Cecilia Casas Desantes, Head of the “Difusión y comunicación” department of the Cerralbo Museum, Madrid. Photography © Blanca Desantes
1.What is your museum about and what are its challenges?
Historical house museum from a XIXth century noble collector, who made a legacy to Spanish nation. We are a public national museum depending on the Ministry of Culture and Sport of Spain. Our main value what makes us almost unique in Spain is the preservation of the original interiors of the Cerralbo palace, an original design and display of collections by Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa, XVIIth marquis of Cerralbo (1845-1922).
The challenges of the institution are to mantain the legacy of the Cerralbo Marquis; to offer a high quality service and experience to our visitors; to mantain high rates of visitors and satisfaction despite the necesary preservation of palace’s interiors; to keep close to virtual public mantaining presence and engagement with quality contents; and to preserve and investigate our collections, communicate our research, and contribute to education and knowledge about heritage.
2.What kind of remarkable digital innovation would you like to share with us? It can be online and/or in your physical space.
We are making an effort to create more audiovisual content and to use digital media to complement the museum physical discourse. For instance, we are using Instagram TV now, and we programm and planificate this audiovisual content. We are also using more Twitter posibilies now, as Media Studio. Also, we try to adapt our way of communication to each social media.
3.What are the social media platforms that your museum chose for its digital presence and who are your primary target audiences?
In all of our social media platforms we are always aware of two kinds of public: real visitors and “virtual visitors” from Spain and all over the world. We tend to think that our female followers are a bit more numerous than male, but of course, we consider social media profiles gender neutral.
Web page: main users in search for fast and reliable information. More likely real visitors or future visitors preparing their visit.
Facebook: virtual users that want to follow the agenda and consume our content. We try to engage them with frecuent publications about our collections. They are more likely real visitors but also many virtual visitors all over the world. The age tends to be higher than in other social media.
Twitter: this is a very inmediate and sharp social media platform. They like content, but also conversation and to be invited to participate and give their opinion. They are more likely real visitors but also many virtual visitors all over the world. The age of the followers is very diverse, from 20 to 60’s.
Instagram: our younger and more modern followers are on this social media platform. They demand more visual and aesthetic content. They are more likely real visitors but also many virtual visitors all over the world.
Spotify: we have special lists to visit the museum while listening to different types of music, or to evoque the museum at home. Our targeted users are young-midle age, and with an indie-pop-electroacustic taste.
Youtube: very diverse users, and more likely than in other social media, accademic users as we have a list of conferences etc.
Pinterest: this is our less used social media as it’s not very popular right now. But we still have many followers.
We also use Mailchimp for our email marketing. We connect our campaings with Facebook and Twitter but not with Instagram.
4.If you had to keep one social media platform to reach youngsters, which one would you pick?
Instagram, definitely.
5.Do you have a professional alter-ego somewhere in the world to whom you would like to ask a professional question?
I tend not to think in the CM behind an institutional profile, as I know staff can sometimes change. But I would love to know the reality behind the social media of other European house museums as Musée Jacquemart-André, Museo Sttibert or Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Interview by Fabio Pariante, journalist
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Cerralbo Museum on social networks: Twitter – Instagram – Facebook
Cecilia Casas Desantes is the head of the “Difusión y comunicación” department, wich includes press and media relations, cultural activities, education and scholars programm, RRSS, web page, etc. In the case of RRSS, she is the responsible for Twitter and her colleagues in communication department are Caroline Montero de Espinosa, curator assistant (Facebook) and Demian Ramos, auxiliar (Instagram and Spotify), and apart from their RRSS, they have obviously other functions. As a curator, Desantes is also responsible for the following collections: historial photo, print and drawings, so she also takes part in the collections deparment.
