Membership 2.0: A Socially Networked Museum Membership

That being said, most museums are trying to figure out how to combine online social media and museum membership, and we feel we have been able to do that successfully with 1stfans.

There are several, very important programs and practices that we've had in place that enabled us to create this new membership program. First, the museum has demonstrated a strong commitment to open and available content online. We knew that if we were going to start a program that offered exclusive online content, we needed to continue to have plenty of other content that is available to everyone for free. Secondly, the museum's mission is community-driven, which means that we didn't want to take anything away from the existing free Target First Saturdays program.

Finally, 1stfans can only work in an organization with the resources to launch and maintain it. That may seem obvious, but Shelley and I both spend our days, nights and weekends with 1stfans. People are used to receiving immediate response to online interactions, and 1stfans [shouldn’t expect any less] just because we work in the museum from 9 to 5.