Pyramid at the Louvre
Musee De Louvre also known as the Louvre Museum in English is located in Paris, France. Over 200 years old, the Lourve is home to 537 paintings including Leonardo Di Vinci’s, Mona Lisa. It is one of the world’s largest museums and is the most visited museum in the world. After taking this information into consideration, I found the museum’s website to be a bit troubling. While visiting the website, I quickly noticed that it is very simple. I managed to find a option for visitors to sign into an account titled, My Personal Space. Here account holders can donate online, apply for membership of a circle, and subscribe for the Louvre.fr newsletter. These are all great ideas for the Louvre to accommodate the wants and needs of their publics. However, the website lacked some key components that are present in all the other museum websites I have explored in this blog; links to social media networks. These links are non-existent because the museum doesn’t exist in the social media world. The Louvre does not have a Facebook account, nor a Twitter, Flickr, or even Myspace account. It doesn’t contain an RSS Feed option either. Without being a member of these social media networks, how can the Louvre’s publics communicate with the museum?
This problem is most likely related to the popularity, or lack there of, social media networks in France. According to Jean Thomas’ article, Social media and France – the contradictions, from Multilingual Search: World Edition, in May 2009 81% of French people did not trust social media networks. Since then several social media sites have been translated from English to French. This translation has enabled Facebook for example to become the number one social media network in France within one year with over 4 million users. A press release article in comScore., Social Networking Has Banner Year in France Growing 45 Percent, shows that the usage of social media networks in fact has grown by 45% in France. Because of this significant growth in social networking, perhaps the Louvre Museum should take note and join the crowd!
I cannot believe such a famous museum is not using social media!!! I understand that most French people do not trust these networks but the Louvre (check your spelling Bethany) has visitors from all over the world who are definitely using social media. At the same time, the Louvre is not lacking in publicity and its name is mentioned in so many different media. This does not mean that they do not need more advertising! Every one can benefit from social media, even if they are the Pope. People like to know what is going on, on a daily basis, and having a schedule of events can help tourists plan a visit according to their interests to the Louvre.
I agree, the Louvre could definately benefit, as most of the museums you have discussed already have, from using social media. However, The reluctancy in adopting social media for a museum such as the world-famous, Louvre could be because the Louvre is already one, if not THE most, recognized museum worldwide. They may think that what they’ve been doing has been working just fine. Why venture into new territory that they are not familiar with?
For advertising purposes, social media may not be needed for this museum, from what I’ve heard, every single day, lines of obsurd proportions form outside just to enter the Louvre. In regards to communicating with their guests social media could be something this museum should look into, however.
I can definitely understand why museums are joining the social media world through reading your other blog posts and I believe that the Louvre can really benefit by following this trend. Although they developed a few good components such as a newsletter they are lacking when it comes to really connecting with a bigger audience. I agree with Brian above that they might not feel the need to tap in social media but what are they waiting for? They could use social media to attract people to their museum as well as give more people the opportunity to stay connected with them. Obviously France has increased their social media use by 45% and that is a lot! Louvre would benefit greatly if they just realized how important social media is for other industries in their country.
I never thought about the fact that responses to social media differs from culture to culture. I was originally really surprised that the Louvre has not taken advantage of social media in the ways that others have, but it makes more sense as we consider the French culture and the fact that they are already on top, and probably not concerned enough about reaching out to the ever-changing Internet world. Obviously, visitors come from all over the world to the Louvre, so it only makes sense that international visitors would use the Internet as their primary source of information-gathering. It will be interesting to see the response of the public when the Louvre finally does get their social media plan up and running.