This evening, the UK Arts Marketing Association Conference came to a close at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, pictured above. The photo was taken with my mobile from inside a Starbucks which accounts for the white dots in the foreground.
Jane Finnis from Chapter 24 and Sebastian Chan from Powerhouse Museum of Design and Science in Sydney opened the day with a session titled “Digital innovation—what’s working and what’s not?" Jane reported on a collaborative research initiative with 17 arts organizations, including the British Museum, Tate Museum, Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Design Museum, that measured the use of social media. It identified segments of public users as well as findings informed by both qualitative and quantitative data. Among the findings was that organic search was the dominant traffic source for driving visitors to websites (58.4%)—search engine optimization (SEO) matters still, a lot, she stressed. The study also showed that social media, while extremely important for building relationships with constituents, is not a key tool for driving traffic to sites like SEO. She recommended that organizations invest in reconfiguring Web sites for mobile because use of handhelds is growing much faster than social media. And, in addition, urged organizations to clearly define audience outcomes, not just the number of people, but what kind of people, and their patterns of behavior.
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