Hi Kirsty

 

Like Alwyn I noticed that you already appear on Tripadvisor, and also that the feedback is overwhelmingly positive - not true for all venues, so you are definitely doing something right!   I agree you could make it work better for you by adding content and so on - but there is no need to spend an enormous amount of time on it, the key thing is that you are there and that the basic facts are correct.    

 

There are other no-brainer options too, including Wikipedia.  Again, you are represented there already, but there is great scope for you to add more to the main article, including links to specific topics, some of which can be to your website.   It is important to avoid the 'sell' approach to editing the article, as you will then just find other wikipedians changing or removing content, but there must be lots of wonderful stories you could go into, perhaps including Dorothy Wordsworth for example.    

 

Other ideas you could consider (as if you didn’t have enough things to worry about already  :-)    )

 

Putting some/more of your images on Flickr / Creative Commons - increase general awareness of your 'brand'and drive more traffic back to your website

 

Creating more low cost short video clips

- showing what it is like visiting the museum (either point of view, or following a small group)

- short talking heads on specific topics (say 30-60 seconds, with a link to an article or collections area you may be wanting to drive more traffic to)

- short 'screencast' videos made using a free programe such as Jing or similar, where you/someone talk into your microphone while showing images or parts of your website, to give a very brief overview of

 

Incidentally, currently when you click on View our collections on the Home page, you go straight to The Art Gallery, which might confuse some people. 

 

I hope some of that useful

 

Martin

 

 

 

Good afternoon all,

 

I am sorry this is not strictly an education question but I am sure many of you in smaller venues take on tasks outside of education, such as marketing. I have a few quick questions about TripAdvisor please:

 

1.       Do many of you have your own TripAdvisor page that has been set up by yourselves rather than visitors?

2.       Are all comments responded to or just the bad ones?! Who is responsible for replying?

 

 

I feel our museum and gallery should have a TripAdvisor presence – it is the first place I look when visiting new places. My manager feels that by promoting a TripAdvisor page, we are inviting more comments and it could become quite an onerous task replying to everyone and deciding who replies. In my experience, most venues only reply to the negative comments and we get really good feedback from visitors so I don’t think it will be a big job! This issue arose when a member of the university’s marketing department searched to see how high we were in Liverpool attractions. We then noticed one negative comment and nobody had responded to it – this wasn’t a page we had set up ourselves. There were also only about 2 photos of our venue and they didn’t do it justice so I feel we need to take some control of it.

 

I would be interested to hear others’ TripAdvisor experiences please.

 

Thank you, kind regards,     

 

Kirsty

Kirsty Hall

Education Officer, Victoria Gallery & Museum

University of Liverpool

Liverpool, L69 3DR   

www.vgm.liv.ac.uk      Tel: 0151 794 2348

 

 

 

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