Sumo

The Museums Journal asked Sumo's Jim Richardson to answer questions for an article in their August issue about Museum Blogs, here are his answers:

Should museums include blogging in their web strategies?

Blogging is a way of engaging audiences with up-to-date and behind-the-scenes information from a venue. It is less formal than a website, giving staff a chance to push the museum's 'personality'. The casual format means that any information can be added, from a fresh look at objects in the collection, to event reviews, to snippets and thoughts from curators; this variety will keep readers interested, and the flexibility means it should be easy to find content to keep it going.

A museum will get as much out of a blog as they put in - write lots of interesting posts and people will take the time to engage with you. For these reasons I think a blog should be part of most museums' communications plans.

How does blogging compare with other marketing techniques in terms of reach and effectiveness?

A blog is a type of permission marketing capable of communicating with audiences more directly than conventional communications such as leaflets and advertising. If a blog is well written and relevant, people don't feel that they are being 'sold to'. It is also delivered in short, varied bursts and invites feedback - keeping up a dialogue. With RSS features, a blog can send daily updates directly to the desktop of your subscribers in a frequency and ease which no other form of marketing can match.

Like any marketing campaign, you have to keep your target audience in mind. Blogs are perfect for contacting the 'long tail' museum visitors: a large number of keen, long-term, disparate individuals. When aiming at larger, transient or less focussed audiences, such as tourists, traditional routes are likely to be more appropriate.

We encourage venues to open their blogs to people from across their organisation. Specialists like curators often bring the most to a blog as a result of their deep background knowledge. The public seem to respond very well to things you might not at first think to include in a blog, such as the work involved in getting a stuffed animal exhibit delivered.

What is the relationship between blogging and SEO?

A blog can quickly build into a large collection of content, and this obviously helps to build search engine ranking. If you add plenty of links to and from the blog, this will dramatically increase.

What advice would you give to those worried about negative comments on their blog? Would you advocate moderating / censoring the content?

Monitoring comments on blogs is essential but I think that a venue needs to be open to negative feedback; this can spark debate and encourage on-going improvement. As lots of arts venues have shown, a bit of controversy is great for getting people involved!

Are there any examples that you would hold up as good / bad practice?

Brooklyn Museum have a very prolific blog, full of interesting content, linked to their equally impressive collection of imagery on Flickr.