Promoting Digital Collections

Summary

The work of sharing and promoting digital collections can be just as important as creating them in the first place, since by their very nature digital collections can be invisible to potential audiences. Organizations use various methods to promote their collections—often more than one. We encourage you to experiment and find what works best for reaching your community. Here are some options to consider:

Website

In addition to maintaining a CMS, you may want to highlight certain parts of your collection on your organization’s website. This method is useful for driving existing website users to your digital collections.

Building and maintaining a website or webpage may involve working with a web developer (if you have one) or doing the work yourself. Some website building services say that they are designed for non-expert users, but in reality you need to be willing to learn a little about web development in order to arrange and display content in a meaningful and accessible way. Be sure to update the website content regularly to keep users interested.

If your Colorado cultural heritage organization needs a website, the Colorado State Library offers free website creation and hosting services through its COLibraries and CVL Sites programs. See Bent County Historical Society as an example.

Social media, including photo and video sharing sites

Social media can be a powerful tool for promoting your digital collections, though it may take some experimentation to find the right platform and some time to build your audience. Some social media sites like Flickr, Instagram, Vimeo, and YouTube are optimized for photo and video sharing.

Social media algorithms reward user engagement, meaning that the more you post and the more users interact with your content, the more exposure you will get on timelines and feeds. This means that you will need to be fairly active on the platform to make it worth your while. For instance, successful YouTube channels usually post new videos at least twice a week; Instagram and Facebook reward more frequent posting.

While social media can be a useful tool for sharing and promoting your digital collections, it is definitely not the right tool for storing and archiving digital content. For one thing, user agreements are notoriously long, opaque, and subject to change without notice. You have very little control over your data or privacy. Also, social media platforms are constantly adjusting their features to drive user engagement; you may come to rely on a feature only to have it break in the next update. Finally, social media platforms do not have the capability to export metadata in the same way as a CMS, so they are not the right tool for participating in shared digital projects like the Plains to Peak Collective (PPC).

Exhibits, education, and partnerships

You may have the opportunity to promote your digital collections through in-person or virtual exhibits, educational programs, and other collaborative outreach efforts. These types of opportunities often come organically as a result of building your network, but you can also intentionally identify community partners that you would like to work with. Try to stay open and flexible when it comes to new opportunities while also keeping in mind the goals you identified during the Preparing phase. If community engagement is one of your stated goals, then partnering with other organizations might be a good fit.

Promotion is ongoing

Once you find an approach to promotion that works for your organization, remember that it should be an ongoing activity. If you use a static website, you will need to keep it current with new content. If you use social media, you will need to post regularly and interact with users. If you participate in other outreach or collaborative efforts, you will need to dedicate time for event planning and communication with partners. We recommend that you reflect on the time and resources needed for this work and build it into your program planning.

Suggested Recordings and Readings

Discussion Questions

  • What kinds of promotion have you tried, or have you considered, in addition to a CMS?
  • For each:
    • What are the advantages you see in this method?
    • What are the drawbacks you see in this method?
    • What are your unanswered questions about this method?