Volunteer’s Week: Reaching Audiences Digitally

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Volunteer’s Week, taking place between 1st-7th June in 2021, is an annual celebration of the contribution volunteers make across their diverse roles in the UK. This year is particularly poignant, given the increasing roles volunteers took on to support their communities throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. To celebrate our volunteers in the UK heritage sector, we’ve rounded up this brief series of training resources to help volunteer managers increase volunteer presence within your digital portfolio.

 

Volunteers often play a direct role in a visitor’s journey to a heritage site, perhaps even being the first person they are greeted by upon arrival. Volunteers might work closely with a collection, help care for a natural site, or be on hand to welcome and engage visitors directly.

 

After an unprecedented year of change, some heritage sites have been unable to utilise their volunteer’s passion and knowledge due to periods of closure and decreased staff capacity. While physical sites may need to run differently for some time, there is a wealth of opportunity for reaching and engaging with audiences digitally. We’ve included these resources to inspire volunteer managers and volunteers to brainstorm and explore new ways of sharing your site, collection, and experience with the world.

 

 

Getting started with creating video content:

 

This 90 minute training session is perfect for beginners looking to learn more about creating inspiring clips and videos. Join our experienced film-maker, Nick Street, to learn the best tools in the trade and watch some inspiring examples of great content that can easily be made with your mobile phone.

 

Watch now

 

 

Lightning Talks from Heritage Experts:

 

Get inspired by sector colleagues from Churches Conservation Trust, Shuttleworth Veteran Aeroplane Society, York Museums Trust and Waterloo Uncovered, as they share how they used digital strategy for their projects, events, and sites - all with little to no cost!

 

Watch now

 

 

Heritage Experts: Black Country Living Museum partners with #LearnonTikTok

 

Social media platforms provide a range of opportunities to reach built-in audiences, many of whom might be unfamiliar with your site. New apps and platforms emerge regularly, and sometimes it can feel overwhelming, but social media can be a real digital asset for your stories. TikTok is one of social media’s newest stars, and this case study from the Black Country Living Museum shows how this new platform can be used to create exciting and educational content for younger audiences.

 

Read now

 

 

Heritage Experts: Growing Audiences using Instagram

 

Instagram is a long-standing social media platform which can be used not only to share images and videos, but to increase awareness. In this short case study, Dominic Head - Digital & Marketing Officer at Historic Houses, shares how he used Instagram to dramatically increase social media following, website traffic, and email subscribers.

 

Read now

 

 

Coming soon! The Heritage Digital consortium will be releasing two Volunteers’ Week inspired resources in early June.