads have made people more aware of exactly how much information marketers have about them. (If you want to know how much personal information marketers know about you, check out rapleaf.com .

How does this apply to arts orgs? At the same time these privacy concerns have surfaced, arts organizations are being persuaded to move to shared service models, in which databases may be shared by multiple organizations, or have started using other platforms which use cloud computing (where the organization’s data is stored on outside servers). As patrons become more aware of where their information is stored, employees also worry about the security of cloud computing. At the same time, they wonder how secure their database was in the first place. Bottom line: arts organizations should remember that it is crucial to be transparent about their privacy policies to patrons.

Rise of location-based social media No discussion of arts and technology in 2010 would be complete without mentioning location-based platforms like FourSquare, GoWalla, Facebook Places, and Google Latitude. Foursqaure was up 33.2 million users in 2010 from 12.3 million users in 2009.

Arts organizations, most of which position themselves as serving local community, are starting to understand the potential for hyper-local platforms like this. Location-based applications are increasingly attracting young, urban influencers with disposable income—precisely the audience many arts organizations are trying to attract. People connect to geolocation apps primarily to “get informed” and “obtain promotions” rather than “to compete” to become mayor of their favorite locations.

2011 will likely determine which “check-in” application will dominate. As of November 2010 Facebook Places had 7 times more users than FourSquare, but Places users utilize the service less frequently. So, which platform will win out? Independent companies like GoWalla and FourSquare, or platforms emerging from established networks and services like Facebook and Google?

What do you think were the biggest trends in arts marketing in 2010? What do you see ahead for 2011?

Best of Technology in the Arts 2010 -- David's Favorites

As we move into 2011, it's time to take a look back at my favorite articles and podcast episodes from Technology in the Arts in 2010.

My Top 10 TITA Articles (in chronological order)

1. Building Audience Diversity Through Social Networking - Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 -- Amelia investigates why arts organizations use certain social networking sites but not others (such as ethnically specific sites like Black Planet) and what impact this has on their ability to use social networking as a tool for building diverse audiences. [Okay, okay...I'm counting this three-part series as one really looooonnnggg article.]

2. SEOoooo….what? Improving your organization’s search engine optimization. -- Corwin takes a look at search engine optimization: what it is; why it is important; and what you can do to optimize it for your website. [And it was published on my birthday, which makes it extra special.]

3. Micro-donations: Proving Size Doesn’t Always Matter -- Joe highlights reasons and tips for starting a micro-donation campaign for your organization.

4. Social Media Spotlight: Vancouver Opera -- Amelia kicks off our Social Media Spotlight series by interviewing Ling Chan, Social Media Manager for the Vancouver Opera, about her social media strategy and experiments.

5. Online Group Discounts and the Arts - Tara unearths some of the buzz around the use of online group discount sites like Groupon and Living Social.

6. Is your organization engaging older adults through social media? -- Molly questions our assumptions about social media sites as places to primarily engage younger audiences.

7. Going Mobile - Websites vs Apps -- Reprinted from Americans for the Arts' Arts Marketing Blog Salon, I break down the differences between mobile apps and mobile websites with an eye toward where arts organizations should invest their time and money.

8. The Handheld Guide: Experimenting with Mobile Technology in Museums -- Tom digs deeper into mobile apps by exploring how they are used by and within art museums.

9. Social Media Spotlight: The Guggenheim and YouTube Play -- Thomas interviews Guggenheim Associate Curator Hanne Mugaas about YouTube Play, a biennial celebrating creative talent in the realm of online video.

10. 7 steps to a Successful Facebook Ad Campaign -- Tara discusses the benefits of and best practices for creating Facebook Ads.

My Top 4 Podcast Episodes (in chronological order)

#66 – Google Wave, Google Buzz and the iPad -- A humorous (yet informative) conversation with Brad, Amelia and me wherein I make this ridiculous prediction that the iPad was not going to take off. LOL.

#70 – Discussion of "Theatre & Social Media in 2009″ with Devon Smith -- Pat interviews Yale Repertory Theatre's Devon Smith about her research report “Theatre & Social Media in 2009.”

#71 – Audience 2.0, Smartphone Apps and Tips for Working with Developers -- Brad, Jeff and I get into a rowdy conversation about everything from the NEA's Audience 2.0 report to smartphone apps for the arts.

#78 – Seven Digital Trends and Their Implications for the Creative Sector -- My interview with thought leader and arts consultant Brian Newman about trends in the technology sector and what they (will) mean for the arts industry.

Happy New Year to all of our fans, friends, readers and listeners! We'll see you on the flip side in 2011.

Planning for Engagement: Tech Strategy & the Visitor Experience

Earlier this week, the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum hosted a talk by Nina K. Simon, author of The Participatory Museum and the Museum 2.0 blog. Simon works with museums throughout the country to develop programs for improving visitor engagement.

Simon brought up some great ideas about the ways in which museums could use programming to increase engagement and create meaningful experiences between visitors.  Might arts organizations be able to apply her ideas about museums when designing their own strategies with technology and social media?

Here are a few of her ideas from the talk and how I think they might be applied:

Museums should be seen as places for everyday use

Simon argued that many museums are seen as tourist destinations that have a long-standing stereotype of being a place to be visited maybe only once a year. This is also true for many other types of arts organizations.  Many of us would like to see that change and for arts organizations to become places that people consider frequenting practically everyday. Social media could be a strong tool for stimulating this impression. Offering frequent, engaging content online and creating a personal connection with our organizations’ constituents can help counter the idea that arts organizations are aloof and impersonal tourist destinations.  Social media offers an opportunity to communicate the frequent, sometimes daily offerings of your organization.

Museums should be trusted hosts for social experiences

Simon spoke last night about the success some museums have had with programs that involve voting, encourage competition, and prioritize face-to-face interaction between visitors.  Arts organizations could apply this idea towards utilizing social event sites like meetup.com, where the end result is a real-life, social interaction. Or this idea could be applied towards using such tools as real time tagging of artworks from any discipline or mobile device voting systems as a way to create conversation and interaction between visitors. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra went the mobile voting route when they had audience members vote, via text, to choose which encore the symphony performed.

Museums should be places for seeing and exploring as well as sharing and making

Another great way to engage visitors in a meaningful way is to encourage them to share their experiences of the organization with their friends and to create their own content. Social networking sites are centered on this idea of sharing experiences online and many organizations have taken advantage of this by encouraging their visitors to share photos and stories on the organizations’ social networks. The Vancouver Opera has a flickr fashion page that gives visitors who have “dressed to the nines” a place to shine online. The Mattress Factory’s iConfess is a confessional booth for visitors to express their ideas about the museum and publish those ideas directly to YouTube. Photos and personal experiences are definitely visitor-created content, but current technology can push this idea of participation even further. The success the Guggenheim had with YouTube Play, an online exhibition of user-created videos, and online projects like The Johnny Cash Project, where users re-interpret a Johnny Cash video by drawing over each frame, are two great examples.

As technology and social networks continue to expand and grow at a rapid rate, it’s hard to know which to develop programming for. These ideas presented at Ms. Simon’s talk can serve as great starting points to that conversation. As your organization moves forward developing technological programming, some questions should be asked, such as: Is the technology serving the end goal of bringing people to our institution? Is it helping to create a worthwhile experience for visitors, or is it just tech for tech’s sake? How varied of an audience can a particular technology or social network reach? Are there better, low-tech solutions to visitor engagement? New technology and advances in web 2.0 can offer powerful tools that can help expand audiences and increase visitor engagement, but remember to step back and look at which strategy best serves your organization's visitors and creates a meaningful experience.