THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN CULTURAL DIGITAL MARKETING: THE CASE OF TURIN'S MUSEUMS

The article proposes to verify how the museums that operate in Turin's cultural sector use social media marketing strategies to attract visitors. The research method was arranged into the following two phases: the first was focused on international and Italian literature on cultural marketing, and particularly social media marketing; the second analysed the digital performances of four museums in Turin: Gam (Modern Art Gallery), La Venaria Reale, Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) and Museo Nazionale del Cinema (National Film Museum). For each of the four museums, we are going to look at the following three aspects: change in fan base, number and change in persons engaged, engagement rate: [(number of likes + number of comments + number of shares)/ total fans or followers on a given day] * 100. This third aspect derives from the ratio of the first two and is a more precise indicator than the others, because it allows us to gain a clearer understanding of how many people are active within the community. Our analysis will look particularly at two of the most famous social networks: Facebook and Twitter, in which we are going to analyse the data gathered during a given period of time (seven days), to prevent alteration of our reference sample. The results linked to the efficiency of use of these levers confirm that we are in a position which is not yet the one we would like to be in, as the efforts currently being made by the museums still have a modest influence on real users and these tools, while being appreciated, are still poorly structured in relation to the public, failing to generate the active participation hoped for. Nevertheless, there are some national museums, such as La Venaria Reale, with much better digital activity than others, succeeding in achieving significant results in terms of user engagement.