Instagram marketing strategies of the museum landscape: A best practice analysis of the German market
- This exploratory study aims to reveal successful posting strategies of German
museums on the visual-based social media platform Instagram (IG). Based on
theoretical examinations it is assumed that successful IG museums accounts
have high user engagement and museum response rates, promote usergenerated
content at a high degree and playfully re-curate their content. It is
expected that IG best practice accounts successfully differ in terms of their
unique content strategies that match their institutional identity. From the last
ten statistic visitor publications from The Institute of Museum Research Berlin,
a sample of 317 mentioned museums has been created and combined with the
museums’ IG performance indicator ‘followers’ and ‘number of posts’. C/o,
Städel and Schirn, as represented in all top 10 rankings, have been determined
as best practice examples. Post samples of the museums within a six month
time frame in 2018 were created, comprising 61 (c/o), 149 (Städel) and 117
(Schirn) IG posts. The sample analysis was focused on the engagement
intentions (e.g. informative or promotional) of posts and their visual content.
All samples were explored regarding their images’ context (exterior, interior
and work of art) and the topic focus (object, people and scenery). To fill
prevalent research gaps, an IG user online survey has been conducted that
reached 310 participants. Most IG museum followers indicate low engagement
rates through their comments, while 70% of them state that museum accounts
have motivated them to visit a museum. Account analysis results indicate
different successful content foci regarding the best practice examples that were
highly related to the museums’ institutional identity. C/o uses the highest
amount of user-generated content reposting (0,4 per post), while focusing its IG
images on people (57%) and works of art (54%). Städel mostly deploys
informative messages (40%) while focusing its pictures on its art collection
(67%) and objects (67%). Schirn mostly applies promotional and advertising
messages, while diffusing images that mainly contain the museum’s interior
(70%) and people (65%).