{"id":378,"date":"2019-04-15T15:11:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T19:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/?p=378"},"modified":"2019-04-18T14:08:15","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T18:08:15","slug":"themerl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/?p=378","title":{"rendered":"@TheMERL"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Gaia Cloutier<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On April 9, 2018 the Museum of English Rural Life<\/a> (@TheMERL<\/a>) tweeted an image of an extremely fat and woolly Exmoor Horn ram, captioning the image \u201clook at this absolute unit.\u201d\u00a0 The Internet went wild.\u00a0 The tweet currently has more than 109K likes, 31K retweets, and 750 comments and was featured in a Twitter Moment, Buzzfeed, the BBC, Mashable, and The Times.\u00a0 Looking at the tweet, it is not a surprise that the internet loved it.\u00a0 The internet loves few things more than memes and pictures of cute animals, and the MERL tweet has both.\u00a0 The MERL\u2019s ability to capitalize on this single viral tweet, however, is just as impressive as the glorious ram itself.<\/p>\n

The MERL is a University of Reading run museum, library, and archive dedicated to the history and culture of farmers, craftspeople, and other people living in rural England.\u00a0 The MERL has over 25,000 museum objects, 50,000 books, 1 million photographs, hundreds of hours of film, and 4.5 kilometers of archival holdings.\u00a0 In addition to its services and events for scholars and affiliates of the University of Reading, the MERL also engages with local farmers and craftspeople, families, and other members of the greater Reading community.\u00a0 Historically, however, the Museum was not reaching as diverse an audience as it would like and their digital engagement was not very effective.\u00a0 This was especially a problem when it came to engaging young people with the collections.<\/p>\n

With the success of the ram, however, the MERL saw a new way forward with digital engagement.\u00a0 Led by Adam Koszary, the programme manager and digital lead who wrote the absolute unit tweet, the MERL has completely revamped its approach to Twitter.\u00a0 The central philosophy of this new approach is to have fun and to embrace the social aspect of Twitter.\u00a0 Twitter is not just another forum for posting exhibit copy, catalog metadata, or marketing material.\u00a0 It is an opportunity to think creatively about the Museum\u2019s collections and to engage with people directly.\u00a0 The original ram tweet was a funny picture and a fun use of a meme.\u00a0 But the engagement that happened after that tweet is what helped the MERL become a Twitter sensation.\u00a0 Koszary joked with followers, posted more images of livestock, tweeted about the history of the image in the tweet, answered questions, made a poll, and generally treated responses to the tweet as an opportunity to have a conversation.<\/p>\n

The account\u2019s more recent moments of Twitter fame, like a duck pic battle<\/a> with other museums and the saga of Merlin the bat<\/a>, have built upon this model: tweet an image, usually of an animal, tell a fun or interesting story about the image, have a generally humorous approach, and keep the conversation going past the original tweet by directly engaging with people\u2019s responses.\u00a0 It is a simple formula, but it only works because it is authentic to the Museum and its mission.\u00a0 The MERL is a museum about rural life, so animals are a major subject of their collection.\u00a0 Unlike corporations coopting memes to sell hamburgers or shoes, the MERL uses them in a spirit of fun and genuine social engagement.\u00a0 This authenticity keeps the account fresh, fun, and relevant.<\/p>\n

The MERL\u2019s new approach to Twitter has exponentially increased the Museum\u2019s digital engagement.\u00a0 The account\u2019s followers jumped from 9.7K to 118K in the past year.\u00a0 40K people visited the MERL website in April of 2018 alone.\u00a0 These numbers indicate a massive increase in engagement with digital projects like the website\u2019s blog, digital collections, and digital exhibits.\u00a0 It also means that more people are seeing the Museum\u2019s tweets about events and resources at the physical building.\u00a0 Whether or not this increase in digital engagement translates into an increase in visitors to the physical Museum remains to be seen.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the MERL\u2019s Twitter account will continue to be a place where the Internet can gather to enjoy animals, memes, and whatever is going on here:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

More information about the MERL\u2019s digital engagement can be found in Adam Koszary\u2019s report<\/a> on the viral tweet as well as on his blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Gaia Cloutier On April 9, 2018 the Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) tweeted an image of an extremely fat and woolly Exmoor Horn ram, captioning the image \u201clook at this absolute unit.\u201d\u00a0 The Internet went wild.\u00a0 The tweet currently has more than 109K likes, 31K retweets, and 750 comments and was featured in … <\/p>\n

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