I’ve been considering writing an article on whether ‘digital’ has poisoned our approach to social media. There’s enough debate about the meaning and use of the word ‘digital’, but here I mean it in the sense of being very data- and process-driven.

Social media is often lumped in with digital because it uses technology, even though it’s closer to marketing and interpretation. But you often need software to do it and it gives you data, so it gets the digital label.

I’m not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater. Data is good at showing you trends. It keeps senior management off your back when you can show there’s a process. And you need a broad set of principles and a strategy to show where you’re putting your effort and why.

But then the actual doing of social media is far more instinctive and messy - holding the tone of voice, institutional mission and your expertise in your head as you invent and reinvent content day after day. Most of the best social media managers and teams I know are 80% instinct/20% data and process, and if you took that approach in other digital teams you’d soon find the payment system had stopped working.

I’m not entirely satisfied I know what I’m saying yet. And whether pitting digital vs. content is a useful framing. I’ll have a think.

Content of this week

• There’s been a ‘dress up as a ghost and vibe to music’ trend happening. I have neither positive nor negative feelings towards it, and yet I consume.

• This is a very good bit of classic, text-based carousel storytelling from Wellcome Collection. More please.

• Liverpool John Moores University Special Collections (or, LJMUSC) just joined Instagram and showed how a charismatic face can make even archival processes sound interesting.

• This website does exactly what it needs to. Does yours?

• This format lends itself perfectly to any long but fascinating batshit story you have in your topic/collections/organisational history.

The bullet point bit

• Liz McCarthy (one of my old managers) from the University of Oxford did a talk somewhere, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is she’s very good at organising things and making them work and she shared her slides.

• I’ve made the mistake of making strategies that are basically just one big wishlist without taking account of how much time, resource and willpower we actually have nor doing any sort of prioritisation. Don’t be like me. Read Ash Mann’s article about how to make digital strategy work instead.

• I can get a bit jaded about the sector sometimes, thinking of the old (or middle-aged) boys/girls networks, the stagnant pay, and the dearth of early-mid career opportunities. But reading the experience of people like Karl Mercer gives me hope that there are people working to make it better (even if, typically, his short-term contract is coming to an end soon).

Personal stuff I do for me and you can just skip this if you like

🎮📖 what I’m consuming as a consumer

I’ve been a bit busy but still found time to play Vampire Survivors, where you battle enemies for 30 minutes exactly and then death comes for you. I think it’s trying to say something buy my media literacy is so, so shit.

🐕 Keith

Here he is