The Chronicle of Philanthropy has just published an article, and list, of the most influential non-profit organizations on Twitter — defined as those with the most followers.
I immediately wanted to see which, if any, arts groups made the cut. Turns out, none. Here’s the list, with the number of followers:
- Charity: Water (@charitywater) 1,308,128
- Room to Read (@RoomtoRead) 457,158
- ONE (@ONECampaign) 452,002
- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (@gatesfoundation) 430,549
- DoSomething.org (@dosomething) 366,737
- Water.org (@Water) 365,230
- Creative Commons (@creativecommons) 364,809
- Kiva (@Kiva) 357,148
- Care (@CARE) 350,785
- The Case Foundation (@CaseFoundation) 338,283
- Acumen Fund (@acumenfund) 326,138
- Ashoka (@AshokaTweets) 322,734
- Skoll Foundation (@SkollFoundation) 320,057
- Samasource (@Samasource) 314,298
- Witness (@witnessorg) 276,553
- Unicef (@UNICEF) 209,690
- American Red Cross (@RedCross) 208,660
- World Wildlife Fund (@WWF) 159,353
- Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace) 109,579
- Save the Children (@savethechildren) 106,162
But wait. That seemed odd to me, and it is — I did a random sampling of a few museums and found:
The Metropolitan Museum: 136,313 followers
The Brooklyn Museum: 126,745
The Whitney: 115,009
San Francisco MoMA: 106,822
Los Angeles County Museum of Art: 96,964
On the other hand, MFA-Boston has just 744 followers, the Indianapolis Museum has 2,412, and the New Museum has 13,956.
What does all this mean? I’m not sure. We don’t know if Twitter draws visitors, creates interest, deepens relationships with art, educates people, etc. etc.
I’d like to hear what museums are getting out of Tweeting, now — or think they will anytime soon. Meantime, I think museums with scarce resources probably shouldn’t waste them on Twitter.