Facebook 101: What to Post on Facebook

As it continues to grow in popularity, Facebook has become an important way for community museums to advertise and reach out to potential visitors. Facebook is also a great tool to engage and connect with your museum’s surrounding community. And best of all, it’s free! However, most people end up with a problem when they start their Museum Facebook page: what do we post? This can be tricky- a good facebook page needs to be more than simply advertising museum events. It needs to have content that will get people talking, liking, and sharing. The more interaction with your fans, the better!

So what can you do? The following are a few suggestions that museum Facebook pages in Saskatchewan are currently doing:

Museum Mondays (#MuseumMonday)

Museum Mondays have a global following. Every Monday, museums across the world post something, whether it’s something they are working on, information on a new exhibit, or just a little bit of museum humour. Museum Monday posts are usually meant to be lighthearted and funny.

What’s the Artifact Wednesday?

What’s the Artifact Wednesday, also just “artifact of the day,” really caught on with museums in Saskatchewan. Simply take a strange or interesting artifact from your museum, post a photo of it on Facebook, and have people take a guess at what they think it is. Post it in the morning, and if nobody has figured it out, give an explanation of what the artifact is at the end of the day.

Throw Back Thursdays (#TBT)

People love nostalgia. Its one of the reasons they like to visit museums. Museums have tons of archived photos of their particular town and area back in the day. Pick some of the best photos, and on Thursday “throwback” to that particular point in time. People love seeing what their town or city looked like in decades past, and these photos often generate lots of likes and shares.

Tell people what you’re doing!

You may think people aren’t interested in the day-to-day operations of the museum, but trust me, they are! Doing some cleaning, painting, or minor renovations? Put up pictures! Did you have an interesting visitor? Take their photo and post it to your Facebook page! The more people see your museum being active, the more they will remember that you are a place worth checking out.

Post Photos and Posters

Always take photos of special events and post them on Facebook. People take notice when there are bright and colourful photos and posters on their newsfeeds. There is a better chance that they will stop scrolling and look at your post if there is a photo attached to it. Also, Let people tag themselves in the photos, and tag a person in a photo if you know who they are. This will help bring their Facebook friends to your page!

Interact with your friends

Don’t forget to interact with the other people and pages your page likes on Facebook. Liking and commenting on their pages will get you noticed by both them and others! It’s also a good way to let other organizations know that you are seeing their posts and appreciate the things they are doing.

Ask Questions

Does your museum need to know something about an artifact or are you trying to figure out the identity of someone in a photo? You have a whole army of researchers on Facebook! If you’re looking for the identity of someone in a photo, ask Facebook. Somebody out there might know who it is.

Don’t Stop Posting when the Museum is Closed

Just because your museum is closed for the winter doesn’t mean you should stop posting. While the frequency of the posts will undoubtedly die down, keep up with weekly posts such as throwback Thursdays. Let people know about meetings and the preparations you are making for the upcoming season. Keep sharing photos. Keep asking questions. Get people excited for the museum to open in spring!

Of course, these are only a few examples of what to post. Post often, Post photos, and interact with people on your page. Happy Facebooking!