Museum Mascots: Worth Your Time, or Not?
By: Max Evjen
Tags: Museums, Social Media

At Museum Computer Network 2018 in Denver, CO, Max Evjen and Shelby Merlino (former supervisor and manager, respectively of @MSUMuseumBear), Kelli Huggins (former manager of @MarktheMammoth) and Sammy Kay Smith (manager of @TomyttheSheep) presented A Bear, A Mammoth, and A Sheep Walk Into A Bar: Museum Twitter Mascots in Small to Mid-Sized Organizations. The session discussed recent data from a survey sent to managers of museum mascot Twitter accounts, including the origins of their channels, the special way that mascot managers collaborate, challenges in using the platform, and some other details. Since many mascot managers were not able to join the session, this post was created by all of us so others might hear about the data and the discussion in multiple formats.

The recorded session and presentation slides are available at those links for anyone to access.

Research Results:

Twenty-two managers of Twitter mascot accounts responded to this survey from small (23%) to midsized (59.1%) organizations. The majority of respondents are hired as full time staff (68.2%), though this is not always the case. While some (22.7%) were part time staff, one (4.5%) was run by a volunteer and a few were not even staff in the museum (9%). While not a part of the survey, the MSU Museum Bear himself is run as an internship position, to train students for Social Media positions.

When asked about the account’s purpose, many managers expressed the mascots were created to engage with museum visitors, for fun and entertainment, and for promotion. A few managers mentioned their accounts were created under unique circumstances, such as a continuation of a project from a partnership with a University.

Managers compared their mascot account to their institutional account, and described the mascots to be a new/different voice, fun and entertaining, as well as more personable. For accounts run in this manner, it has been noted that content calendars may not be the most useful resource. While they may assist planning posts around holidays and museum events, the mascot accounts are reactionary to current events and conversational similar to a personal twitter account. Other managers noted the accounts are used to promote their collections or educational events.

Managers responded with a wide range of answers when asked which department runs the mascot account. The most significant number of responses came from Education, followed by Public Relations and Digital Engagement/Web. Other answers included Curatorial, Collections, Development, and the Museum Director.

Some challenges mentioned have to do with individual mascots’ physical representation, personalization or even justifying the account to coworkers. Overwhelmingly, the most common challenge expressed by museum mascot account managers is the time commitment. With competing job obligations, managers find it difficult to post on the account each day. Compared to other job responsibilities, the majority of managers expressed the account was a low priority (45%/10), followed by moderate/not a main priority (35%/ 8), then a high priority (27%/ 6). Despite this, four managers expressed they wished it was higher, and one indicated the fact it only takes 10–20 minutes each day to be beneficial.

Another benefit described by museum mascot account managers include being able to connect and converse with other museums as well as visitors. The museum mascot community on Twitter has been described to be welcoming and supportive. A personable account also presents opportunities to connect offsite with visitors or potential visitors in new ways, for example, sharing poetry with their followers. Many managers described this personalization and new voice for the institution (or exhibitions) to be advantageous. Other benefits described include promotion and publicity. As a way to connect with visitors offsite, museum mascots can reach a wider audience than the museum alone, and some have even been recognized by news outlets and other sources.

Origins of our channels:

Kelli created Mark the Mammoth in 2014 as a way to give the museum a more informal voice on social media. The Chemung County Historical Society was on Facebook, but Mark’s account was the museum’s first foray into Twitter.

Tomy the Sheep was created by former Spring Hill Historic Home director, Kate Smith. When Sammy Kay came into the organization as director, discussion about Tomy was revolving around integrating him more into our marketing and branding. Until this point, he’d only been a costumed character for events. After finding an appropriate stuffed animal to be Tomy, he had attempts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to test him with guests and engagement. In 2015, Tomy completely took over Spring Hill’s Twitter account, transforming from @springhillhh to @TomytheSheep for a fun and sillier voice.

The @MSUMuseumBear was created in August 2017 as a way to engage more deeply with MSU Students, Staff, and Faculty, and to be a training program for MSU students in managing a social media account for a cultural organization. The idea for the bear originated when Evjen had a meeting with the Director of the Museum to discuss digital engagement efforts. When Evjen began showing the Director examples like @SuetheTrex, @Markthemammoth and others, the Director thought it would be a great idea to start a mascot channel, and since the Director had recently written a Director’s Letter about the Museum’s Brown Bear, we decided it would be an ideal mascot.

Collaborations:

The tight-knit museum mascot community has found multiple ways to collaborate across institutions, even across continents! In 2016, staff at the Hull Museums (@Hull_Museums) in Hull, England reached out to Kelli about doing a mascot foreign exchange with Mark and their mammoth mascot, Mortimer. Kelli mailed Mark to England and later, Mort came to the States. Staff at both museums took photographs of the mammoth pals playing tourist and posted them to Twitter using the hashtag #MarkandMort. That exchange inspired the 2018 #HeritageMascotExchange, a project involving 12 museums and 6 exchange pairings in 2 countries (the US and UK).

Other collaborations have grown out of the museum mascot community. The 2016 Museum Mascot Games were an Olympics-inspired photo “competition” saw the mascots posing for their best photos in sporting and museum events like rowing and cataloging. The #MusMascArt (Museum Mascot Art Show) was a week-long art challenge in late 2017. In 2018, the #MuseumMascotPostcardParty dominated the summer with mascots sending physical postcards to one another. Later that year #MascotABC had the mascots posting a collections items and behind-the-scenes stories that correspond with each letter of the alphabet.

While these might seem silly at first, these exchanges and challenges have built solidarity among museum employees, most of whom work at small museums, in some cases where they are the sole employee. These connections with peers are invaluable for those behind the mascot. The community is strong and has been growing quite a bit the past few years as more museums create their own Mascots. These Twitter connections have even led to offline collaborations between museums in the same region.

In Ohio, there are five Museum Mascots within an hour of each other (@tomythesheep, @Jeeves_Reeves, @bingofdenison, @HarveyMassMu, @Lsvlenimhistory. Other organizations have also been exploring temporary mascots, such as Champ (@OhioHistory) who’s the Mascot for a Sports Exhibit at the Ohio History Connection in 2019. Both Ohio and New York have quite a few sites with mascots in close proximity that allows for fun exchange and collaboration between Mascots in person. Earlier in 2019, The Reeves House in Dover, Ohio hosted a Stuffed Animal Sleepover around their Jeeves Carriage Club, a children’s group led by their mascot Jeeves from Reeves (@Jeeves_Reeves). Tomy the Sheep was able to attend, sharing multiple sites stories and histories.

Mascots in Ohio and New York often meet up in person, when their “managers” are in the same place. This includes during their own travels, during conferences, or meetings. These meet up are usually unstructured, unlike the Exchanges or other collaborations that exist online.

Challenges:

The biggest challenge is balancing the time commitment of maintaining a mascot account with the daily demands of small museum work. Before committing to starting a mascot account, it is best to have clear goals. If you or your board are wondering if a mascot will be a monetary boon to your site, the answer is probably no (there are exceptions). Your mascot might not bring many physical visitors to your site, but it will allow you to share your mission with people who live far away and will not have the chance to come to your museum in person. If viewed from an educational standpoint, mascots have significant reach. Another challenge can be balancing the tone of a fun, and sometimes snarky mascot with the reserved tone of an institution with a long history.

Sometimes the community may become a little too invested. A few managers of mascots have reported much interest in the mascot and conversations of harassment occasionally do happen. Thankfully, these situations seem to be few and far between. Managers of mascots have been supportive of one another and helpful as we tackle dealing with the public in this new way because of the chosen medium.

Planning for the long-term success of your account is also important. Many mascot accounts are run by one staff person. If that person leaves the museum, it is important to have a plan in place to maintain consistency of voice and content during staffing transitions. Since the @MSUMuseumBear account is a student training plan, and students graduate, there must be some consistency of voice in the account, though we do expect some differences with different managers.

Conclusion: Worth Your Time or Not?

Our thoughts above, and the research results, show that we cannott recommend a museum mascot as one silver bullet that will solve all your organizations’ #musesocial challenges. It all depends on your #musesocial goals and how you want to accomplish them, your capacity, and your organization’s established digital presence. However, we hope that this post provides some thought fuel about how Twitter mascot accounts might be different from institutional accounts, so you can see if jumping in and creating one is right for your organization. We can say, though, that they can be a lot of fun! Even if you decide not to create one, there is a significant number of very entertaining and engaging museum mascot accounts that you can follow, and here are a few!

@markthemammoth

@tomythesheep

@MSUMuseumBear

@EelectricMiguel

@arkellmuseum

@JAHMBluesBrothers

@Jeeves_Reeves

@BingofDenison

@worldsoldestham

Plus a great list of many others at the following Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/cantus94/status/1047562992370569216