How Strong is Your Social Net? 2011 Results

7. What are the attitudes of arts organizations’ management toward digital and social media?

Management attitudes

Management attitudes. Click to enlarge.

We were encouraged to learn that 64.9% of arts organizations describe their management as being “excited” about digital and social media. We speculate that this is due mainly to two factors:

  • Digital and social media have become mainstream, with even traditional media such as newspapers and television sourcing content from online sources and constantly referencing popular social platforms.
  • Adoption of social media (and, generally, usage of digital media) is increasing across all age groups, particularly among those over 50. We believe that excitement on the part of organizations’ management is increasing because members of management are either using social media themselves, or at very least  someone in their household who does.

A number of organizations (17.1%) reported that they feel that they are “leading the field in adopting and promoting the use” of digital and social media: a large population of evangelists.

A significant number of respondents remind us that all is not rosy, however. Nearly a fifth (20.5%) report that their management is “daunted” by the technical aspects of digital and social media, seeing these channels as being about the technology rather than thinking of them simply as communications tools.

We are very interested to see how these numbers change, as the use of social platforms grows, and other factors that affect digital media adoption and use (such as the availability of bandwidth) evolve.


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