The Londoner: ‘Cult following’ for Royal Academy’s chief tweeter

Galleries and museums are rethinking how they communicate online, partly because of coronavirus, as a “cult following” builds around one innovator at the Royal Academy.

“New media, plus lockdown, have changed museums’ views as to how to communicate effectively with their audience,” former RA president Charles Saumarez Smith tells the Londoner.

Galleries such as the RA have won praise — and seen staff poached — for their informal, engaging social media style, shown in tweets like: “Andy Warhol was born on this day, so wear a wig and eat some soup or something”, which was sent yesterday. The approach has been incredibly successful, the RA tell us. In November they hired Adam Koszary, the social media manager who made the Museum of English Rural Life a big name online. Since closure in March, the RA say they have put on tens of thousands of social media followers.

Samaurez Smith also told us the National Gallery of Art in Washington has just hired Nick Sharp, the RA’s Director of Digital, Data and Insight, pointing out “the post itself an indication of new priorities”.

One communications staffer at a gallery told us Koszary “has a quite a cult following precisely because he broke the mould and showed how traditional tones and content don’t work on social media””. But they added that, in the era of coronavirus, problems in the sector are financial. “Can having a big Twitter following help with this?”

The million pound question.

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