Museums are going viral on Twitter by sharing their best “duck pics”.
Prompted by the Museum of English Rural Life to “give us your best duck,” museums around the world are sharing pictures of their duck-related artefacts.
hey @britishmuseum give us your best duck
— The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 4, 2019
Replies came from museums and art galleries around the world:
Trailing a bit behind like our feathered friend in the bottom right, but wanted to keep the duck pics afloat! 🦆
image: https://t.co/vWdpZGi0T4 pic.twitter.com/6qNkqpOGfl— Dallas Museum of Art (@DallasMuseumArt) January 9, 2019
Sure, there have been some decent ducks in this thread, but how many of them have THREE LEGS? 🦵🦵🦵🦆#ThreeLegsBetterThanTwo #ThingsInJars pic.twitter.com/ox9xiLLmLc
— Museum of Zoology, Cambridge (@ZoologyMuseum) January 9, 2019
Can't. They gave them all to us. pic.twitter.com/Up8TJFp29K
— Natural History Museum (@NHM_London) January 4, 2019
Some had a more unique interpretation of the challenge:
Bet it's not as fast as our duck, Mallard. *mic drop* pic.twitter.com/nujNBOPqDu
— National Railway Museum (@RailwayMuseum) January 7, 2019
Buuut…can your duck float as well @railwaymuseum?
May we present our 1943 GMC DUKW amphibious vehicle: https://t.co/uDgJkg4Mf6
(We were staying out of the international museum duck hunt since, y'know, our collection is more guns than ducks, but we couldn't let this lie) pic.twitter.com/h9BAP9N0aO
— National Army Museum (@NAM_London) January 7, 2019
We may not have duck vases or manuscripts but we offer the humble Toilet Duck to this flock of ducks pic.twitter.com/4QHmPIYjOg
— Museum of Brands (@MuseumofBrands) January 5, 2019
As the MERL summed up:
Brands act like people on Twitter because they want your money; museums act like people on Twitter because we want you to learn and have fun.
— The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 9, 2019
Museums on social media
Last year, Museums in the UK celebrated ‘Museum Meme Day’ by posting captioned pictures of their artefacts on Twitter.
Many of the Twitter accounts behind popular UK museums posted a meme related to art, history and even the people that visit. It follows a popular trend of Classic Art memes, where pictures of famous artworks were captioned.
VisitEngland recently released data about English attractions and their use of marketing and digital media.
17% of visitor attractions increased their marketing spend in 2017, while 10% decreased. Those that increased tended to be those that saw an increase in visitor numbers, growth predominantly driven by overseas visitors.
93% of attractions have a website, 89% use some form of digital communications (a slight increase on previous years). More than one third have an online booking system, at 37%.
Digital communications appear to be working. The attractions that used them saw a 2% increase in visitors. The attractions that did not saw a 3% decline.
For the second year in a row, Instagram and Pinterest are becoming more in use by visitor attractions. 44% now use the social networks, up from 22% in 2015. However, it does appear that attractions are narrowing in on their social media use – the proportion of sites using “other” social media has more than halved since 2016. This suggests attractions are investing more time into the mainstream social media.
https://www.cnet.com/news/museums-post-their-best-duck-pictures-in-greatest-twitter-battle-ever/