What did you want to find out at the start of your project?
Instead of putting most of our production capacity towards “interpreting” exhibitions on social media, we scaled back on the numbers of “educational posts” we were developing throughout the run of exhibitions, and instead put more capacity towards creating longer-form digital storytelling resources (such YouTube videos, AGGV Magazine articles and podcast episodes). These types of more fulsome education resources allow artists to dive into much more depth than they could in a single post, and result in a digital archive, for us and for artists, that’s not so fleeting (like an Instagram, Facebook or Twitter feed).
What did you actually do?
Slowing down, and making space/time for creating digital content that’s layered and not reactive to busy schedules or tight timelines.
What was the most difficult thing you found?
Slowing down, and making space/time for creating digital content that’s layered and not reactive to busy schedules or tight timelines.
What surprised you?
Quality over quantity – you don’t need to overwhelm your social media feed in order to create meaningful forms of community engagement in digital spaces.
What is next for you and/or your organization?
Hopeful next steps might include diving deeper into feedback, analytics, evaluation, debriefing, measuring impacts and forecasting where we should be in the future (ie. identifying strengths, challenges and new digital infrastructure)
What 3 quick takeaways would you give to help future participants/your current fellow participants?
1) Digital accessibility is essential to this work.
2) Start small.
3) The role of “digital educators” in museums are essential in extending museum learning in a broad way. So, institutions need to be mindful about holding onto the digital capacity that they established throughout the pandemic, and building upon it.