XVThe Mutually Beneficial Relationship Between Influencers and Museums

  • Maura Dunn, The George Washington University

Throughout the last decade, as social media platforms have grown in prominence, a new kind of celebrity has emerged. The “social media influencer”, henceforth referred to as influencers, is a figure with a platform, who has the power to affect the decisions of their followers based off their number of followers they have gained and their relationship with these followers making them an asset for brands to collaborate with when trying to reach their marketing goals.1 Social media influencers tend to have a distinct niche and have built a reputation for their knowledge in a specific subject. There are influencers at every scale including micro-influencers who have a follower base of 10,000-50,000 followers, macro-influencers who have a follower base of 500,000-1 million followers and mega influencers who have a follower base of over 1 million.2 Nano influencers have recently gained recognition as being experts in their field despite only having a few thousand followers.3

With their visibility and connection with a defined audience, influencers have become attractive to brands and companies looking to capitalize on their popularity and influence. A brand deal occurs when a company hires an influencer to promote their label or a certain product by posting a picture with “#ad” or a swipe up link. The amount influencers get paid from the brand depends on the amount of followers they have while also accounting for engagement levels and different niches.4 Museums also use influencers as part of their social media and marketing strategies. Institutions collaborate with Instagram influencers by using the influencer’s specific niche to strategically target the audience gaps within their museum. In this paper, I am going to discuss the relationship between social media influencers, specifically on Instagram, and museums, different marketing tactics and how they contribute to a museum, and how this relationship will continue to grow. I will argue that the relationship between social media influencers is a positive one and will only help the institution better their online platforms.

Museums constantly look for new ways to market themselves and target the public to attract more engagement with the museum, whether that be online or in person. One emerging method museums may use is working with social media influencers to help them strategize ways in which they can create content and help their platform grow. If museums want to engage with people under 30, 59% of individuals in the United States are active on Instagram.5 To meet their audience goals, museums then also need to be on Instagram. When creating content, there needs to be constant new innovative ways to draw in followers and stimulate their connection with the publics. When deciding to work with an influencer, museums must consider a range of factors, including mission alignment, and target audience. Museums can search for relevant influencers by posting on platforms such as Tribe6 or Takumi7 which connect institutions with influencers, post online about their search, or reach out to an influencer directly. Different types of institutions such as art, history or children’s museums may want to search for different influencers that fit specifically with their message. Each influencer has a niche of followers related to a particular institutions wants and needs. Because many influencers are influential within a particular niche, museums may seek to work with influencers on a specific exhibition or project. After an institution discovers the influencer they want to hire, it is important to set clear expectations so both parties are aware of the full aspect of the job. It is also important to keep a transparent and communicative relationship so both parties will benefit.8

Although Instagram was first launched in October of 2010, many museums did not join the platform right away. The Metropolitan Museum of Art began setting up their Instagram account in Spring of 2013 and immediately after began working with a specific Instagram influencers brainstorming strategies. Instagram influencer Dave Krugman has helped institutions such as the Met as well as the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, and the New York Public Library discover their voice on the Instagram platform. From his then 50,000 followers (now 321K followers) he quickly saw the ability to reach thousands of people with the touch of a finger and knew he could help these institutions harness this power as well. After the Met first posted their instagram pictures in collaboration with Mr. Krugman, the account suddenly gained thousands of followers and traffic jumped significantly.9 Krugman worked with the Met’s community manager to create the the hashtag #EmptyMet and Instameets. Instameets are gatherings of people “coming together to create, connect and share an experience through Instagram photography” which usually includes a behind the scenes tour that normally isn’t available for the general public.10 This strategy helped by Mr. Krugman not only led to the Met’s instagram account to gain followers, but it drove foot traffic and buzz around exhibits as well. This relationship between Mr. Krugman and these institutions has proved beneficial for both parties. Due to his relationship with high profile museums, Mr. Krugman gained attention and more followers. More importantly, the institutions working with the cultural influencer create better marketing tactics and bring in substantial traffic to their social media platforms. Therefore, the relationship between the social media influencer and the museum can be highly beneficial to the institution. Mr. Krugman working with these institutions is a paramount example of influencer marketing, but is only the beginning.

In 2015 the Natural History Museum of Los Angles County and the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum launched a campaign called #HowDoYouMuseum using digital media to keep up the recent demand both institutions had been receiving as well as align these two museums that were separate. This campaign used celebrities such as Will Farrell and Instagram influencers that had thousands of followers. The influencers appeared in several videos created by both institutions where they shared their individual perspective of their visit to the museum hoping to inspire others to attend and create their own experience.11 To launch this campaign, both institutions invited 50 influencers from a variety of niche’s in the Los Angeles area to visit the museums and share their experiences using the hashtag #HowDoYouMuseum. Using influencer marketing, both museums “were able to generate more than three million video views and reach more than 2.3 million viewers who were able to see their UGC (User Generated Content) posts in just a matter of months.”12 From this point on, the institutions would continue to reach out to local influencers and invite them to the museum to continue to post on their platforms. This digital media would then be reposted on the museum websites and promoted through paid media. One example of ways in which the campaign worked with influencers was partnering with fashion influencer Tommy Lei. The campaign team conducted a photoshoot for an editorial series at the National History Museum of L.A. and used this shoot to highlight fashion aspects within the museum.13 In this example, the campaign targeted a specific audience the museum might otherwise be unable to reach.

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis uses a social influencer program that started in 2013 to connect with the community and build their brand. Since the program’s inception, the institution has worked with over 200 influencers with a wide variety of niches for the museums different exhibitions.14 When the museum looks for influencers to work with, they focus on accounts that have any type of engaged following regardless of the number of followers. The museum focuses on the importance of building a strong relationship with the influencer, like with Indianapolis local blogger “The Queen of Free”, by building a sense of loyalty and trustworthiness.15 The museum invites their connection of local and regional influencers to events such as exhibit preview parties. This hosts not only as an insight to the exhibition but it also provides as a great networking event organically exciting influencers to post about the upcoming exhibit.16

In a more recent example, the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) in Seattle, Washington has a strong commitment to focus on collaboration with community partner organizations and has worked with influencers in the past as well. During their Seattle Style: Fashion/Function exhibit in 2019, the museum collaborated with Seattle based fashion exhibit Instagram influencer Sydney Mintle on a couple of public programs for the museum and also an influencer conference she held at the MOHAI. The goal of collaborating with Mintle was to learn from her knowledge of the local fashion industry, and to promote the exhibit through her connections and followers.17 This relationship came about through the Corporate Relations Manager when looking for contacts to support the upcoming exhibit and to participate in the exhibits Community Advisory Committee. In addition, the MOHAI convened the Community Advisory Committee that Sydney was a part of which helped MOHAI staff understand and connect to important issues and people in the local fashion scene, resulting in an extensive slate of public programming. The institution chose to work with Mintle because of her unique experience with multiple sides of the industry, including manufacturing, distribution, and promotion, as well as her specific interest in supporting a fashion exhibit. Mintle made important contributions to the content of MOHAI’s public programs, and even spoke on one of the panels. She continues to mention MOHAI occasionally in her own social media posts. However, the influencers who attended her conference did not generate significant social media promotion of the museum.18

While MOHAI had this positive experience when working with an influencer, they did have a second involvement where the traction they wanted didn’t quite kick off the ground. The museum contracted with two queer influencers in the Seattle area for an online campaign #ObjectsOfPride in June of 2021. The institution offered a small honorarium to the influencers to make a video that aligned with their mission of their #ObjectsOfPride campaign then post this video with a call to their followers to invite participation.19 Instead of coming from the museum’s marketing team, their Public Programs team ran this project not having much experience working with influencers. The museum ended up paying two influencers who created posts in which the MOHAI was pleased with but ultimately the campaign never gained much traction.20 This example shows that even if you do have a strong post aligning with a museums mission, the content from the influencer may not always gain popularity or bring in the traffic that you want it to.

Museums all over the world are using social media influencers to not only assist in creating content for their platform but to promote their institutions platform as well. Museums reach out to influencers whose audiences are most geared towards the arts because their familiarity and experience in that department can help the institutions brand better. The influencers are invited to the museum where they then create and post content about their experience, spreading awareness to their followers and piquing interest in the exhibits. Institutions may reach out for an increase in visitors for a specific exhibit or overall attendance to the museum as well as becoming culturally knowledgeable on the subject of the post. Not only do they reach out for physical engagement within the institution, but for online traffic as well whether that be an increase in traffic of social media, blogs, or their online collections. Through these posts, followers of influencers are able to see parts of the overall collection or a certain exhibit and experience this directly from a visitor.21 In addition, museums work with Instagram influencers to improve their community engagement by using hashtags, creating a dialogue with Instagram users, and shouting out individual followers. Museums also reach out to niche influencers to collaborate in strategically filling the audience gaps they do not have the connections to. Before the craze of social media, museum goers visited for a number of reasons but now there is a rise in people feeling the desire to go through the influence of the internet.22 Frequently people are attracted to what others obtain and have experienced so the more we witness influencers in a museum space, followers will be more likely to visit as well.23

There are several benefits to this recently-formed relationship between influencers and museum institutions. One positive is that influencer marketing targets one specific audience rather than trying to just reach everyone at once by working with niche accounts. This can help museums reach a niche audience in which they normally wouldn’t have a strong relationship with. The influencer is able to post polls of questions or interact with their followers to better target their audience. In addition, research shows us that there is a potential that influencers posts will inspire people that may not be as interested in museums to go and visit.24 Those who may have not had an interest in a show or certain exhibit may now be more inclined to visit after they see a post by an influencer they follow. In an interview conducted by the American Alliance of Museums with former Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture manager of social media Lanae Spruce, she exemplifies that institution’s are taking advantage of this instrumental relationship. Spruce states “Partnerships allow me to see those opportunities to expand our audiences, to expand narratives around the stories that they tell, and also to get new people engaged around cultural institutions who perhaps had never thought about it because they were never targeted for these spaces.”25 Social media professionals within the museum field are taking advantage of the power social media influencers yield within their platform and how beneficial this relationship can be. Within influencer marketing campaigns, there is a strong relationship that may develop between the museum marketing team and the influencer which can make the partnership last long term. The benefit for an influencer of this long term partnership includes driving up views, followers, and engagement on their platform resulting in monetary value. A for the institution, this long lasting marketing relationship saves time, money, resources, and also helps to establish credibility.26

In a study conducted by Erasmus University in Rotterdamn, Femke van Leeuwen looks at how influencers can be beneficial to Dutch art museums marketing strategies. To find out if the followers of influencers are actually affected by the posts and drawn to go and visit, he looks into consumption research of both museums and the internet. There are three general motivations for individuals to want to have a cultural experience in a museum. They include “the intrinsic value of the art, one’s personal or group identity, and people’s social background.”27

The study showed that the largest age group targeted by the influencers was between 18 to 29 and are reaching a larger younger audience through instagram. This group has also stated to be visiting museums more post-pandemic which shows the importance of museum marketing towards a younger audience by these institutions. In this study, the demographics of the target audience of the culture influencer is mostly educated, female, white and has somewhat of an interest in the arts similar to those visiting a museum. Opposed to these similarities between the social media audience and museum audience, Instagram reaches a younger audience in comparison to those visiting an institution. The data received shows us that both posts coming from the institution and the influencer are utilized as informative and inspiring as well as that each group is influenced differently by the posts they see. The data also shows that more than half of the respondents learned something from the posts that the influencers created and the demand for those who prefer to follow an influencer rather than the institution’s increases due to the fact they visit art museums more often. Those influencers with a higher number of followers are seen as more authentic and therefore have more of an impact of getting people to visit a museum. Furthermore, it is found that influencer marketing can be used in getting attention to the institution as well as driving up visitor numbers because there is a large audience on Instagram that prefer to follow the influencer over the museum. This research conducted in the Netherlands is a primary example of museum’s affect by influencers and this type of influencer marketing can take place globally.

As the relationship between influencers and institutions continue to grow, we look towards the future with advancing technology. Since the shutdown of the world took place with COVID-19, museums have been having to turn to their online platforms more than ever to continue to engage audiences. Instagram specifically is one of the most popular platforms for influential engagement, and now TikTok has become another popular platform institutions can use to get their message across. Tik Tok which has been the most popular app ever created, was designed for sharing short videos that constantly are on loop reaching an audience of mostly 13-21 year olds.28 The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was one of the first museums to launch their TikTok account.29 In creating for this newly in-demand platform, museums have the ability to hire influencers to collaborate with institutions’ Social Media Managers in creating content. Not only can museums create accounts and post on TikTok, but individual influencers as well as institution accounts have the ability to post about certain exhibits or collections while making it appealing to a very young audience. The content within museums such as popular immersive experiences that are posted on social media from influencers can draw in a crowd as well. With the growth social media has taken throughout the last decade, museums and influencers relationship will only get stronger in the future. There will be more apps and new innovative ways to attract audiences, and institutions will continue to come to influencers for collaboration using their expertise.

Museums utilize social media influencers in a number of ways including hosting exclusive events, hiring the influencer to help create marketing strategies, and enlisting to create posts about a certain exhibition. Due to a gaps in audiences within these institutions, museums look to Instagram influencers with a specific niche to reach these audiences as well as the community at large. Although there can be examples where influencer-museum campaigns do not reach the number people planned, the relationship between institutions and influencers is mutually beneficial. Due to the continuing growth in technology, museums now have an important digital role. With the help of niche social media influencers, institutions can better their museums platform as well as reach a larger number of potential visitors from the influencers creative content.

Notes

  1. Geyser, Werner. “What Is an Influencer? - Social Media Influencers Defined [Updated 2021].” Influencer Marketing Hub, August 17, 2021. https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-an-influencer/. ↩︎

  2. Ehlers, Kelly. “Council Post: Micro-Influencers: When Smaller Is Better.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, June 2, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2021/06/02/micro-influencers-when-smaller-is-better/?sh=77b0f127539b. ↩︎

  3. Geyser 2021. ↩︎

  4. Bradley, Sydney. “How Much Money Instagram Influencers Make.” Business Insider. Business Insider, November 8, 2021. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-money-instagram-influencers-earn-examples-2021-6. ↩︎

  5. Rogers Publishing Corporation. “Shifting Perspectives: The Millennial Influence on Museum Engagement.” The Museum Scholar, April 20, 2021. https://articles.themuseumscholar.org/2018/06/11/tp_vol1bellomatchette/. ↩︎

  6. https://tribe.so/ ↩︎

  7. https://takumi.com/ ↩︎

  8. “How Museums Can Work with Social Media Influencers.” MuseumNext, April 22, 2021. https://www.museumnext.com/article/how-museums-can-work-with-social-media-influencers/. ↩︎

  9. Kaufman, Leslie. 2014. “Sharing Cultural Jewels via Instagram.” New York Times, June 18. https://search-ebscohost-com.proxygw.wrlc.org/login.aspx? direct=true&db=a9h&AN=96572170&site=ehost-live. ↩︎

  10. “What Is an Instameet?” Simply Social Media || Santa Fe, New Mexico Social Media and Influencer Marketing Agency. Simply Social Media || Santa Fe, New Mexico Social Media and Influencer Marketing Agency, April 12, 2019. https://www.simplysocialmedianm.com/blog/what-is-an-instameet#:~:text=Instameets%20are%20gatherings%20of%20people,in%20support%20of%20the%20promotion. ↩︎

  11. Naiditch, Mara, Rachel Gertz, and Edgar Chamorro. “How Do You Museum?: Marketing User-Generated Content to Engage Audiences.” MW17. Pulished January 31, 2017. Accessed November 7, 2021. https://mw17.mwconf.org/paper/how-do-you-museum-marketing-user-generated-content-to-engage-audiences/. ↩︎

  12. Naiditch, Gertz, and Chamorro 2017. ↩︎

  13. Ibid. ↩︎

  14. Byrd-McDevitt, Lori. “Reimagining Social Influencers through an Invitation Culture.” Humanizing the Digital: Unproceedings from the MCN 2018 Conference. Ad Hoc Museum Collective, April 1, 2019. https://ad-hoc-museum-collective.github.io/humanizing-the-digital/chapters/3/. ↩︎

  15. Byrd-McDevitt 2019. ↩︎

  16. Ibid. ↩︎

  17. Dunn, Maura. Interview with Nicole Robert, Community Engagement Officer at the Museum of History & Industry. Personal, November 5, 2021. ↩︎

  18. Dunn 2021. ↩︎

  19. Ibid. ↩︎

  20. Ibid. ↩︎

  21. Leeuwen, Femke van. “The Actual Influence of Influencers in What Ways Can …” Erasmus University Rotterdam. Accessed October 10, 2021. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/55475/Leeuwen-F.-van.pdf. ↩︎

  22. “Is Instagram Culture a Positive Influence for Museums?” MuseumNext, March 20, 2021. https://www.museumnext.com/article/is-instagram-culture-a-positive-influence-for-museums/. ↩︎

  23. “Is Instagram Culture a Positive Influence for Museums?” 2021. ↩︎

  24. Leeuwen 2021. ↩︎

  25. Souza, Josette. “Social Media Can Transform Your Museum: An Interview with Lanae Spruce.” American Alliance of Museums, October 27, 2021. https://www.aam-us.org/2020/01/29/social-media-can-transform-your-museum-an-interview-with-lanae-spruce/. ↩︎

  26. “What Is Influencer Marketing and Its Benefits.” Engaio Digital, August 12, 2020. https://engaiodigital.com/influencer-marketing/. ↩︎

  27. Leeuwen 2021. ↩︎

  28. Richardson, Jim. “How Are Museums Are Using TikTok?” MuseumNext, September 16, 2021. https://www.museumnext.com/article/how-are-museums-are-using-tiktok/. ↩︎

  29. Richardson 2021. ↩︎