Wow, great discussion! I have to second (third?) Michelle's comments about keeping Twitter (and blogging) informal and not all marketing-ese. Some early studies about blogging showed that formal, marketing-driven museum blogs were the least successful. They weren't particularly interesting to the casual reader, especially if the readership is diversified geographically and all of the posts have to do with public events. The Magnes has been tweeting for a few months and only recently started a blog. When training staff on how to use both of these platforms, I caution them against being too formal, and to let their personalities shine through. We consider the staff an asset, and I think it helps to let the public know that there are real people, with their own voices, running this place. As for the actual content, we're shifting to become less of a museum and more of a research institute. Collection access and public interpretation is a major priority for us, so I try to make sure there is a lot of content related to that. I post a lot of pictures of our collection items to http://twitpic.com and I've gotten some great feedback (like when we had incorrectly identified a Shriner's fez as a Masonic fez - yes! Public curation of items we're not experts on!). I think we're just now hitting our stride with both Twitter and the blog, but so far, they've proven to be extremely effective marketing tools... without the content having anything to do with marketing. http://twitter.com/magnes http://twitter.com/faelanae <- my less-used personal account. Perian Sully Collections Information Manager Web Programs Strategist The Magnes Berkeley, CA -----Original Message----- From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michelle Moon Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 6:58 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Twitter Just wanted to add two cents to Lidja's two (Lidja, who I have become acquainted with on Twitter, I might add!) The tendency to rely on "push" marketing is indeed causing a lot of museums to miss opportunities on Twitter. I'm following around 100 museums, many of whose feeds I discovered via the research of Amy Fox at MuseumTweets. Going through her follows yields an array of museums using Twitter, some successfully, some not so much, and Amy blogs about and links to what makes Twitter efficacious for museums. ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).