Fiona POPPENWIMMER | Hans RESCHREITER
(Natural History Museum Vienna, Vienna, Austria)
Keywords: Hallstatt, Weblog, Social Media
Abstract:
In 2013 the archaeological research of Hallstatt, pursued by the Natural History Museum of Vienna found an own weblog. Since then, the weblog developed to be the main tool for public relations of the Hallstatt research.
Over the years we became aware of more and more important data, which can help us to understand our target groups and to observe their behaviour in reading. Since the very beginning it was a main goal of the Hallstatt weblog, to reach the people of the Salzkammergut region as well as the cooperation partners and professional colleagues. Groups, whose interests are not always easy to unite. The medium weblog is – especially in the field of humanities – still often very underestimated. Its content and language is mostly in the middle of scientific articles in print media and short-dated news on Facebook, so the definition of its target group and the adaption of content, language and public relation to this target group is essential. This is possible with the data we get from the used Blogger Tool.
One of the benefits of a weblog is the personal connection between authors and readers, which mainly is reached with a personal writing style. In contrast to classic print media, you can watch the feedback of your readers very directly.
Significant is also the interaction of Weblogs and social media. The main part of the hits are linked with Facebook, which is why it was the focus in promoting the weblog. Attention should be payed to the fact, that the promotion took place just on private accounts (like the ones of the editor and the authors). With an own account for the Hallstatt research the success would probably increase.
The experience of the last years gave us a good foundation for further development in the fields of online communication and social media data.
How can we increase the hits of our weblogs? How can we connect different science weblogs more and support each other? How can we improve the reputation of weblogs in science and reach more influencers? These and further questions I would like to discuss in the round table and exchange experiences, ideas and new concepts.
