Content published on culture360.org is widely shared by our users via email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media.  We like to know what content users most interact with and how social media patterns are changing.  So each year we analyse the content sharing to see what the Team and Editors can learn.  Editor, Judith Staines, reports on the findings from 2013.

In 2013 there was a substantial increase in the amount of social media sharing of published content.  We found that 70% of our content was shared over 100 times (compared to 33% in 2012).

Two-thirds of all Opportunities and more than half of the Culture News, Publications and Magazine articles published on the site in 2013 were shared more than 100 times. Popular items were shared over 3,000 times.  Patterns of sharing are quite variable, depending on the type of content.

Overall, Facebook remains the most popular way to share content, particularly for open calls and other opportunities for artists, cultural managers, arts organisations and researchers in Asia and Europe. But Twitter is hot on FB’s heels. Notices for interesting publications received more shares on Twitter in 2013 than on Facebook; Culture News items also had a much higher proportion of shares on Twitter this year.

LinkedIn is also starting to make its mark as a preferred tool for social media sharing of Culture News (creative industries, cultural management and policy items, especially) where it represented 15% of the shares, having barely registered in 2012.

Some of these increases in social media traffic are due to our reaching more site users (180% increase in Unique Visitors in 2013), from better integration of the content publication with social media channels and - it would seem - you like what you read!  culture360.org aims to continuously refine the quality and relevance of the content, to seek out better ways to disseminate it, and to engage in an interactive conversation across Asia and Europe.

In 2013, there was an 80% increase in visits from Facebook, a 200% increase in visits from Twitter and a 550% increase in visits from LinkedIn. The Twitter account has been particularly active and reached a significant milestone in November 2013 when it obtained its 5000^th follower.  The top five ASEM countries using Twitter are the UK, Australia, Indonesia, Spain and Singapore.  We also note that mobile visits now account for 12% of the network total traffic - a 1000% increase since 2011.

We ran an extraordinarily successful Asia-Europe Short Story Contest in 2013. On the theme of ‘Long Way Home’, 483 entries were received and the ten shortlisted stories were opened up for online voting to decide the winners. The winning short story has racked up over 14.1k social media shares to date.

Excluding the Short Story Contest, the most shared content item was the UNESCO grant scheme: UNESCO IFPC | grants for young creator projects  shared 3,018 times. This was followed by Funding opps | Mobility Funding Guides 2nd Edition, shared 2,635 times and Vienna | Artist in Residence Programmes | open call, which was shared 2,052 times.  Eight content items were shared over 1,000 times.

Opportunities are extremely popular and widely shared.  Our main focus is to achieve a balanced access of information to opportunities across Asia and Europe. In 2013, we found that some of the most extensively shared Opportunities (Residencies, Open Calls, Grants, Competitions and Jobs) were in Japan, Korea, France, Germany, the UK and Austria.  Along with the two listed above, popular opportunities included: Asia Awards 2013 | international art and design competition (1,150 shares), George Town Festival 2014 | call for artists and performers  (898 shares), Edinburgh | Atelier for Young Festival Managers 2014 (774 shares), Korea | 2013 International Fellowship Contemporary Art (772 shares) and Japan | Beppu international artist residency (709 shares).

Culture News is an active, fast-moving area. We see our users are quick to respond to news items in the areas of cultural policy, cultural management, culture and development and creative industries. Our users seem to be active researchers of the contemporary arts and culture scene in Asia and Europe, and particularly interested in relevant publications, so we hope to continue to achieve high levels of social media sharing in this section in 2014.

We published fewer Events this year, as we noticed you were not sharing this content so much. With better targeting, the sharing of events announcements has nearly doubled and we think you can learn a lot from keeping an eye on what is going on in the arts and culture scenes across Asia and Europe. So do check our listings of Exhibitions, Festivals, Conferences and Meetings and pass them on.

The Magazine section of culture360.org features specially commissioned interviews, articles and profiles, with special In Focus themes each year.  The interview with Indonesian artists at the Venice Biennale, Indonesia at Venice Biennale | Carla Bianpoen & Rifky Effendy, by Bharti Lalwani was shared 836 times. Lai Del Rosario’s review of a major Philippines contemporary art show in France, French-Filipino tandem Philippine contemporary art to France, had 775 shares and the annual round up of cultural events, Asia-Europe | arts events 2013, by Judith Staines was shared 758 times.

In 2012 we found that the most widely shared content was Asia-related, but 2013 saw a balanced representation of Asia and Europe among our most popular content. Countries that feature in the top shared listings include Brunei, Japan, Korea, Italy, Spain, UK, China, Austria, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Malaysia, Switzerland, India, France, Poland, Viet Nam, Indonesia and the Philippines. So, if you are looking for a varied, informative resource on Asia-Europe arts and culture news, events and opportunities - you’re definitely in the right place!

Great work was done in 2013 by Jeffrey Withaya Campell, as Technical & Social Media Coordinator, to build up the social media profile and reach of culture360.org. We now have a new team in place in 2014 and welcome Piero Zilio as Social Media and Web Analytics expert and Timothee Guicherd as Technical Coordinator.  A new social media strategy has been developed so make sure you are connected to culture360.org's social media channels to keep up to date - and to follow our progress.

AND ...  if you see something interesting on culture360.org in 2014 … pass it on …