Inviting a group of social media influencers to you museum is one of the easiest things you can do to increase awareness about your museum and one of the most valuable things you can do to build a community. Influencers are anyone who uses social media, they don’t have to have hundreds of thousands of followers to be an influencer, they just have to show an interest in your museum and be willing to share their experience with their networks.

 

If you are thinking of hosting an event during Museum Week 2017, here are a few tips:

    1. Plan ahead, it is a good idea to do a blog post with a form for potential influencers to fill out so that you can pick and choose who attends. You want to make sure the event is mutually beneficial so best to cap the number of people (we’ve done as many as 25 and as little as 10 people), you also want to make sure they have active and public social media accounts so they can share their experience.

 

    1. Pick your group and inform them as soon as you can so they have time to plan to attend your event. Get them to confirm!
    2. Pick a theme, you’ll want to plan the day including how long the influencers will be visiting and where you will take them within your museum. Let one of the Museum Week themes guide you! Arrange tickets for them or have visitor passes and greet them at a designated location and time.

 

  1. Lead the group. Once everyone has arrived, give them the ground rules and lay out some expectations. Don’t forget to give them the wifi password if there is one and encourage them to use the hashtag, and of course you want to encourage them to take photos and be creative!
  2. HAVE FUN! This is supposed to be a fun event and many of the people in your group will be excited about the special access to the museum, make it special for them and make it fun!

Because you can do cool things like this!

Post by W. Ryan Dodge, part of the Digital Engagement Team at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON, Canada.