#AllezCulture around the world

In the last few months, Twitter has been buzzing with messages about cultural gems discovered in Europeana. People from 37 countries around the world have been sharing their heroines and heroes of cultural heritage, using the phrase ‘I am @Europeanaeu’ and the tag #AllezCulture. 2,500 tweets were sent out, reaching almost 1,000,000 people - check out these top 10 inspiring examples!

Statistics of campaign participation. Image: FollowtheHashtag.com, CC BY-SA Europeana.

The occasion for all of this activity was an #AllezCulture campaign launched 29 March by the Europeana Members Council. The aim was to heighten awareness of Europeana during the period leading up to Council Conclusions on the future of Europeana, as well as show the uniqueness of Europeana’s content by creating a buzz around it’s breadth, depth and diversity.

Discovering the diversity of Europeana

Thanks to an amazing effort by members of the Europeana Network, I AM @Europeana.eu succeeded in capturing the attention and imagination of cultural heritage users, professionals and policy makers all over Europe and beyond. Tweets were coming in from all EU countries, but also from far away friends in Australia, Chile, South Africa and Japan. You all helped shed light on the awesome diversity of Europeana’s holdings - from pioneer explorers of unknown territories and local cultural figures from all nooks and crannies of Europe, to female artists, composers, writers, politicians and scientists who are often overshadowed by their male colleagues.

Screenshot of two cultural heroes posted on Twitter

Strengths and weaknesses

While the clear and simple call to action - ‘Find your hero(ine)’ - succeeded in making more people go into Europeana to look for their favourite cultural people and items, we also faced some challenges. Participation was by far highest among Members Councillors and our immediate networks of friends and peers. Engaging wider communities of culturally interested users did not happen to the extent we had initially hoped - potentially, wider take-up across the Europeana Network Association would help for future campaigns so we need to find approaches encouraging that take-up.

The metrics at the end of the campaign are interesting - suggesting how the choice of channel influences participation. For instance, we saw a clear gender bias towards female participation, which completely aligns with Twitter’s general gender balance with 62 % female users.

A pilot to learn from

It’s worth keeping in mind that this campaign was a pilot and very much dependent on a dedicated effort by the Members Council. Encouraged by the good results despite limited resources, we hope to support Europeana’s actions with future campaigns which, like this one, will be conducted in close collaboration with members of the Network. At our recent Members Council meeting in Vienna, the Working Group started sketching ideas for the next campaigns we plan to run. Some of the potential topics on our agenda are to raise awareness of the historical diversity of Europeans, and to focus attention on the creative resources in Europeana. Whatever the final topics, the goal will be to involve the Network more in communicating the value of Europeana to our sector and beyond.

For upcoming campaigns, we’ll learn from the lessons of this one and as always, we’re open to your feedback and ideas. So please let us know what you thought worked well and what could be improved in the recent campaign, and share your ideas for future ones. We look forward to keeping working with you. #AllezCulture!