On May 11th and 12th we had the pleasure of attending the conference “Digital strategy in the museums” which was held in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. It was a very fruitful meeting that allowed us to share knowledge with professionals of digital management and to explore different experiences from various museums that have taken place during the vertiginous digital changes that we have undergone in recent years. Things we got right and mistakes we made, best practices, rewarding experiences, and many good examples were the main ingredients of this seminar that left us with many ideas for planning and to carry out.

We have selected some tweets of the seminar commented by people from the museum who attended the conference:

Un bon consell: Estratègia abans que tecnologia, i la tecnologia ha de estar al servei x assolir els objectius @innova2 #estrategiadigital

— Museu Nacional, Bcn (@MuseuNac_Cat) Mayo 11, 2015

A good advice: Strategy before technology, and the technology has to be at the service of achieving the goals

Conxa Rodà made reference to the importance of subordinating technology to the needs of our audiences and of the strategies designed so as to offer them services. About this topic, she reflected on the several strategies adopted by museums and the processes of reflection and prior analysis, with evaluations about the type of technologies the museums could need (“we need the penultimate technology”) and a reflection on trends, so that all these technologies are always at the service of the users.

“Això no va de tecnologia; va de persones. Si fas servir el digital, les podràs entendre i atendre millor.” @genisroca #estrategiadigital — Pau Marquès (@_pmarkes) May 11, 2015

This is not about technology; it’s about people. If you use digital, you can understand them and attend them better

Genís Roca went through a quick overview of the evolution of the Internet to pose the question of which point we are currently at, where the Internet of things provides us with large quantities of data. Duly generated and analysed, this big data provides us with information about our audiences that allows us to redefine and personalize the services that the museums offer. Because we should once again remember that technology doesn’t contribute value in itself: its significance is in how we use it so as to turn our contents into experiences which are significant for our audiences, given that it is the experiences that generate a cultural transfer.

Anna Guarro – Educational Services and Activities and Digital Content

Colaboración entre todos los departamentos del museo para crear una buena #estrategiadigital @innova2 @MuseuNac_Cat

— Araceli Corbo (@aracorbo) Mayo 11, 2015

Collaboration between all the departments of the museum to create a good digital strategy

If there was one thing the speakers of the seminar insisted on, it was the need for transversality between departments when planning a good digital strategy. It is evident that it should not just be a task done in an isolated way by the department of communication, it needs the knowledge and experience of other professionals of the museum.  And who better than the conservators and curators to provide the rigor and knowledge that Clara Guash talked about? And who knows the audience better than those responsible for publics to help us in the management of the data that Genís Roca referred to?

Because the strategy is precisely that, to have targets and goals and that everyone rows in the same direction together so as to achieve them.

Anna Bru de Sala – Press and Communication

Google Analytics pot proporcionar tantes dades que cal tenir molt clar què interessa per no infoxicar-se #estrategiadigital @annageli

— Museu d’Art Morera (@MuseuMorera) Mayo 12, 2015

Google Analytics can provide so many facts and figures that it is essential to to have very clear what is interesting to not become suffocated by them

Anna Geli explained the importance of website analytics to  know if you have achieved the goals set or, at least, to know if you are going in the right direction,  so that suitable measures to correct our actions and improve the results can be taken.  If you don’t do so, it would be like walking blindfolded.  So how do you do it? There are several tools, but one of the best-known and used is Google Analytics . The information that it provides you with allows you to measure the results of what you do on your website (what interests your users most, where they come from, what key words they used to find you, what your competition is doing, etc.).

A lot of data can be obtained, so much in fact, that it’s easy to get lost. That’s why, before entering it, it is important to do a complete planning of the process we’re going to follow (what we’re interested in measuring and analyzing). Once you’ve done the planning, you can go on to the implementation phase and configuration of the GA. Afterwards we will interpret the data extracted and take decisions so as to optimize our website and to achieve our goals.

Mireia Llorella – Website

Aquesta és la ‘recepta’ de @c_guasch per crear una bona estratègia de continguts #estrategiadigital: pic.twitter.com/gCgfdJc0bZ — Museu Nacional, Bcn (@MuseuNac_Cat) May 12, 2015

This is the ‘recipe’ of Clara Guash to create a good contents strategy 

In her presentation Clara Guash talked about how to create a good contents strategy from the beginning to the end. In the image of this tweet we can see the necessary ingredients represented so as to develop it. And all these ingredients are equally important, have to be taken into account and are interrelated between them. In this way, the goals should be really taken into account, and also which contents we are working with, what we want to highlight, which is the identity of our company, what resources we have and what conditions we should take into account, etc. As Guash reminded us from the beginning to the end of the presentation, the container, however well it has been designed, is nothing without good structured and planned contents.

Cristina Martín – Social Media

This is nothing but a very small taste of what happened in the seminar. If you wish to read more on it, you can visitto the Storify of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.

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