Reaching your museum audience anytime, anywhere, poses a challenge for museums. But SFMOMA has achieved what few museums and tourist desintations have been able to do. They’ve managed to take their existing attraction and make it accessible, digestible, and exciting for a younger generation. Their newest campaign, “Send me SFMOMA” encourages audiences to text them “send me” followed by a keyword, color, or emoji. In return, they reply with a apropos piece of art from their collection and a corresponding description. SFMOMA took something we do everyday – text – and turned it into an interactive experience that can be enjoyed anywhere. And in doing so, they’re content is front of entirely new audience.
Taking vacations – even day trips – are sometimes not plausible in today’s world. Be it for financial or personal reasons, sometimes life just gets in the way, and things like museum trips fall to the wayside. So, the next best way to gain visibility among an audience would be to bring the exhibit to them. And the more visible your attraction is, the more top-of-mind it becomes when it is time to plan a trip.
The Guggenheim recently released 1,700 pieces of art online for public viewing, in addition to the 200+ free art books they released earlier this year. If you visit their “Collection Online” you can search their expansive and continually-growing collection. Like the SFMOMA, the Guggenheim released their art for free for interested audiences, but they added an additional layer of exploration by allowing browsers to search pieces by artists, dates, mediums, movements, and more.
In addition to featuring artwork, the Guggenheim also pulled in relevant content to feature on their Collection Online page. From blogs to news updates, they have managed to make this particular page a one-stop-shop for intended audiences. By drawing audiences in, they are not only getting new traffic to their site, but they are also guiding their audience to the exact place(s) they want them to be.
While nothing can completely take the place of a full-on, interactive experience, places like SFMOMA and The Guggenheim have taken the first step in making museums and other travel destinations more accessible and fun. So what’s next? There’s no way to bring a roller coaster from an amusement park through a phone, or give someone the feeling of sitting on the beach through a text, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other mediums that can be utilized to make reaching your audience easier, and encourage interaction with your attraction for years to come.