The Brooklyn Museum has a program running where they’re trying to use social media to expand the scope of their supporters:
The big change we’ve made is taking something that is all marketing (membership) and turned it into something that is about personal interactions and growing the community. We’ve gone from a one-directional membership experience—we send you stuff again and again, and then you show up–to a triangular relationship where Shelley and I get to know the 1stfans, they get to know us, and they get to know each other.
The idea here is that they have a certain number of people who are willing to pay for a traditional membership and a certain number of people who use their free services, but they want to create a middle tier that’s based on exclusive content. In this case, the exclusive content is partially being distributed via social media: a private Facebook group, private Twitter feed, etc. They chose a price point of $20 and launched from there.
This program shows how hard it is to draw an audience to exclusive content. It launched in Dec. 2008 and was targeted at 10,000 people who participate in the museum’s free First Saturday events. As of February, when the linked article was written, the paid program had 272 members. I’m not sure what the total number is now, but since the exclusive 1stfans Twitter account only has 218 followers as of this morning, it seems like it’s remained a very small percentage of the total audience the museum was targeting. It seems to be a reminder that having an online audience by no means implies that you have a monetizable audience.
via Museum 2.0: 1stfans: An Audience-Specific Membership Program at the Brooklyn Museum.
EDIT: Will (from the linked interview) responds to this post in the comments with some interesting thoughts and points out a bad assumption on my part, you should take a look at those for a closer perspective on this.
Posted by Will Cary on September 30, 2009 at 11:36 am
Hi!
Just wanted to point out a few assumptions you made–incorrectly, as it turns out–about our 1stfans program. You mention that we “targeted the 10,000″ people who come to First Saturdays, but then talk about a failure to convert our online audience. The assumption you made was that our in-person ability to get people to join 1stfans would be reflected in our online numbers. The fact is, our online audience and our in-person audience are two entirely different segments of the Museum’s community. They interact with the museum differently, and often have nothing to do with one another.
In fact, since that interview was published, the number of 1stfans has grown from 272 to just over 500 (nearly double). Besides that fact, we’ve seen a growth in the number of people who join 1stfans for the First Saturday meetups and could care less about the twitter feed or the facebook group. Obviously those folks won’t be reflected in our twitter follower numbers, which you cite. Yes, there are those who are part of the 1stfans groups on facebook (265 1stfans), twitter (218), and flickr (105) AND who also regularly attend First Saturdays (anywhere from 20-80 people per meetup), but that’s definitely not the case for the overwhelming majority of 1stfans.
The point is, what we like about 1stfans (and what they seem to like too) is that the membership is a la carte: you can pick what social networks you want to be on and you can choose whether to attend the First Saturday events. The number of 1stfans in each group, as I cite above, varies wildly. To judge the success of 1stfans by the number of twitter followers is a huge mistake, and demonstrates a lack of understanding about how the program works.
-Will
Posted by nmdjohn on September 30, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Hi Will,
You’re right; I was making the assumption that the audience was pretty cohesive between services. I’m quite happy to be wrong about that though, since it seems like that’s a hybrid model that I haven’t seen as often. I’m curious about the divide between the online and offline membership, though. Does it seem like any of the online components are supporting the offline memberships at all, or are they mostly distinct? You mention that it’s rare for somebody to participate in all three online components and the offline, but I’m wondering how many offline visitors participate in any of the online pieces?
Note that I’ll also be adding a note to my post to mention your clarifications in comments; thanks!
Posted by Shelley Bernstein on September 30, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Hey there,
I think it’s a bit of both, but there are no real rules or formulas (which is interesting to me, at least). There are some people who seem to join at the event and don’t show up on the social side at all. Others who join online as a way to support the museum even though they could never make it to a meetup because they live far away. Still others who crossover in both physical and virtual, but perhaps not all of the virtual things we offer…just like they might not go to every event either.
More importantly, I always try and get people to look beyond numbers with any kind of social media. The truth is, I’ve seen terrible feeds/profiles with large number of followers…and I’ve seen amazing feeds/profiles with small number of followers. What’s important is not the numbers or the metrics, but what’s actually happening within the group and the quality of interaction that is taking place.