Online audience engagement examples
This year has seen so many wonderful examples of organisations being creative, adapting and experimenting with new ways of engaging audiences – both new and existing.
Below I’m sharing a range of online examples that I’ve come across and been inspired by, and hope they will inspire others too.
I’ve shared some offline examples in my next post.
The Fitzwilliam Museum created #LookThinkDo online educational resources for families, with a range of activities families could choose to do.
In this example, they’d created ‘The Horse and Lion’ story inspired by Monet’s Rocks at Port-Coton, the Lock Rock painting which they shared on YouTube, asked questions to encourage families to look closer at the painting and reflect about seasons and being outdoors and shared tips on making your own wax resist watery landscapes.
The Cooper Gallery in Barnsley uploaded some of their paintings to www.jigsawplanet.com and challenged audiences to lay puzzles online – and with a timer and live leader board it was highly addictive!
The Museum of Cambridge took their Drawing Connections … at the edges: Arts in Prison exhibition online over the summer. This included Facebook Lives with an in conversation with artist Lindum Greene, and discussions of the issues raised by the exhibition. The exhibition and Facebook Lives are archived.
York Museums Trust’s #CuratorBattle on Twitter has provided lots of fun, with organisations across the world joining in with the challenge to share their collections that fit particular themes e.g. #TremendousTransport and #BestMuseumBum. It’s their most successful digital campaign to date and digital engagement officer Millie has written a great round up on the impact of the campaign.
Jane Austen’s House have created Jane Austen’s House from Home, which includes a virtual 360˚ tour of the house, a “Cat’s-eye Audio Tour” aimed at children, virtual exhibitions, talks and festive activities.
The #GettyMuseumChallenge challenged members of the public to create artworks from their collection with objects and people from their home – a fun way to engage with the collections and be creative whilst stuck at home. And even if you didn’t join in, you could marvel at people’s ingenuity. Here’s a round-up of some of the results.
Leeds Discovery Centre have run Facebook polls to ask their audiences which topic they fancied for the following week’s Museum from Home video. A simple bit of quick engagement and good way of tailoring content to audience interests. Videos have included subjects like how to interpret a ‘cannibal fork’, how to make a bronze axe and what stories can Roman coins tell us.
A poll from Leeds Discovery Centre asking audiences for their preferred topic for the next Museum from Home video
The Ashmolean Museum’s #IsolationCreations challenged people to create something inspired by a new object from their collection each week. And the results were wonderfully creative.
Knebworth House commissioned a mini series of online time travel shows for younger children, with simple but effective storytelling and production, and a very engaging presenter (Lauren and the Story Box) with an overall CBeebies feel to it.
Knebworth House’s Time Travelling Adventures
Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse have been very proactive keeping their volunteers engaged, for example with new remote volunteering opportunities, regular emails, a weekly virtual tea break on Zoom and a Facebook community group.
Museum of the Home has undertaken contemporary collecting this year, collecting stories and images that document how our home lives have changed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Museum of Home’s Stay Home collecting project
Experience Barnsley: Museum & Discovery Centre ran #ShowUsYourStuff, encouraging audiences who’d been having a clear-out to share photographs of toys, family heirlooms and other things they’d found, along with the stories that go with them and what the objects mean to them. They hope to create a new digital exhibition of the pictures, online or at Experience Barnsley in the future.