Why #FollowAMuseum was a social media success

Today, museums, organizations, visitors and enthusiasts around the world celebrated the first #followamuseum day. Organized by Jim Richardson of the blog Museum Marketing (UK), the campaign asked Twitter users to share their favorite museums to follow and discover new ones as well.

By all accounts, this campaign was a success. As a person who tweets for a museum, I was fortunate to see our replies stream fill up with people suggesting us as a museum to follow, new followers saying hello and retweets of content we were sharing that had nothing to do with the #followamuseum hashtag. According to Social Mention, #followamuseum was mentioned once every 13 seconds. The event organizer estimates that there were over 6000 tweets with the hashtag today. So, why was it successful?

• It mobilized preexisting advocates. Nonprofits have an advantage when taking part in conversations on social media. For better or for worse, many people feel passionate about their cause. Fans of museums had an incentive to promote their favorite museums on Twitter: by providing this information, they demonstrated their involvement with the museum's mission.
• It provided focus in a cluttered medium. Hashtags are primarily used to tag tweets on a similar subject. The #followamuseum hashtag could be followed in Twitter Search or via a third party application, allowing museums & users to easily find and follow new organizations.
• It engaged on a worldwide scale. In preparing for the day, the organizer did something very smart: he created a directory of museums on Twitter. Rather than relying on disparate Twitter lists and Twitter search, he centralized the cause and organized the museums geographically.
• It united organizations that share a common cause. Museums have very little to lose in promoting one another. Odds are, not much business is lost when a visitor chooses to go to one museum over another. Frequently, it's beneficial for organizations within a city to promote each other, in hopes of growing cultural tourism. All day, museums were sharing their favorite counterparts on Twitter and thanking each other for mentions.

What could other industries do with a #followa_______ day? There could be days focusing on educational nonprofits, on colleges, on... wineries. Essentially any industry that's populated with distinct Twitter users that share valuable information could have one.