 Hello and welcome to discovery conversations about the power of arts to connect us to each other and to place I'm coven Smith senior director of arts at the Knight Foundation for today's conversation We'll be looking to better understand the challenges of managing social media in arts and cultural organizations Joining me today are three legends in the arts and culture sector Jessica Johnson, Laurie Bird McDevitt and Dana Allen Greel Jessica Johnson is a creative Strategist at snap Inc prior to beginning work in the tech industry She was an award-winning social engagement producer at the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American history and culture Laurie is the co-founder of 1999 digital a digital marketing agency serving a range of clients with a focus on museums and nonprofits She has a longtime news social community organizer Thanks to her decades as social decade Excuse me as social media manager at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis She co-founded administers the museum social media managers Facebook group Dana is vice president of marketing at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Dana has led web and social media efforts at the National Archives National Gallery of Art Ogilvy public relations the Smithsonian's National Museum of American history and the Kaiser Family Foundation Dana Jessica Laurie welcome to discovery So I think we'll we'll start here and based on our conversation in the green room This might be the only question we have time to get to today and in the half hour we have but So I'll start just by saying There are a lot of misconceptions out there about the work of Social media managers and particularly so in the arts and culture space So I wonder if we could start with establishing some context around the work itself And what does the daily work of a social media manager at a cultural institution look like? I can start us off on this one I was the social engagement producer for NAMAC for about three years and in that time The job entailed every single thing that would be coming up with copy for the post It would be making a graphic if that's what it was required Did a few videos also so from start to finish about Each post would take about an hour to three to make depending on what the project was But I think the greater thing to say What does it take to do social media management at a arts and culture spaces takes a lot of talent a jack-of-all-trades type of Person to do the job But then also a person who's willing to just do the job from start to finish and then in post production You know customer service each piece that was done as well It may be surprising to some but you know crisis communications is really a huge part of the museum social media managers day-to-day job So, you know, of course, it's fun to create content that connects your collection to pop culture But really the role of the museum is to document historic and current traumatic events Racism politics violence. So, you know, the museum social media manager is really on the front lines of this so to speak With these topics every day and they have to respond to the tough questions They have to be managing the trolls and also things like worrying about what controversial object might be hiding in your collection That's going to pop out at any moment. You really don't know what's going to happen next I'll just add working at an environmental Organization like the aquarium. We're also dealing with you know the climate crisis and how people feel about that and the politics of that I think very much We have a team of social media managers, which I know is incredibly rare in this field We have about three and a half people and I think we very much are Not just creating content and that could be imagery. We do a lot of videos. We do a lot of live streaming It's essentially like hosting live shows multiple times a week But we also very much think about social media as a community of about three million people that we are responsible for nurturing Responding to caring for them responding to them and that takes a whole additional skill set In addition to kind of thinking about it as PR or putting content out in the world It's about responding to the world around you and giving giving people what they need What if we could talk a little bit more because I think you know that is a common misunderstanding because I think You know many in the arts and culture sector who are aware of this work think of it often as sort of PR as a sort of You know unidirectional Effort but that's not really the case is it So I wonder if you could talk me through sort of maybe what a typical day would look like Or an atypical day if if if you're so inclined I Think the typical day starts with waking up and praying that the internet is not on fire To say the very least I think Getting up and making sure that while you were asleep nothing Took off in a negative direction if something did you know go viral in a positive direction. That's always a good thing but That and then also Working at you know, the Smithsonian. We have a lot of objects from people who are still living and if they pass You know monitoring the headlines for for you know memorial statements that need to be posted as well That's I think that's like the beginning of what my day used to be It sounds so cryptic to say I started the day hoping that nothing was going wrong But to start today it would be that and then Just easing into the projects responding to to emails and then also concerns from the audience because you're you're you're kind of playing a balance You have your public audience that you have to be responsive to and accountable to but then you have your internal museum teams Who are relying on you to you know support their programming or You need a response from them to to support a piece of material that you're putting out to say hey Could you fact check this and I think the the first half of the day is just responding to emails and and customer inquiries That that would that was how mine worked it. What about what about for you guys? I think it's really interesting what you talk about with checking for you know, unfortunately people who have passed away I I often get surprised looks when I tell people that I became an expert in writing memoriam posts But that actually was a big part of my job, you know, it's not always about dinosaurs and astronauts You know, so I thought that was interesting. You pointed that out Yes, I used to have like a list of people I would say like okay These are the people I definitely need to check for because you know a lot of people a lot of like, you know prominent african-americans Are getting up there in age especially, you know leaders from the civil rights movement And then like the first wave of like black hollywood So making sure, you know, we're not missing a cultural moment there But also honoring them and and the work that they did to to even get The museum. I was at where we where we are in existence I think that like hyper awareness is a key part of why this job is so stressful is that you need to not only be Super aware of everything going on in your institution and what the pressures from within your institution are But what's happening in the world? What's happening on platforms? What's the mood of the day based on the news? It's just a relent if you feel exhausted Listening to the news as a human not responsible for social media I think you can multiply that by 100 Because every decision you make about a piece of content to put out or how to respond To something incoming has to be focused on all of those different contexts And it's really challenging and if you do it wrong You get called out in a really public way and that's very stressful to be Really on the front lines of an institution and a spokesperson for an institution and often pretty low on the totem pole in terms of Pay in terms of seniority in terms of trust um, so I think that Just in terms of understanding what that job is like and why your social media manager may seem really stressed out I think that's a big part of it I think to put a fine point on it too You know kind of the day in the life situation you can have a whole plan Right like social media managers want to have a plan so badly And then because you need to be so hyper aware, you know, you could have a whole media event planned But there could be some other big, you know, um, national or international news that comes out that just makes that, you know Not viable. So that's just another big part of the role Out to add to that the last thing also the platforms they also decide when they want to crash That's always the worst It's always when you're doing a live stream Great So there's multiple dimensions of the internet being on fire here though that that we're talking about um, so, you know in the context of a sort of organizational structure then You know, how much of this kind of daily stress would you say is is Even understood maybe much less appreciated for the people you work for I mean Dana alluded to the fact that often. I mean these are these are roles of tremendous public responsibility, but that are, you know Far down in the hierarchy often with probably limited authority So I wonder if you could talk about sort of the sort of internal understanding And and actually Jessica, I wonder if you know in your transition to to Snap if you could talk a little bit about, you know How maybe that understanding of the value of these roles is is perceived differently in your space now versus where you were Okay. Yeah, I think that the In the in the cultural institution space, I don't think that how I'm sorry. Let's see. Let me rephrase this I'm not sure that all members of the organization understand that Running social media for an org is separate from running social media as your individual person And the things that you do as an individual person are wholly different Than how we approach content from an organizational standpoint And also with regard to cultural institutions, there are a lot of PhDs and If you don't have that on the end of your name sometimes or most of the time in my experience You're kind of that's when you get into that, you know Not not as important, but until until I need you to help me support my program or help me get a post out there So I think that the lack of understanding around what it takes to do something for the organization versus for yourself Is a is a problem that contributes to why we're treated and I say we as like I've had this conversation with many of my social media manager friends Why we're treated like so I don't want to say unimportant but just not taken us seriously Um in the organization and when it comes to You know not working at a cultural institution now everybody's pretty much It feels like everybody's pretty much on the same, you know playing field because we're not walking around having to call each Other doctor so and so or you know the role of curator isn't higher than the role of comms person Who's you know getting the messaging out there and still has to know all of The the the things going on behind the scenes. We're not subject matter experts But we know enough to be some type of expert type of thing um Where i'm at an equal where I am there's an equal playing field and I feel empowered To do my job that I was hired to do and I feel heard when I bring ideas to the table and I think that in my experience in cultural institutions, that's been a challenge because my I was only good to say like oh we got this many likes right or say something that people understood Uh as a general, you know thing meeting it was good or bad Rather than saying I think if we talk about this in this way people will understand it more because To them it wasn't my job to say how people would understand something because I'm not the expert in this in that field But I am the expert on the internet and that's that's my field and and not having our field taken seriously It can be a challenge Well the internet is people too, right and I think this is something I know my team has tried really hard to make visible and I think we're gaining traction in the social team Is not just a way to get things out into the world But they're a really valuable source of information about what the world what our community what the people were trying to reach Are thinking and what they do understand what they don't understand where they need help making connections So trying to show that value to kind of beyond social What we know from our audience on social can inform policies we make can inform You know lots of other things that don't just have to do with with social I think the other thing I will just say about Whether or not people take social media seriously, you know, they see My team doing things like posting fun memes about You know cute otters or like playing animal crossing on twitch, you know playing video games is your job Sure, and honestly part of that is for the mental health of my team to bring them joy and to bring the internet joy Really helps boost to their morale for when they have to deal with You know racist responses to things we put out or climate deniers or whatever it is Those hard parts of the job are balanced out by some of the fun parts But it's not all the fun stuff and the other thing that's really invisible Is the dms, right? They're my nature private and the social team is dealing with all of that And that's completely not visible to the rest of the organization So there's a lot kind of below the waterline that people don't understand about the job And do you feel Dana like there is An unwillingness to understand or investigate what's below the waterline on the on the part of administration sometimes No, I think just everyone has their own job that they're responsible for like right This person's job is to make sure people know about this policy in the legislature And we want people to take action cool But like how are going to people how are people going to respond are we prepared for the For the the questions we're going to need to answer and I do think here We've tried to prepare for that around campaigns that we're aware of right So we just talked about like the internet and the world does what it's going to do things we can prepare for We have the subject matter experts sit And write out all the FAQs all the possible responses in there on call for us that day But that news is going to break to help us with social care And I think that over time that does help give those folks involved in that kind of process a sense of like This isn't just a tweet This is like a whole day or multiple days of dealing with what what response we get to that news Well, which takes me back a little bit to lori had earlier mentioned crisis communications, which I feel like is is Certainly whenever I talk to people who do this work. It's a commonly understood part of the work If not, maybe the majority of the work some days But I rarely see it articulated in job postings And so I you know, I wonder if we could talk a little bit about you know, is is there Actually, let me back up. Why don't we just Let's talk a little bit more about this hard part about the crisis communications themselves Like, you know on on a day where you've prayed that the internet would be good and it was not What is what does this look like and and how can we do a better job of helping others to understand what a huge part of the job this is Yeah, absolutely I know we each have our own stories that we've we've shared about and have, you know, truly caused trauma I mean for either ourselves or our team, but What's interesting is that It goes it goes as deep as trauma, right? So there's a popular youtuber His name is dr. Zubin Damania who's called this moral injury So he wants people to stop calling it burnout and start calling it moral injury And he uses it in the context of healthcare workers But there's a lot to unpack there But essentially the definition of it is that the work takes a toll on our moral values Because we don't have control over how we're handling those scenarios how we would naturally want to do it So a nurse has to deal with socioeconomic inequities Through the insurance industry for an example us in social media We might have a situation where we're limited by a conservative board of directors that are holding us back And being toned deaf about social justice issues is just, you know, one example that happens a lot So crisis and controversies in museums bring all of this to a head And not only might the museum communications team lack the power to respond effectively But they're also the ones as we've talked about that are on the receiving end Of dealing with it. So we're getting it from both sides. We lack power to respond how we naturally would want to But then we also, you know, are the ones that are, you know, the the face behind the accounts so But I do think there there can be something done not always and not in every institution about that power piece, right? So making sure that your Social media person has a seat at every table where something is being discussed again. That's in your control or even in a response Um, you know, our crisis comms team up very much includes everyone from our social team Even things like how we shut down the aquarium during covet We were looking at how other institutions were doing it what they were saying And what went well what didn't go well with an audience and then that informed our press release Not the other way around where a press release went out and then we had to scramble to deal with the social repercussions of that In that case, our social team had input into how we announced That news and I think that's really critical and that you build that trust over time Yep, the the progress is coming from the social media manager having a seat at that table and being in those conversations And I personally was lucky to be able to be in those rooms with, you know A small group helping with the nuance of language and moments like that. It just it needs to be everywhere Sorry, Jessica. What were you gonna say? Oh, no, I was just gonna say I agree and I'm And bring up that, you know We're we're seeing a really large shift from traditional media leading to social media leading and that's that's a that's a huge change For all communications teams and one thing that we did at the museum We developed certain processes for particular things like Unfortunately, we know people are going to pass away. So we developed a process for our memorial statements So, you know, like Dana said, we're not waiting for a press release to come without any information We'll touch base with the press team to say, hey This happened you all have a direction that you're headed If not, we would go more high level language on social to be, you know, timely and relevant And then follow up, you know With the full press release when that became available But it didn't put us at a at a disadvantage Looking like we were being disrespectful to anybody or, you know, posting very late to then have somebody respond back and say Why so late or things like that? I think the other challenge and like you said having a seat at the table That's not always afforded when those crisis that you cannot plan for come out of Nowhere All it takes is one viral tweet to Send the internet into a firestorm and you would think museums that can't get Super crazy, but unfortunately it can I was part of the team last summer when, you know, george floyd and all that was happening And we released the talking about race portal There was an instance where someone took a screenshot without context of something that we had on the pay on the on the portal and sent it out into you know, the twitterverse and That was around like 10 in the morning by two in the afternoon the president Son at the time the president at the time son was tweeting about it and we've gone from now just a viral Tweet by a very conservative person to oh, it's national news and Making its way around all corners of the internet, which then Really put the social team at a disadvantage because we were not we were not sure what to do at this point We're you know, there's there's lots of you know Trolling behavior happening lots of bot behavior happening and it's difficult to cipher through all of those things I think we had like 10,000 replies or things come like responses coming at us just on twitter in like a day and a half There's no way that we could have customer service all of that So what are the stakes when it comes to paying attention to our true audience versus? You know something that's going awry in a corner of the internet that other people are not even aware of That was one of our that's one of the things that we had to balance but also um What was being said was very harmful And I remember thinking I just wish someone asked me if I was okay at that moment um Or how are you and actually mean how are you not? How are you and getting an update on how many retweets it has now and what's happening? No, how are you you're reading these? You know comments you're where you started receiving them to our general inboxes That were saying some of the most racist things and it was you know It it was happening and it was it was affecting me in my life But not only affecting me in my life and work, but we were working at home So that was happening in my home my safe space was no longer safe for me And we had no response. We had nothing I can't close the computer and log off because it's technically my job to be there and to be on um And what can we do not even just as the social media team because I think social media teams and managers and and Those of us who know each other we check on each other constantly. Um Whether it's through text or we tweet each other. We are always like hey girl. How are you? You know things like that, but I remember just thinking as somebody else from the greater comms team or Somebody else in the museum who was aware of the situation and that they were working on I would just like how is this affecting you because We're the only team that had to really truly deal with it. Everyone else was aware and they were making decisions but they were not in it And I think that was one of the greatest that was I think that's the biggest, you know crisis challenge ever is to to gauge How your team is responding, but also what can you do to support your team? Uh when we're when we're developing how we as an institution will respond I So I mean which leads me to to ask, you know, is like Like is it Is it possible for these not to be Burnout jobs like I mean like it is there a way that that you Or your team Could have handled that situation that did not result in It's now time for us all to to go and do something else You know, like I mean Like are are we equipped to handle as a sector? Are we equipped to? Handle this kind of interaction yet and and I'm assuming the answer is no and so like what Like what could we do? If anything I mean I have strong feelings about this being the responsibility of museums to fix like this is a platform issue Um the fact that the platforms are not thinking about where all their free content is coming from and who are the people behind it and putting proper tools in place to Protect people from hate speech and all of these other really negative consequences that you're talking about jessica So sure there are things that Museums and nonprofits can do to to make sure there's a bench You know, it's not just one person You know, we talked about seat at the table But is that person being compensated for filling that seat at the table? Or are they still being traded like a junior member of the staff? So yeah, I do think there are things that we can do To make sure people feel supported checked in on that they can take a break and someone else can roll on Right, but really at the end of the day, this is fundamentally an issue with social media in society And I don't know that we're going to fix that anytime soon We can we can be advocates for sure and we can participate in campaigns like stop hate for profit and lots of There are lots of other campaigns like that that we can put our voice behind You know, we're not putting tons of advertising dollars into it. So how much they care when we pull it, but it's a sign Um, so yeah, I just want to caution us from thinking that this is our responsibility to fix as a society I agree. I don't think any I don't think any social media manager in any industry is Not going to reach a point of burnout. I do think that you can slow that um with A number of things again, like I said before just Really actually checking on your team to say hey, are you how are you guys today? um and meaning it We're right right now snapchat. We have this amazing thing called council where you can go and they give you prompts and you do like Meditation and like there's like an art journaling one that you can go to and they really encourage the sharing of feelings And again, it's one of those spaces where everyone is set on an equal playing field So you're not when you're sharing how you're feeling the question was, you know posed by Someone who's trained to get like to pose questions that are deep thinking But also open enough to where you can share as little as you want or as much as you want But I found that in those spaces people receive it a lot differently than if you are going to talk to your supervisor In their office to say this is a challenge. It's not complaining Because we're all here in red equal playing field and we're just the questions were posed by somebody And in an open manner and we're we're all being vulnerable and open But it because if I go to my boss and I say this is this is really difficult I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do here. A lot of times they're looking for solutions and I'm not even Saying there is a solution sometimes. It's more so I just need you to understand This is what's happening so that we can we can Find what we're gonna what our plan is going to be what the priority is Responding to a certain thing and then feeling that support. I think when you feel supported by The team the institution you're willing to put up with more Than if you were not and I think No matter how much money you get paid nothing is going to pay you enough To sacrifice your mental health and I think that that's one of the other things So throwing money at a problem. Sometimes it's not the answer. It's actually just empathy and humanity And if we could remember that and it's so crazy because as museums, we're always saying, you know We're we're pushing that narrative forward about You know We're like the the empathy of things and and how are you assessing this and when you go Look at an object. What is happening and what are you feeling? But when you are in a meeting with the people that you work with are you are are we pushing that same value and narrative? Yeah, what you say Jessica about having that space to just even reflect and talk it that's so important And I Love actually the agile method for project management for this reason And it's it seems so foreign because it tends to be in like the tech sector But a lot of marketing teams are taking it on now and we've adapted it on our team But what's important about it is this need for Really protecting your hours or your capacity? And when something comes up you move things around you don't you don't just add on hours You have your set hours. So that's a key thing of agile But another part is that every week you have a retrospective This is I joke that it's like therapy time for nerds because it's just like another word other than therapy but it's basically just reflecting back on the week and the challenges and the weaknesses and A similar concept to what you were talking about and it's been so powerful for my team and I'm really Really glad that the museum sector has started to even Pick away at talking about this just even a little bit But I agree with the comments about support from leadership Obviously, and I think that a key part about burnout is that it needs to shift away from employees Reactively responding to their needs and finding solutions themselves and instead it needs to be Leaders proactively finding those solutions to avoid it. Um, that's really the main You know thing here is shifting to that way of thinking Let's say about the idea of retrospective even if you don't formally do that as part of an agile, you know sprint type of thing Um having that practice of reflection and also showing appreciation I've found in the past year and a half. We've gotten a lot better I think out of necessity of being remote not being together of trying to like really Make a point of spending part of our time and any meeting together showing appreciation for each other and especially Not in the crisis times and not in just the you know, while this thing blew up and it's awesome times but just that day to day like Appreciation of one another and showing each other support is really critical And can help us think about our process going forward. Sorry cobin go ahead Well, no, but you answered the question. I was going to ask But so um, we are unfortunately closing in on on the end of our time together and we could probably do this for several more days I'm sure So I'll just ask one last question for for all three of you, you know, sort of given what you you know Now, um, and and how things have sort of evolved or changed over the last several years If if you were to give one piece of advice for someone thinking of going into this work. Oh, look, there's my cat Um, if you were to give one piece of advice for for someone getting ready to go into this work in a cultural organization right now Um, what what advice would you give them? And um, lori will start with you Sure. Um, I mean, I'll just be simple and stating, you know, don't try to take it all on by yourself I mean, we've said that throughout our time together But um at the very least if you can't find internal support Connect with the new social community on twitter on facebook. We have a facebook group There are so many of us that are right here with you and we're all ready to support one another So just know that that exists I co-signed that like just even what jessica was talking about you see something happening out in the field and you tell someone like Hey, I see you. I'm with you. You'll get that back Um, I also think like a great example for our team was My boss our chief marketing officer follows king arthur flower and they they last year said we need a break We're taking a week break and she brought that idea to our team We decided to take a week long break and then the field museum reached out to say how did that go So if you see something out in the world that you're inspired by or want to know more about I think this is such an amazing community that wants to Help each other out and teach each other. So Yeah, reach out I think um, my advice would be or is and always will be probably Um, have a life that is not attached to work There's there are so many people I think who joined the arts and culture space because I mean not to say that we're like kind of cool, but we really make it look really cool And so it's really fun and it's really awesome But I think it's so critical to make sure that your Your identity doesn't just get lost in your work because once you you've reached that point of burnout You you won't what will you have right? And so also again to slow that is Is to have a have a separate identity have a separate personality from Who you are at work my my biggest thing is I'm never actually tweeting about museums unless there's like a conversation going on I most of the time I post my hobbies which I do pole dancing as like my art to reclaim the gaze and really like, you know stick it to the man Right, but I let people know that like hey, I'm in museums or I was in museums If you follow me, you will not see anything about a museum But I would love to connect with you in the in the real world on the outside, right? And that's because we're so much more than our jobs And I just if we continue to lean into the things that bring us joy We'll be able to kind of manage manage our emotions or anxieties Um That that do happen in the workplace a little bit better Well, that seems like a wonderful way to leave us here today So I want to thank all three of you so much For for being here. Uh, lori, jessica, dana This has been absolutely wonderful As I said, unfortunately our time is up So thanks to everyone and thanks to our production crew here at night The beats at the top of our show were created by former night colleague chris bar And the music that will play us out is composed by the Amazing ackron jazz pianist and overall all around fantastic person theron brown Thanks again, and we'll see you next time