Here's how museums on the web have changed during the pandemic (for the better). The research of the Milan Polytechnic

Good results for Italian museums online during the weeks of the so-called lockdown: these are reported by theDigital Innovation in Cultural Heritage and Activities Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, which has been monitoring the digital activities of museums for some time. Thanks in part to the growing interest of Italians in digital cultural content, museums have increased their online presence: the greatest growth, the Observatory reports, was recorded on Instagram (+7.2 percent), followed by Facebook (+5.1 percent) and Twitter (+2.8 percent) in March and with a further increase of 8.4 percent, 3.6 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively, in April. Apart from a few cases, however, the level of interaction has remained stable.

The Observatory notes that 76 percent of museums have a presence on at least one social media channel, with Facebook remaining the most popular (76 percent), followed by Instagram (45 percent, up from 26 percent the previous year). Some institutions are also experimenting with more recently born social channels such as TikTok. Social presence has enabled cultural institutions to offer content to visitors to deepen their knowledge even after the visit and to maintain a long-term relationship with their audiences. The experience of confinement to counter the spread of Covid-19 gave a significant boost to the online presence of museums and in part also dictated a shift in gear: from monitoring what happened in state museums between December 2019 and April 2020, the Observatory noted that the level of online activity significantly increased and, especially, the number of posts on social media channels almost or more than doubled across all channels in the closing weeks of March 2020, maintaining high values in April as well.

The research conducted by the Observatory then went even further. Regarding the onsite visit experience, the survey of a sample of 430 Italian museums, monuments and archaeological areas shows that audio guides (32 percent), QR-codes (31 percent) and interactive installations (28 percent) are the most popular visit support tools. However, the survey also shows that 51 percent of museums are still not equipped with wi-fi. On the other hand, as far as websites are concerned, they play a central role in gathering information on schedules, tickets, activities, and visit routes. Data from the analysis of services offered on the Internet by museums, carried out for the third consecutive year, show that 85 percent of museums have a website, either related to the individual institution or within other sites, such as that of the municipality. Tools, such as video games to intrigue and prepare for the visit (5%), are still not widespread.

As for ticket sales, still about 86 percent of museum revenues are derived from on-site admission sales, and in the survey conducted just before the emergency, investment in ticketing systems (present in only 23 percent of cases), reservation management and access control was listed as a priority for the future by only 6 percent of institutions.

“Before the health emergency,” says Michela Arnaboldi, Scientific Director of the Digital Innovation in Cultural Heritage and Activities Observatory, “two paths could be distinguished relatively sharply: on the one hand, the onsite visit experience (sometimes supported by digital tools); on the other hand, the use of online tools to attract and prepare the public for the on-site visit, or ex-post to continue the relationship with the visited institution, especially through social media on which 76 percent of museums are active. If with open museums, digital has been a complement to the visiting experience (in its many facets), with the closure of cultural institutions, digital has proven to be the necessary tool to be able to offer cultural content. This has inevitably led to a different use of the online channel, social media first and foremost but also websites, which have become from tools of communication and preparation for the visit, as they were until now, tools of actual content delivery.”

“The level of interest on the part of online activities has also increased, as can be seen from the increase in users following museums’ social pages,” says Deborah Agostino, director of the Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nei Beni e Attività Culturali. "The level of interaction, however, for museums remains stable. Despite the increase in activity and followers, on average there was no change from what was happening in the weeks before the lockdown. This has exceptions at more interactive activities, where a response from the public was explicitly requested, such as the ArtYouReady initiative, which generated more than double the number of interactions on Instagram compared to previous days. In the case of theaters, on the other hand, the ability to engage audiences in the weeks of closure increased significantly compared to previous months, especially with reference to Facebook, on which the average number of daily interactions increased by 61 percent."

In addition, the Observatory also indicates what steps museums will have to take in the future for a more extensive and conscious use of digital, always remembering that live experience and online experience do not represent two alternative types of offerings, but two complementary offerings and able to meet sometimes different needs. In the meantime, the Polytechnic emphasizes that there is a need, as a premise, for policy makers and institutional managers to become aware of the need for a step change in content and ways of proposing value. The Observatory thus recalls that back in 2017 it advocated the need for cultural institutions to have a digital innovation plan, but the survey conducted between late 2019 and early 2020 showed that the culture of planning in cultural institutions is still lacking: only 24 percent of cultural institutions have drafted a strategic digital innovation plan (6 percent as a dedicated document and 18 percent within a more general strategic plan).

Investment in tools to support the customer journey (i.e., user experience), both online and onsite, will also be needed, according to the Observatory. In the past two years, 83 percent of Italian museums, monuments and archaeological areas have invested in digital innovation, focusing mainly on onsite visit support services (48 percent) and cataloging and digitization of the collection (46 percent): according to the Observatory, these two items will be the investment priority for the next two years as well (for 33 percent and 22 percent of institutions, respectively), followed by communication and customer care (14 percent) and educational and didactic activities (13 percent).

In contrast, the survey reveals that only 6 percent of museums consider investment in ticketing, reservation management and access control systems a priority (and this despite the fact that only 23 percent currently have an online ticketing system), as well as digitization of security and surveillance activities. In addition, among those museums that have an access control system (93 percent), paper-based admission ticketing prevails (71 percent), as opposed to automated systems such as barcode readers (11 percent paper-based and 6 percent display-based) and turnstiles or people-counting gates (7 percent). This is in spite of the fact that the health emergency will also prompt a total rethinking of aspects related to logistics and organization of the user’s journey, which will require technological systems that allow online booking, access quotas, and security and control systems of what happens inside the cultural institution.

Again, it will prove imperative, according to the Observatory, to invest in labor and skills, in other words, people. Currently 51 percent of museums do not employ any professionals, internal or external, with digital-related skills. Instead, the remaining 39 percent have in-house expertise and/or use external consultants for digital management, but only 12 percent have a dedicated multi-person team. One skill that, according to the Observatory, will be increasingly relevant, even in light of the shifting center of gravity toward online activity, concerns the analysis and strategic use of data. Knowing customers, their habits and needs, and the level of satisfaction with their experience is information that allows one to manage risks and improve the service offered; monitoring specific performance indicators related to one’s organization allows one to improve the planning and effectiveness of activities.

Finally, the Observatory prescribes that attention be paid to services such as the sale of images for research, reproduction and commercial purposes (already offered by 32 percent of museums) and to subscription services for access to services via website and app (2 percent). The latter, in particular, according to the Polytechnic are among the models that have been proposed lately to obtain revenue related to the online activity of museums. Several members of the cultural ecosystem, in fact, have argued for the need to study richer forms of subscription or ticket than those currently available, contemplating access to thematic itineraries and routes, in which online-onsite integration will allow people to return to the museum several times and access content on the web on demand.

Here's how museums on the web have changed during the pandemic (for the better). The research of the Milan Polytechnic

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.