At Bloomberg Philanthropies, we work to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people. As an organization, we focus on creating lasting change in the areas of public health, environment, education, government innovation, and arts and culture.
Through an arts initiative called Bloomberg Connects, we support technology – from mobile apps to immersive galleries – that transforms the visitor experience at cultural institutions and increases access to the arts around the world.
To promote Bloomberg Connects and grow our Instagram audience in a meaningful way, we organized a series of InstaMeets. The events brought together social influencers and amateur photographers for a unique, after-hours experience in one of the 16 museums and other cultural institutions in our Bloomberg Connects program.
Social media, in particular Instagram, has changed the way art is viewed and shared, opening up many organizations to new audiences and geographies. Our InstaMeets harnessed the power of these users to build connections and leverage social media to increase the awareness of our global work and the Bloomberg Connects program.
We partnered with world-class cultural institutions including the Serpentine Galleries and SFMOMA to host the exclusive tours, as well as a prominent Instagram user to promote each event. Every InstaMeet included a demo of the Bloomberg Connects-supported technology so Instagrammers could get a first-hand look at how these innovations enhance the visitor experience, and a discussion with museum staff on efforts to break down barriers to arts and culture.
InstaMeet participants shared photos on Instagram and other social channels using a unique hashtag, curating all content in an easily accessible and publicly available archive where posts and conversation continued for days after each event. In many cases, we stay in touch with past attendees and they share and help to promote other art projects we support in their city.
By tapping into the community of Instagram influencers, we spread awareness of Bloomberg Connects, grew our audience, and supported our mission to strengthen the arts and culture landscape around the world. Below are just a few results from our InstaMeets in 2016.
- Number of posts tagged with a branded Bloomberg Philanthropies hashtag: 251 posts
- Number of likes on posts tagged with an InstaMeet hashtag: 58,785 likes
- Total number of Instagram followers of all InstaMeet attendees: 1,275,712 reached
With the InstaMeets and other efforts to bolster engagement, we saw our Instagram audience grow by a total of 146% in 2016.
Due to the success of the InstaMeets, we have continued the program into 2017. Most recently, we hosted an InstaMeet at the Tate Modern in London to promote the launch of their new Bloomberg Connects-supported app. We received more than 600 RSVPs for the 43-person event and generated over 370K impressions on related posts, while our owned channels garnered more than 16,000 total social engagements.
