Effective communication in developing new audiences

This from Evangeline Reed:
I am currently a graduate student at the University of Southern California. I am getting my Master of Arts degree in Communication Management, and I am in the midst of deciding on a topic for a research paper. I have always been fascinated with the museum/nonprofit-audience relationship, and I have a general sense of what my paper may focus on. Here are the abstract questions that I used to brainstorm my topic (in no particular order):

• What are the most effective forms and/or uses of communication for arts organizations to build and develop new audiences?
  
• What is the role social media plays in arts marketing and communication and how large is this role?
  
• How are arts organizations/non-profits communicating to America's youth in order to attempt to attract future loyal patrons and donors?
  

I will be focusing on young professionals between the ages of 22-34. As of now I am planning on conducting various surveys and research methods to find out how this demographic uses social media, what social media they use, and for what
purposes. These questions will hopefully lead me to find out if social media is a main channel for cause-related information. After conducting my research my goal is to have a fully developed resource of the most efficient forms of media in order to reach my target demographic.

Wow! What an important set of questions. Evangeline, there is quite a lot of work going on in this area. I'm giving a paper (with my colleague Angelina Russo) at Museums and the Web 2008 on this very topic (well kind of). The paper, From ladders of participation to networks of participation: museums and social media, discusses a variety of evaluations I have conducted. One specifically targeted adults aged 18-30, what they were doing online and how museums might want to engage them via social media. Due to (umm) "technical difficulties" the paper isn't on the M&W website yet but can be downloaded from my audience research wiki. In that paper we also report data on how Australian use the Internet and compares usage to the US, drawing on information from a Forrester Research study that Seb Chan blogged about on fresh+new(er).

My initial reaction to your methodology is to actually use the tools of social media to conduct your research. There are some very interesting things happening on Facebook with a range of museums and galleries trying it out as ways to both engage and promote themselves with current and new audiences. I'd encourage you to join up, become a fan/join some groups and see where it takes you. I also found quite an interesting group on another social networking site called ning. The Dallas Museum of Art Junior Associates Circle is "... an exciting, under-40 group that hosts an exclusive set of social events and educational programs throughout the year."

Also, just as I was about to upload this post, my colleague Janet sent me a link to what looks to be a very interesting review – Tools for Culture: The Resonance & Use of Online Tools in the Cultural Sector – which may be relevant to your study? I haven't looked through it in any detail yet.

And another article from the New York Times I was just sent (gosh I'm glad I didn't upload this post earlier) – Museums Refine the Art of Listening which talks about the new tools art museums in particular are using to listen to their visitors.

Evaluation, Research and Communities of Practice: Program Evaluation in Museums

This from Rama Lakshmi in India: Let me introduce myself. I am a journalist who writes about India for The Washington Post. My other big professional path is museums. I was a student of Dr Jay Rounds in St Louis, Missouri. And have worked at the science and history museums in St Louis and at the Smithsonian's Museum of American Indian. I am going to begin teaching the MA museum studies class at the New Delhi-based National Museum Institute (which is a deemed university). And I am going to teach visitor studies. Dr Jay Rounds adviced me to write to you. Could you kindly send me your article "Evaluation, Research and Communities of Practice: Program Evaluation in Museums"? I would like to read it and also have my students read it. Do you have it electronically? I am also interested in your web discussion forum. How and where can I access it?

I get so many requests for this paper that I decided to post it to my audience research wiki (you need to go down the page a bit). Basically, this paper "... outlines the development of audience research in museums, the context within which it operates, and describes the processes of audience research through a series of case studies drawn from the work of the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre. It is argued that the shift in museums from mission-led program development to balancing content and audience needs through a transaction approach requires a broader research-focussed agenda. While traditional ways of conducting evaluations are necessary and useful, to remain viable audience research needs to be more strategic, working across the sector in new ways and utilising new methods. How programs impact on users and facilitate learning about a wide range of key issues that museums are concerned with is a leadership role that audience research can take across both the cultural sector and other free-choice learning contexts."

Rama, to access other resources there is this blog (naturally!), my audience research wiki mentioned above, and a new social networking group I have started called Museum 3.0 where all kinds of people can discuss all kinds of things. I'll be teaching audience research for Museum Studies at Sydney University this year also and have set up a discussion group specifically for that – it would be awesome if you and your students joined us. Please feel welcome to join up – I'll send you an invite (or click on the Museum 3.0 link at the top of my blog).

Innovative audience research

This post from Chris Larry: "Thought you might find interesting the work we are doing at American History Workshop with our Telling Lives story capture technology. This technology allows audiences to answer question to a video camera that is than collected as a response database." I think that this is a very innovative approach to seeking audience feedback. Are there any others out there?

Chris: do you see this as a sustainable way to continue capturing feedback? How has the organisation used the information in their future development of programs?

Do you have an audience research question?

Ask it here and I'll try to answer it for you. You may even be able to supply an answer yourself!