The Use of Communications Tools to Engage Communities in Public History: Unearthing Gravesham’s Past
This post has been cross posted from our blog DRAGEN Tales.
Effectively engaging general public audiences in history and the importance of historical artifacts can be quite troublesome in most cases. In particular, promoting events that involve elements of history and scientific research is considerably difficult to gain public interest. Using available digital media tools, such as social media and communications to attract audiences can be a considerable asset to attracting community members to attend public engagement events.
Hands On Archaeology: Unearthing Gravesham’s Past is a two-week public history outreach gallery in Gravesend, UK, which encourages members of the general public to stop by and experience local archaeological artifacts through various means. Promotion of this event has been executed by the Arts and Culture and PR Departments of Gravesham Borough Council. Key messaging for communicating this outreach event publicly has been centralized around the idea of getting a hands-on opportunity to interact with local archaeological Roman artifacts in the Gravesham area, and reimagine the artifacts through the technology of 3D Scanning to create a virtual museum.
The communications methods used by the promotional team in the week leading up to this event were very simple: make scattered promotional social media posts, and put a small poster in the lobby space of the Gravesheath Community Centre. In the first days of the gallery exhibition being open, there was a considerable lack of attendance due to insufficient promotions. While social media posting collected some public attention, our team quickly realized that more in-person and digital promotions needed to be done to increase attendance at the event and encourage community members to engage with local history.
On day three of the event, our team got to work on creating more awareness of the event in the main lobby space of the Community Centre. This looked like gathering promotional leaflets and prints to distribute on each of the tables throughout the lobby and placing them near other promotional materials throughout the communal spaces in the building. We noticed the simple changes for in-person promotions increase gallery attendance significantly, having 28 attendees stop by to interact with local history and learn about the process of 3D Scanning artifacts. This was an impressive increase, as previous days had only seen between 5-10 attendees enter the gallery.
With an observed increase of attendees due to in-person promotions, our team then worked with the Gravesend Borough Council’s media relations team to create a promotional video, which showcased the event we were hosting, that would be turned into a paid advertisement across META platforms (Facebook and Instagram). This, in addition to members of the public beginning to post about their experiences with the gallery on social media, proved to be very successful and continued to drive attendance at the gallery. In the following days, the gallery would see over 70 people stop by to engage with the exhibition, with individuals ranging from children or youth and their parents to retired community members. Many who attend are connected by the same interest in learning what rich history has been unearthed in their local community, which has been captured quite clearly in the promotional posters now circulating Gravesend and social media.
In the first days of the paid advertisement being run across META platforms by the City Council, various community members mentioned that they had only heard about the gallery via Facebook and had decided to stop by. Targeting content for various types of community members, if your team is aiming to conduct widespread outreach, is equally as important as putting money behind paid advertisements. We asked attendees to inform us of where they had heard of the event, and we learned that specific mediums attracted different age groups. For example, for many of the community members aged 50-90, in-person promotions such as printed signs and leaflets throughout the community centre are what provoked interest. For families and community members aged 20-40, posts across social media and the promotional video created by the City Council are what got them interested in stopping by,
Promoting public events such as those that involve recruiting community members to get hands-on with science or history can be challenging, which is something that our team has learned in the execution of the Hands on Archaeology: Unearthing Gravesham’s Past gallery at the Gravesheath community centre. It is crucial to be prepared to pivot promotional planning and make adjustments that will ultimately benefit the key objectives of the event. As individuals consume a significant amount of content daily, thinking strategically about what will appeal to your defined target audience can be your greatest strength. Our team looks forward to continuing to generate more interesting content for a widespread audience of this event throughout our final week in Gravesend to increase attendence at the gallery.
Written By Shannon Blackmore.