Sharing culture360.org content 2012 | pass it on

Content published on culture360.org is widely shared by our users via email, Facebook, Twitter and other social media. With an active culture360.org community, we like to track what content users interact with. So every year we analyse patterns of information sharing to see what we can learn. culture360.org Editor, Judith Staines, reports on the findings from 2012.

2012 saw a huge leap in the sharing of published content. A third of the 690 Opportunities, Events, Culture News, Magazine articles and other content published on the site in 2012 were shared more than 100 times. Several popular items were shared over 2,000 times. Patterns of sharing are variable but overall Facebook is the highest recorded method of sharing, with some content being widely shared by email and Twitter.

We publish a similar amount of content in each of the three main areas:

Opportunities

Events

Culture News & Magazine

As in 2011, we find that our users are most likely to pass on the Opportunities announcements. Around 45% of the Opportunities are shared widely (more than 100 times), 41% of the Culture News/Magazine articles and just 13% of the Events. So do keep sharing our published Opportunities, News and Magazine articles and don’t forget to take a look at our Events listings – you might be missing something!

The resounding success of 2012 in terms of shared content was culture360.org’s first online Photo Contest on the theme of Shared Stories of Asia and Europe. The 31 entries were shared over 5,000 times through social media during the one month online voting period. By the end of the year more than 7,000 shares had been registered as the photo galleries continue to draw views and shares.

Among the most shared content in 2012 was the research we commissioned on Mobility Funding in Asia. Published in mid-September, this was shared nearly 1,400 times in the first 15 weeks. As a unique resource , the Mobility Funding Guides on International Cultural Exchange in Asia by Marie Le Sourd are set to be popular shared content for a long time yet.

On the Opportunities side, culture360.org users are particularly keen on Residencies and Open Calls. Jobs, Grants and Competitions also get a lot of attention. In 2012, the most popular Residency was the Kyoto Art Center 2013 residency call (nearly 700 shares) and Japan dominated the top five shared residencies with three other opportunities there (Beppu, Akiyoshidai and Animation) alongside the interesting experimental residency Copenhagen Human Hotel (500+ shares). New Zero Artspace’s International Multimedia Art Festival in Myanmar was the most popular Open Call (over 800 shares) and we noted a strong interest in Myanmar this year with news about Yangon’s unique architectural heritage attracting nearly 500 shares.

The Magazine section of culture360.org features specially commissioned reviews, interviews, articles and profiles, drawing many readers and social media shares. Anupama Sekhar’s article on Social media trends in Southeast Asia was big in the social media (over 1,300 shares) and the Cultural Transitions: George Town article by Sali Sasaki was shared over 1,000 times. We launched two new magazine series in 2012: nine articles in the By people / In cities series covering Kuala Lumpur, Phnom Penh and Hong Kong have been shared nearly 2,000 times in total; while the four Curating culture360.org reviews were shared around 500 times.

We notice that users are quick to share Culture News, particularly on visual arts, cultural policy and the creative industries. An announcement of the Pompidou Centre’s global branding plans was shared nearly 2,500 times and over 1,800 users passed on the news about Bangkok’s new Museum of Contemporary Art.

We also observed that content featuring Korea, whether news, opportunities or events, generally gets a high level of social media sharing. Is it Koreans sharing content about their own country or has the Gangnam Style and K-Pop effect attracted more interest in Korea?

A lot of shared content is Asia-related – for example, the top three items for various categories feature Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, China, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and ASEAN initiatives. We want to know what you think about this. Does it mean that Asians share more than Europeans? Or are Europeans coming to culture360.org to find unique perspectives and news about Asia – and sharing them? Send us your comments!

Finally, we were especially pleased to find that some of the magazine articles and cultural policy content published in 2011 and 2010 was still actively shared, demonstrating that culture360.org remains a valuable research resource on Asia-Europe cultural collaboration.

So if you see something interesting on culture360.org in 2013 … pass it on!