To say that social media is a growing field would be quite the understatement. Whether you’re an avid tweeter blowing up my Twitter feed (cough cough, John Mayer!) or a soccer mom that uploads the latest school pictures onto Flickr, almost everyone I know actively participates in at least one social networking site – even my grandma is on Facebook.

But it’s not only individuals using these sites. Here at the IMA, as most of you know, we embrace social media as a useful tool in reaching our audiences and fulfilling our mission. And we’re not the only ones – LACMA, SFMoMa, and Walker Art Center are just a couple of our peers actively engaging online audiences. Even the Art Institution of Chicago recently announced here, that they’ll soon be launching a Twitter account.

But as museums and museum employees continue to grow their online activity – both personal and institutional – we’re faced with the challenge of exploring policies and guidelines online activity. Should there be employee policies in place for personal use of such sites? Should museums implement a clearly detailed policy for institutional use of such sites? And if so, what would either one of these policies look like and what purposes would they serve? Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Art, Marketing, Musings, New Media, Technology

Known for his DIY street art OBEY in the late 90′s, and more recently for his Obama ‘Hope’ poster, artist Shepard Fairey is teaming up with Saks Fifth Avenue for their latest marketing effort.

The campaign includes Russian Communist inspired artwork on limited-edition bags, window displays, catalogs and an in-store presentation, all hitting stores on March 12.

Saks' Spring campaign

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Filed under: Current Events, Design, Marketing

It’s hard to believe, but Facebook is kind of old.

As of this month, at the ripe old age of five, it’s ancient in Web 2.0 terms. But for being a senior citizen of the web, Facebook sure has managed to stay fresh and relevant. What started as a social experiment in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room has grown to capture over 150 million users.

icanhascheezburger.com

Here are some ways Facebook has managed to grow and adapt so far…

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Filed under: Current Events, Marketing, New Media, Technology

I spent my weekend stumbling around. Instead of writing a blog post, I decided to play with StumbleUpon — since I’m convinced I don’t know enough about all the Internet communities out there using social networking tools such as Delicious, Digg, Twitter and Mixx. Unfortunately, I didn’t come to any groundbreaking conclusions using StumbleUpon. We haven’t discussed StumbleUpon on the IMA Blog yet, but now is as good of time as any. The Wikepedia definition is helpful if you are unfamiliar with this technology and want to learn about its history, how it works and its line of owners. “Stumble Upon is an Internet community that allows its users to discover and rate Web pages, photos and videos. It is a personalized recommendation engine which uses peer and social-networking principles.” (Of note — In May 2007, eBay acquired StumbleUpon for $75 million from the original post-graduate school developers but has hired Deutsche Bank to try to sell it again.)

My first impression of StumbleUpon was that it is a fun tool. Before I had it figured out, (you do literally stumble around for awhile), I spent at least an hour in MoJoe’s looking at animals in love, making snowflakes, gawking at street installations in Washington, D.C., and oohing and awwing over some human creative painting. Most of the reviewed and rated sites are novel — odd and wacky, interactive or display amazing talent. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Marketing, Musings, New Media

In an effort to visually portray my predictions for marketing the arts in 2009, and to solicit ideas, I’m leaving the rest of this post blank.

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Filed under: Marketing