Whereas the identical huge names usually dominate the highest 20 most-followed museums on social media in our annual Customer Figures report, it’s attention-grabbing to see which museums have the very best proportion progress, yr on yr. The Huntington, in San Marino, California, noticed its viewers on Fb, X, Instagram and TikTok develop by over 25% between March 2024 and March 2025—now totalling greater than 750,000 followers—making it one of many prime 5 museums for social media progress on this planet up to now yr. We communicate to Deborah Miller, the Huntington’s director of digital and social content material technique in regards to the rise of YouTube, the autumn of X and dealing with the world’s cutest social media influencer.
The Artwork Newspaper: How many individuals work on social media on the museum?
Deborah Miller:Two individuals full-time, me and Arianna Muñoz, however different individuals on the workforce usually help.
It’s mentioned that video is an important format for social media progress—do you discover this to be the case?
Sure, we’re totally targeted on video manufacturing—that’s the vast majority of content material we produce. There’s three movies from final yr that have been the largest mills of progress. One was about how you can create a pretend tree out of pool noodles, which we use in our conservatory. It blew individuals’s minds that they weren’t actual! One other widespread video was with one in all our rose gardeners doing a deadheading tutorial.
These successes have been a window into the content material instructions we must always actually spend money on. After which the third video was a collaboration put up with The Tiny Chef Present [an Emmy-winning animated children’s television series]. We placed on a tiny afternoon tea for Tiny Chef and took him on a tour—it was such successful. Plus he’s in all probability essentially the most lovely influencer we’ve labored with.
Does the museum usually work with social media influencers?
Not usually, however it’s an space that we’re undoubtedly trying to develop. We need to create a very intentional technique round who we work with, the way it showcases the Huntington and what the connection is. I feel influencers and content material creators can deliver in several views and audiences.
The Huntington’s highest following is on Instagram—would you say that is an important platform for the museum?
Instagram might be our most dynamic by way of progress and engagement. In 2024 our Instagram posts had round 95 million impressions and our engagement fee is tremendous robust at round 8% [Statista reports that the average influencer engagement rate on Instagram in 2024 was 1.85%]. However essentially the most thrilling platform for progress for the museum up to now yr is definitely YouTube. It launched YouTube Shorts in 2021 and I feel we started posting our quick movies there in late 2023. Shorts are an awesome bridge to the longer video content material we have now on YouTube, so we’ve been experimenting on there. Final yr we gained 60,000 followers, and we simply handed 400,000 subscribers in complete.
Our information reveals Huntington misplaced round 5% of its followers on X up to now yr, in keeping with most museums on this planet. You additionally haven’t posted on the platform since 1 February 2025. What’s the museum’s plan for this platform? Are you contemplating diversifying?
We now have made a aware determination to pause communications on X. We now have seen a whole lot of different establishments doing the identical, each domestically and nationally. We’re monitoring the channel and since 2022, it’s been in decline. We joined Threads and, although we haven’t invested closely in it, it already has double the next that we presently have on X. We’re additionally monitoring Bluesky, however the consumer base continues to be low compared to different platforms. The social media panorama is unstable so we’re at all times holding a watch out for modifications.
