10 Ways to Increase Visitor Participation
- By Michelle Ghadfa
- April 20, 2009
Here are Night Kitchen Interactive’s 10 Tips for turning visitors into active participants in their museum experience:
10. Don’t be coy! Make your invitation to participate loud and clear so that visitors know that their participation is not only welcome, but wanted.
9. Include a “prize” that motivates: A little friendly competition goes a long way toward turning visitors into contributors. “Prizes” don’t have to cost much – just the opportunity of having one’s work featured by a museum can be priceless.
8. Seed for success: Prior to launch, seed your project with early contributions to encourage and inspire new visitors to join in the experience. It’s also an opportunity for the museum to demonstrate the type of entries they are looking for. As a case in point, The Rosenbach Museum & Library shared some its own Found Abe sightings a few weeks before launch to spur interest in the project.
7. Grab a partner: Partner organizations come with dedicated audiences of their own and can help offer alluring awards for participation, as well as increased press coverage. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s partnership with USA Weekend helped garner over 800 eligible entries to its Star-Spangled Banner YouTube singing contest over an 8-week contest period.
6. Remove barriers: Keep in mind that the call for creativity can be intimidating. Provide seed content and “ice breaker” questions to help put visitors at ease. Also, logins and complicated legalities can be moved to the tail end of the process so that participants can focus on the activity.
5. Integrate social media: Using social media tools, visitors can respond to an exhibit or collection in a variety of new and exciting ways, more of which are being introduced everyday. Again, consider the Star-Spangled Banner website, where online visitors can share photographs through Flickr, take a quiz, or submit their video performance of the national anthem through YouTube.
4. Offer a range of participation levels: Provide visitors with multiple ways to participate, from viewing submissions to creating their own. The Art of Storytelling website, for example, invites visitors to listen to stories submitted by other visitors, record their own story, or create their own work of art.
3. Keep visitors posted: If a visitor has taken the time to participate in your project, it’s likely that they’ll be interested in future contributions or developments. Take advantage of multiple avenues to stay connected – an RSS feed, a blog, Twitter, Facebook, and more.
2. Bring your PR into the 21st century: Supplement your traditional press release with a social media release so that your message can more rapidly get across the blogosphere and expand your audience reach. For a jargon-free explanation of social media and why it’s important, check out this presentation on social media marketing.
1. Fuel the conversation: Keep the audience engaged beyond the initial launch by facilitating meaningful conversations about the topics that interest them. In addition to its bi-monthly call for entries, the Smithsonian Photography Initiative continues the conversation about photography through its blog, The Bigger Picture.
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