I’ve just received an email from the Museum Detective about a new podcast on their blog about the high-risk venture of stealing art. The Museum Detective is one of the few blogs I’ve found on NZ culture, and it’s got me wondering …

Are cultural sector organisations taking up this channel for communicating with their audiences? Are we reluctant to blog?

Perhaps it’s because it’s hard to imagine why a cultural organisation would need a blog. Or is it because of the commitment required to maintain one? The difficulties of measuring the effectiveness of a blog, maybe?

There’s a few articles and reports floating around on the web now about assessing the return on investment (ROI) of a blog. Check out this podcast Why marketers need to work with people media from the folks at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference and Festival. The panel discusses how a blog can drive cultural opinions and brand awareness as part of an effective and efficient marketing campaign.

Fresh + New - the excellent blog by the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney - posted recently on Towards an ROI measure for museum blogging:

“Within the non-profit sector brand visibility is the key benefit from blogging - brand awareness leads to potential future (real world visitation), and in terms of collecting museums and research centres, a general awareness of the nature of ‘what exactly it is you do other than exhibitions’.”

The example they give is the Sydney Observatory, whose website traffic increased phenomally with the introduction of a blog. The blog exposes the activities of the observatory to new audiences:

“Prior to the launch of the Sydney Observatory blog there was no way for the astronomers at the Observatory to publish sky-related news, let alone the discoveries of amateur astronomy groups affiliated with the Observatory, nor respond to sightings of fireballs in the sky. The previous website architecture didn’t allow for such ‘loose’ content, nor did workflows allow for such material to quickly edited and posted.”

Reasons I can think of for cultural organisations to have a blog include making your activities more accessible and visible and inviting your visitors to react to and influence what you’re doing - adding to the cultural experience. But to make sure you get an ROI on anything you add to your website - whether blogs, wikis, forums and other forms of social networking - first define your goal and examine the costs and benefits, and then invest in the things you know your audiences will use.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Culture online, Marketing, Social media, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.