MUSEUMS ON FACEBOOK WALL: A CASE STUDY OF THESSALONIKI’S MUSEUMS

Abstract

The objective of this study is two-fold: first, to review the academic literature pertaining to social media strategies, in case of museums, and second, to provide and empirical analysis of the role of social media within marketing and communication strategies. We use first the suggested by the literature metrics, to evaluate the museums’ efforts and to measure the stakeholder engagement, and second a content analysis is conducted, in order to explore how museums use their Profile on Facebook to support their marketing and communication strategies. In order to achieve the above research aims, we use data from Facebook pages of the four main museums of Thessaloniki, Greece over a whole year 2014 period. According to our results, museums’ main efforts focus on promotion, communication and word of mouth, while they don’t support enough yet innovation (through motivation of fans to suggest new products and services, or co-creation) and reputation (by motivating dialogue with fans and monitoring comments).