In the first talk entitled Answering the Big Questions with Data, Cimeon Ellerton, head of programmes at The Audience Agency, will present an overview of their recent Visitor Finder programme, which addresses difficult questions facing the sector, what discoveries they made and how it can assist museums.

This will be followed by Welcoming the New – Curating Cambridge: Our City, Our Stories, Our Stuff with Elly Wright of University of Cambridge Museums who will talk about how they have been stepping out of their museum spaces and taking risks in order to engage with new audiences. This talk will focus on the museums’ city-wide Curating Cambridge festival.

Taking Social Media to the Next Level will be the third talk, with Katie Moffat, The Audience Agency’s digital development manager offering practical advice and inspiring examples from innovative organisations who are creating engaging online content, effectively measuring the value of their social media output and exploring a variety of digital platforms.

The topic of the next talk is Developing Long-term Relationships with Young People – Wellcome Collection’s Young Creators. The Young Creators programme aims to build ongoing relationships with young people and this talk covers how the model works and what the impact has been on the organisation. By sharing the evaluation of its successes Claire Carlin of the Wellcome Collection and Lucie Fitton, head of engagement at The Audience Agency, will offer tips on how to engage young people and keep them involved.

The penultimate talk of the day will be How Not to do Marketing – Testing Different Approaches, with Sue Shave and Siân Hammerton-Fraser of Chiltern Open Air Museum giving an overview of their Arts Council-funded programme Audience Connect. This initiative saw three Buckinghamshire museums use research results from 600 museum visitors to test different marketing approaches. The audience will be told about the successes and failures and how the project radically changed the museum’s marketing strategy for the better.

Getting Your Message Across will be the final talk with VisitEngland’s Vicky Howell and Pam Foden sharing their observations and latest thinking on how visitor attractions can make best use of social media, particularly TripAdvisor and Twitter. They will provide expert case studies, with hints and tips backed by the National Tourist Board’s comprehensive consumer research.

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