Project Thesis by Angeline Nesbit
With three and a half billion users daily, social media is an essential part of communications for all museums. But small museums, face a lack of funding, capacity, and skills for social media and thus tend to be unable to exploit this tool in an effective way that benefits their organizations. This thesis project seeks to assist small museums with limited capacity in building their own social media strategy. This project consisted of three parts: 1) an analysis of research into effective creation of a social media strategies in small museums; 2) exploration of a test case performed at the Eastside Heritage Center (EHC) in Bellevue, WA; 3) the creation of a toolkit and infographic synthesizing the work done at EHC to make it easily accessible to other small museums. Raising social media awareness within the EHC proved to be effective in generating ideas and interest among volunteers, board, and staff. By exploring how social media strategy stems from brand identity and marketing planning and social media strategy, this project identified a process for small museums to develop a consistent and effective social media strategy that engages the communities that they depend on.
Citation
Nesbit, A.(2020). Growing Social Media in Small Museums: Raising Organizational Awareness. [Unpublished master’s thesis project]. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
Keywords
project, social media, small museums, organizational awareness