Museums and Facebook?!

In the readings from Nina Simon this week, she made a good point about making museums relevant to every different group of visitors that come to your museum. You need to have something to spark their interest and keep them coming back to visit... or at least telling their friends about  what they liked. She says that your museum needs to be more audience centered to make it friendly to these people. She kept mentioning about social networking that allows museums to keep in contact with everyone. As soon as she said this, I couldn't help but think of Facebook. It seems like everyone has a page nowadays, including museums. I know that I am a fan of several local museums on Facebook and am constantly receiving updates from them about programs, exhibits, discounts etc. I've even seen trivia questions posted as statuses to win free prizes or tickets. To me, it seems like the perfect idea. You can find out so much about a person by posting on your museum's Facebook something like "What do you like most about us?" or "what do you dislike most?" Anyone can answer, and some people will be very honest about their experiences at your museum. It would make things so much easier for you to get an understanding of what makes people happy and unhappy.