Cultural venues and social networks
Cultural venues are on social media out of obligation, without a clear strategy or convincing results. We need to rethink their presence: no longer communicating vertically, but nurturing audience sharing.
A presence to be questioned
Cultural venues – theaters, cinemas, concert halls, museums and other institutions – now maintain a presence on social media that is more a matter of obligation than thoughtful choice.
Yet the real question is not that of the active and direct presence of cultural venues on these platforms, contrary to what one might think. The fundamental question is: why be present? When we question the managers of cultural venues who invest time and energy, and mobilize their teams in this approach, to ensure this digital presence, the answers become hesitant. Professionals struggle to justify this practice.
Let’s clarify the question: does this presence generate more attendance? The answer is no. So what does it bring? Why persist? I once received this disconcerting answer: “to exist.” But exist for whom? For what purpose? In connection with which mission of the venue? This injunction to digital “existence” reveals a profound confusion between personal use and professional practice of social media.
Confusion between personal and professional practices
Cultural professionals generally reproduce their personal usage habits on social media, which can be explained by the lack of serious training on the subject. Often there is no real strategic reflection to guide professional practices vis-à-vis social media. Content is produced and published as any individual user would do.
This coexistence between natural persons and legal entities on the same platforms works poorly. When a cultural institution, theater, cinema, museum, disseminates information, it proposes, it offers, it communicates from top to bottom in a logic of cultural democratization. However, we know the limited scope of this approach: like a flyer distributed on the street, only one message in a thousand will be truly read, precisely because it is unsolicited institutional communication.
Conversely, horizontal exchanges between users, what we call peer recommendations, have an impact on cultural consumption approximately ten times greater than that of institutional messages from the same venue. This is the power of recommendation. And digital platforms have understood this well: even outside of direct interactions between users, they systematically display “people who liked this book also liked” or “those who watched this series also watched,” artificially recreating this peer recommendation dynamic. This horizontality constitutes the very essence of a cultural democracy in which institutions have no intrinsic place.
The mismatch between cultural venues and niche logic
How then can a cultural venue find its place in this ecosystem, and why should it? Let’s look more closely. On the various social networks (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, or even WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and Twitter/X) exchanges are organized around ultra-specialized niches. Each account cultivates a precise identity: the Baroque specialist, the discerning cinephile, the Egyptology enthusiast... This thematic specialization guarantees subscribers know exactly what type of “content” they will receive.
“Creators” can also create multiple accounts to cover different themes. However, a cultural venue has two handicaps: it cannot structurally issue recommendations, and its programming necessarily embraces cultural diversity. Even a venue dedicated to classical music will program contemporary, 20th century, romantic, baroque music, a diversity constitutive of its mission. Such a venue’s account therefore lacks a clear cultural identity. One could argue that this diversity, this eclecticism, this singular programming precisely constitutes its identity, but this approach remains insufficiently “niche” to fit into current social media usage.
Certainly, the absence of established uses does not prohibit working to transform them! But this requires real strategic work. Mechanically depositing the same content on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, three platforms with radically different logics, is nonsensical. Broadcasting the same message on several networks as one would broadcast an advertisement on several television channels demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the potential of social media. That’s why I’m writing on this subject!
These platforms are not simple showcases for traditional communication. They are spaces for horizontal interaction, vast territories of recommendation, even collective creation on TikTok, debate on Twitter, visual portfolio on Instagram, etc. The gap between the investment made and the results obtained, whether in terms of increasing attendance, making the venue known or promoting artists, confirms this fundamental inadequacy.
The “YouTube channel”: confusion between hosting and strategy
The case of YouTube perfectly illustrates this misunderstanding and deserves attention before examining alternative strategies. YouTube, a community video platform launched in 2005, makes it easy to upload and share videos between users. Its value lies in this ease of sharing, combined with an adapted communication strategy, and not in simple viewing, for which many alternatives exist. Video hosting is therefore not YouTube’s added value, a thousand other solutions exist. Its specificity lies in the discovery, sharing and commenting dynamics it generates.
Yet most cultural venues consider YouTube a simple video host, which it fundamentally is not. This confusion produces dismal results: the vast majority of institutional YouTube channels display derisory view counts, devaluing both the content and the venues. The contrast between production investment and audience reached creates a damaging association, even if unfair, between low distribution and low quality. Without an elaborate sharing strategy, content gets lost in the ocean of 500 hours of videos uploaded every minute on the platform. Hope for spontaneous success is miraculous. The rare historical exceptions only confirm this rule.
Result: deserted channels that, to use the adolescent expression, cause “cringe” and discourage viewing. An effective YouTube strategy requires reflection and resources, with videos being only one element. In their current configuration, these channels harm more than they enhance cultural venues.
Yet this presence on YouTube seems essential. Why? To host videos, some answer. Inadequate answer: for twenty years, hosting videos without using a third party has been perfectly accessible. A simple properly encoded MP4 file can be placed on a website like any text, image or audio file. The browser natively plays these videos, exactly as it displays a JPEG or plays an MP3. And this approach has several advantages: videos remain in the institutional site’s ecosystem, without external redirection or parasitic algorithmic suggestions at the end of playback. Editorialization becomes possible, inviting coherent navigation in the venue’s digital universe. I repeat: YouTube is not essential for hosting videos.
Web providers maintain this confusion out of habit rather than strategy. From a heritage perspective too, self-hosting guarantees sustainability: site backups include videos, preserving this audiovisual heritage. Entrusting your content to third-party services, which moreover monetize our audience through advertising, means abandoning control of your heritage, and this is politically serious, especially for cultural services paid for with public money.
For one-off viral distribution, an exceptional moment to share widely, YouTube regains its relevance. But even then, content must be duplicated on the official site, with reciprocal links to bring the audience back to the institutional ecosystem.
INA, Arte, Netflix and many other media have understood: being media means hosting your content, remaining master of your distribution. YouTube is not a simple technical operator, even if its managers carefully cultivate this ambiguity. Replacing a deserted YouTube channel with a rich and editorialized site constitutes the relevant strategic choice.
The discoverability argument thanks to YouTube doesn’t hold: video SEO always relies on the textual environment – keywords, titles, descriptions. An editorialized web page, enriched with related content, optimizes SEO much better than a video in a YouTube channel.
Digital discoverability is a matter of semantics. Rich structuring, diverse but coherent content maximizes the chances of being found. This logic also applies to artificial intelligences, which analyze the textual environment to synthesize and recommend. Videos integrated into an institutional site will be infinitely better referenced than in an external YouTube channel.
The website: cornerstone of a strategy built as an institution
Should we therefore abandon social media? Absolutely not. But institutional identity must be preserved without competing with individual users. A cultural institution can offer natural persons exceptional resources: unique experiences, exclusive content, creative spaces, which they can share on their social networks.
A constructed strategy consists of providing active users with materials they will have an interest in sharing and recommending. The website then becomes essential, not as a communication tool, but as an official source of information and reusable and shareable media. A collective institution needs an official space, repository of authentic information. The richer this site, the more official information will gain in solidity and sharing potential.
Rather than posting directly on Facebook to harvest a few ephemeral likes, creating detailed articles, complete photo galleries on the institutional site proves more effective in the long term. No “like” button, just quality content, freely shareable and reusable.
The absence of immediate interaction may seem less gratifying, but this approach gradually builds a corpus that officializes and perpetuates the cultural life of the venue, via this “official narrative” available and enriched over the years. Instead of dispersing in the ocean of social media, this memory remains structured, accessible, in quantity and quality. For a given event, why limit ourselves to a “communication” approach? Twenty-five photographs are better than three. The website is not a communication tool but a source. Editorialization belongs to users, who will choose what touches them and share it in their own way.
Towards a strategy of cooperation and empowerment
To activate this dynamic, for example let’s inform spectators that immediately after the performance, while photos were prohibited during, they can access via a QR code distributed to them a professional selection of photographs, texts and resources about the show they just experienced. Those who enjoyed the experience will want to share it. Having quality official media available, some will appropriate them to create posts of much better quality than alone: retouching, remixing, personal storytelling. Their voice carries ten times more than that of the institution. A single authentic share by a spectator equals ten institutional publications, in terms of impact.
This appropriation creates a virtuous circle: the person returns, becomes loyal, and if their share resonates, thanks to the symbolic value of official information shared by a personal voice, they extend their own network while promoting the venue.
Let’s go further. A beautiful theater, remarkable architecture, unique spaces constitute assets. Let’s offer content creators the use of these settings, even the technical expertise of the teams, for their own projects, not necessarily related to the programming. The venue becomes a resource, a collaborative space allowing creations of a quality inaccessible alone. The impact can be considerable (and this is the case at the “Studio 13/16” at the Centre Pompidou). We as institutions stop chasing misunderstood practices to cultivate our own identity, an official source with high symbolic value enriching personal productions.
Let’s also support audiences, especially teenagers, in their digital practices. The professional technical and artistic skills present in our venue, video, lighting, sound, staging, scenography, museography, among others, can nourish mutually enriching collaborations. Audiences bring their needs: “on TikTok, we would need adapted booths.” Why not, if these booths are installed in the historic backstage of the theater?
Users’ needs become sources of cultural projects created with them, not for them. This dynamic can inspire unprecedented artistic projects: collaborative shoots with artists, broadcast by participants themselves on their networks, for example. The physical stage then nourishes a multitude of digital stages.
The subject goes far beyond promotional communication. Considered in this depth, it effectively generates more attendance, not through disguised advertising, but through authentic cooperation between the specific qualities of cultural venues and the needs of active users of social media. And above all, it supports cultural venues in the deep respect of their audiences’ cultural rights and helps them renew their proposals as well as their professions.
My multidisciplinary practices—spanning creation, cultural action, training, and support in a wide range of cultural, social, and educational contexts across France—provide me with a privileged, subjective, and in-depth observatory of the cultural sector in France.
This sector is weakened by its position, often deemed “non-essential” by many political leaders, by the competition from digital platforms in cultural practices, as well as by challenges and obstacles related to the difficulty of establishing interdisciplinary collaborations and the scarcity of evaluations, which are often poorly conducted and instrumentalized.
My observatory allows me to identify dynamics that work, as well as difficulties I observe. Here, I propose to share my analyses, methods, and suggestions, hoping they may prove useful. My goal is to contribute to a stronger cultural sector in the future, as I believe that defending a cultural sector funded by taxpayers’ money holds the potential for emancipation, the development of freedoms, democracy, and the capacity to act—in a way that is fundamentally different from what private actors produce.
This is possible if there is no hypocrisy, and in my view, it comes at the cost of a commitment to lucidity and self-questioning, a choice to deconstruct representations, and perhaps to challenge certain privileges and systems of domination.
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