Abstract
Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the marketing relationship between small and medium museums in Campania Region and their current and potential audience. In this regard, the effectiveness of online communication proposed by these museums in relation to consumers is analyzed. A comparison is made with online communication effectiveness of large museums in order to analyse the main differences and to identify the related managerial implications. Method: The research method is based on the study of multiple cases, used in its descriptive mode. Out of 21 museums in Campania having a website administrated by the museums themselves, we selected 10 small and medium ones. Subsequently was conducted a content analysis on the aspects of the communication of Facebook pages and web sites of the 10 selected museums. Finally, 10 museums were compared with 4 large museum consortiums. Findings: The analysis has demonstrated that the communication through the Web 2.0 tools is more suited for establishing dialogic relations with the current and potential museum audiences. It has also shown that from the perspective of advanced interactivity, due to their management creativity and flexibility the communicative content of the museums under study is generally more effective than in case of larger museums having more human resources and capital at their disposal. Research limits: The main limitation of the research is that it does not detect if a performant interactive online communication is able to stimulate demand cultural. It should be noted that this objective was not the purpose of research of this paper. Originality of the study: The paper is an original and innovative work since in the literature there is no similar research conducted by other authors. Furthermore, nobody has analyzed the relationship between Facebook pages and web sites in the field of museums in the Campania region.
Highlights
If, as it is generally accepted, the functions of museums follow the triad “protection-study-heritage communication” [1] [2], recent multi-directional technological advances are profoundly changing the profile of museums activities, including those directly related to their organisation and management from the business perspective, analysed in Italy by scholars such as Dragoni (2005), Montella (2010), Cerquetti (2014) [3] [4] [5]1
In the scenario delineated above, the museums go through modernisation of their models of external communication with the public: from “one-way” mode, including that carried out through the websites, to a different one, thanks to the development of Web 2.0 and the emergence of social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and social media (YouTube, Blogger, Slideshare, etc.), a “dialogic” and interactive mode in which the recipient of the message is in turn the manufacturer of messages constituting the feedback for museums and the dissemination of experiences, feelings and opinions addressed to broad publics [7] [8] [9]
Given that the first three items of information of the Facebook page are expressed in numerical magnitudes, the same have been considered as “present” if the value was greater than the mean value13
Summary
As it is generally accepted, the functions of museums follow the triad “protection-study-heritage communication” [1] [2], recent multi-directional technological advances are profoundly changing the profile of museums activities, including those directly related to their organisation and management from the business perspective, analysed in Italy by scholars such as Dragoni (2005), Montella (2010), Cerquetti (2014) [3] [4] [5]1 In this context, progress in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has an impact especially on marketing communication, awaiting the opportunity for museums to embrace the relational perspective with different stakeholders by exploiting, in particular, the potential of the Web 2.0.
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