May Is The Month Of Minnesota Museums

by Nick Egner

What state has twice as many museums to residence ratio than the national average? What state has attracted more than double the museum attendance than it's top five professional teams combined? Well, that last stat isn’t as impressive due to the caliber of teams the state has produced lately...

Welcome to the month of May and the month of Minnesota museums! A partnership of museums, tourism agencies, media, and other affiliated organizations have joined together to spotlight the importance of museums in the community, and probably make a few bucks while they are at it.

With that being said, this is a great program with a heavy dose of social media influence. You can follow the organization on Facebook and Twitter. You can expect a steady update on deals, events, visitor photos, shared visitor stories, and a general dialogue within the community.

I thought this might be a good time to share a few of my favorite museums, what they are up to, and how they use social and on-line media to enhance the visitors experience. 

Science Museum of Minnesota
ARRRRRG, there arrrrre Real Pirates! Check out more than 200 artifacts from North America’s only authentic pirate ship, and catch an Imax movie while you are at it (runs through 9/3). Fun fact: Do you know why pirates would often wear an eye patch? So when they went under deck one eye would already be adjusted to the darkness. That’s right, living and learning is what the science museum is all about. And for you adults 21 years and older may I suggest checking out an event called social science. Why not enjoy the Museum with an ice cold Summit? Social Science is designed to keep the more mature science enthusiasts entertained with a variety of activities. 

How do you keep updated with the goings on at the Science Museum? Follow them on Twitter (@ScienceMuseumMN) which is active about 3 or 4 tweets a day. They also have designated hash tags so patrons can participate in a real time discussion. And don’t be surprised if Iggy asks you a question or two.

Walker Art Center
Holy hipster Batman! All joking aside, the Walker is such a great experience. If you want an artistic multi-media experience second to none this is the spot. The content of the museum is extremely well represented through their online/social media channels as well. Very active on Twitter (@WalkerArtCenter) with about 6 tweets a day, but that really isn’t the half of it. Check out their flickr account. It is a truly beautiful display of pictures that does a good job at capturing the exhibits! 

For another treat, click the media tab on their website and prepare to get lost in an internet time warp. From the blog posts with a variety of focuses, to the Walker video channel, to the real time webcasts, the Walker has done a great job matching the style and feel of their museum to their on-line media content.

Minneapolis Institute of Art
What type of a museum is the best? Is it science? Is it contemporary art? Nope! The best type is free! The MIA is free daily for you to come down and check out their exhibits. I’d recommend “The Sports Show,” but it ends May 13th. My favorite thing about this museum, other than its price, is the “Third Thursday” event. Not only are you invited to check out the exhibits as always, but you are treated to a Summit beer and live music. What is the next “Third Thursday” event? Craft Brews. I’ll see you there! To keep up-to-date with the MIA follow them on Twitter (@ArtMIA). They also have a very nice Flickr account.

Happy Minnesota Month!

April showers...make for a great time to watch online videos!

by Nick Egner

How does this have over 5 million views?

With Youtube being as vast as it is, it can be hard to find good content. With social media being saturated with an overwhelming supply of content, how in the world are you going to find the good stuff? Lots of video sharing sites and social media channels are basically just user generated filters that allow people to update and share the videos they find most interesting. Are you yearning for more high quality, on-line video content? Well, I can’t promise you that, but here is a look at a few places on the net you might find yourself lost in a sea of cute cats, laughing babies, and Tupac’s ghost at Coachella.

Pinterest.com
I know Pinterest at first glance looks like every girl on Facebook’s place to pin their dream wedding dress, or those cute shoes she saw at Neiman's, oh and I know that purse Sally just pinned would look great with them too. Being a guy on Pinterest is like going to the department store with your girlfriend/wife every single time you log in. But there is hope. Pinterest has taken strides to be a player in the realm of video sharing. In fact they just added Vimeo to their pinning prowess. Pinterest has also added a hot link on their opening page to go directly to a page of recently pinned videos. With Pinterest becoming an on-line market place, is it gearing up for marketers to add more content? For now it is just a nice addition to an already addicting website. Take a look at a (very manly) video pinboard I created to get an idea: http://pinterest.com/nicholase/videos-to-show-you-are-cool/.

Chill.com
I was just introduced to this site. It has a very similar feel to Pinterest, but is strictly for videos. You are able to follow people (like Pinterest) whom you feel have similar tastes as you. Through creating “collections” of videos, users are able to group videos together. There is even a “chill” button you can add to your bookmark bar for easy sharing. Ok, no joke, this is Pinterest. It is exactly like Pinterest for video content. And really, that isn’t that bad of a thing. I could see falling into a time warp on this site. Nice big thumb nails on the home page, user comments are easy to access, and it seems to be quite a streamlined style even though there are a ton of little icons that I have no clue what they are for. I don’t know, I say give it a shot.

Reddit.com/r/videos
OH MAN! It’s the holy grail of time you will never get back! This is the Steven Hawking level of accelerated time. Honestly, if you haven’t heard of reddit, you might want to think twice about checking it out. The idea is that people post videos they like. The reddit community then up or down votes the content depending on if they like it or not. So all the best posts rise to the top while all the worst fall to the floor. Rebeca Black is hanging out in the basement of Reddit. This is a tried and true method of discovering really top notch content out there in the depths of the interwebs...and some cat videos.

With Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter being the crowned juggernauts of social media sharing, it is nice to step away and explore some alternatives. And when I say “step away” I mean sit in your chair and be as unproductive as possible! Enjoy your total waste of time!

ComScore Reveals Online Advertising Growth

by Nick Egner

It’s no surprise that the world of online video is growing. However, this also includes online video  marketing. What? People are actually watching commercials on their computers?

ComScore just released January’s 2012 U.S. online video rankings. It shows that 84% of the U.S. internet audience viewed online video. Guess what? Google sites ranked number one in unique viewers. Shocking. When the report reads “Google sites” they might as well say YouTube. Not only is YouTube number one, but they control 83% of total viewers for the month. That’s 151,989,000 people in the month of January alone! The next closest? The music video property VEVO who snagged 51,499,000 unique viewers. Something interesting about VEVO is that they also run the most popular partner channel within Youtube with a total of 50,563,000 unique viewers. People are clearly watching music videos. You hear that MTV? 

Americans viewed 5.6 billion video ads in January. Hulu is at the top of this list with 1.4 billion ad impressions with 652 million ads viewed. Video ads reached 47% of the total U.S. population! Video ads accounted for 12.2% of all videos viewed and .9% of all minutes spent viewing video. That might not seem like a staggering statistic, but when asked, consumers find on-line video ads to be 38% more memorable than ads on traditional television. Television is still king, but online video ad content is making growth. 

With over 1/2 of the entire U.S. population tuning into on-line video content, it's safe to assume that on-line video advertising will continue to be a lucrative area for marketers. 

How about you? Have you ever watched advertisements online?