VISUAL Arts Glasgow, a mobile-responsive webspace showcasing Glasgow’s vibrant visual arts scene, took first place in the Public Sector category at last night’s Herald Scottish Digital Business Awards 2013.
Visual Arts Glasgow is a new digital concept for the visual arts, conceived by Culture Republic with funding from Creative Scotland as a means of raising the profile of the rich diversity of visual arts in Glasgow and growing audiences for the city’s museums and galleries.
The site aggregates a rich seam of visual content from venues all over Glasgow, creating an image-led portal where tourists and locals can see what’s on and engage with exhibitions, commentary and other visual arts news and events on the move.
Culture Republic operates a social listening programme across Scotland’s cultural sector that collates data directly from the social media feeds of over 500 organisations on a daily basis.
Through this work, they identified that museums and galleries in Glasgow were already sharing a wealth of high-quality visual content through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, driving high levels of engagement with individual posts but experiencing challenges in translating this into long-term visibility and profile-raising.
An extensive research programme including interviews with over 1,500 members of the public further revealed that, although levels of engagement with the visual arts were high, many organisations were experiencing common barriers to audience growth.
The Visual Arts Glasgow website was created to address issues that included limited resources (both staffing and financial) for individual promotions, and the need for a website that could complement existing listings sites by communicating the vibrancy of the sector.
With its infinite scroll technology, brought to life by creative agency, JamHot, the Visual Arts Glasgow website brings longevity to the image-based social content that each organisation already shares, collating current and historical posts from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as well as sharing the very newest updates from across the sector on a single homepage.
Designed to put Glasgow on the international stage, it raises the profile of participating organisations both individually and collectively, and sets major tourist destinations such as Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum or The Burrell Collection alongside lesser-known gems like Mary Mary and Project Ability.
Dianne Greig, associate director at Culture Republic, is project leader for Visual Arts Glasgow.
She explains: “The website’s biggest strength comes from its sound research basis: we know that it’s responding directly to the needs of the museums and galleries that it represents, and we can already see that it is helping them to reach out collectively to new audiences within Glasgow and beyond.
“Last night’s award is a testament to the power of collaboration within the cultural sector, and that principle is at the heart of everything we do at Culture Republic.”
Visual Arts Glasgow received wide acclaim on its launch in July, with glowing feedback from participating venues, individuals, and visual arts professionals from Glasgow to New York including Rebecca Taylor, Communications Director of MoMA PS1.
Graeme McGowan, of JamHot, said: “As an agency that does a lot of work across the arts sector is was great to be involved with such a unique approach to digital marketing. It was really satisfying for us to see the project come together and the great reaction to the site.”
Culture Republic works with professionals throughout the cultural sector in Scotland, delivering a 360 degree view of where, how and why people engage with culture in Scotland to support organisations working to develop audiences, grow revenue streams or understand the impact of changing population trends.
We were delighted to share our success at last night’s award ceremony with Edinburgh International Film Festival, one of our partner organisations, who were highly commended in the Customer Engagement category.
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Notes for editors
Visual Arts Glasgow
http://visualartsglasgow.co.uk/
@visartsglasgow
Site concept by Culture Republic; site design by Glasgow-based creative agency JamHot http://www.thisisjamhot.com/
Culture Republic
Culture Republic deliver a 360 degree view of how people engage with culture in Scotland, for professionals who need to develop audiences, grow revenue streams or understand the impact of changing population trends.
http://www.culturerepublic.co.uk
Follow Culture Republic: @culture_public
Herald Scottish Digital Awards are now in their fifth year, and recognise the success of businesses large and small in seizing the opportunities offered by digital technology and the internet.
http://herald-events.com/digitalawards/winners-revealed/
Creative Scotland is the national organisation that funds and supports the development of Scotland’s arts, screen and creative industries. Creative Scotland has four objectives: to develop and sustain a thriving environment for the arts, screen and creative industries; to support excellence in artistic and creative practice; to improve access to and participation in, arts and creative activity; and to deliver our services efficiently and effectively. In 2013/14, we will distribute over £100m in funding provided by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery.
For further information on Creative Scotland please visit www.creativescotland.com.
Twitter: @creativescots
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CreativeScotland
Key contacts at Culture Republic:
Dianne Greig, associate director – Digital (WhiteNOISE project lead): dianne@culturerepublic.co.uk
Jo Cowper, associate director – Marketing, including press liaison: jo@culturerepublic.co.uk
MEDIA RELEASE posted by Culture Republic. You too can post media releases (aka press releases) on allmediascotland.com. For more information, email here.
Contact: Jo Cowper
Email: jo@culturerepublic.co.uk
Website: http://www.visualartsglasgow.co.uk/
