How to Increase Museum-Goer Engagement and Collection Relevancy with Digital Storytelling

Our focus for this series is to help you build a business case for a digital storytelling program in your museum. This series can be used to help you persuade decision-makers that a digital storytelling program is worth the resource allocation required. These posts may also be useful with potential team members or even sources of possible funding.  

Previously, we introduced digital storytelling benefits and reviewed how it can supplement (or even replace) physical exhibits. In this post, we’ll explore how digital storytelling can support multi-vocal storytelling and improve collection relevancy.  

Digital Storytelling Supports Multi-Vocal Storytelling

Stories are richer when multiple voices offer different portions of the narrative. This approach, called multi-vocal storytelling, brings together diverse experiences, recollections, and interpretations that help build a more complex story—one that is ultimately more satisfying (and typically more relatable) for the audience.

Offering different perspectives in a physical exhibit is one of the most difficult elements to achieve due to space restrictions. However, this is not an issue for digital storytelling. There’s no technical limit to the number of voices you can include in an online museum story.  

Read More: The Role of Museum Collections Online in Storytelling & Audience Engagement, Museum Collections Online: Learning Through Storytelling, and Storytelling to Inspire Reflection Using Museum Collections Online discuss how multi-vocal storytelling (among other features) helps to achieve successful story engagement.

Benefit: Multi-Vocal Elements Increase Engagement Opportunities

Offering a variety of voices within a story increases the potential for audience members to resonate with featured characters or communities. Seeing themselves reflected in a story engages the brain and leads to deeper learning and reflection. Multiple perspectives enhance engagement with the exhibit by providing more opportunities for visitors to connect through sympathy or empathy.  

As a refresher, engagement as a storytelling goal occurs in three phases: 

1. Primary attention capture 
2. Sympathy or empathy triggered 
3. Drive to see the story through to the end 

Weaving multi-vocal elements into a digital story pathway is relatively simple, making it easier to implement than in a physical exhibit.  

Benefit: Expands Collection Relevancy  

As a result of digital storytelling, collection relevancy can mean a few things: 

1. How the related exhibit or collection is relevant to the story told;
2. How relevant the museum website and collections online rank in Search Engine Optimization, which impacts search results based on adjudicated relevance; and
3. How relevant the museum is to its audience based on the digital stories it chooses to create and share. 

Collection relevancy benefits are layered. Digital storytelling can easily leverage collections online and incorporate collection content into the story being told. This natural symbiosis improves an online collection’s SEO (internet relevance), which leads to increased online collection use. Finally, digital stories can aid in bolstering museum relevancy across a broad spectrum of its potential audience.  

How Expanded Relevancy Benefits the Museum

The increase in relevancy in one or more of these areas will have a positive impact on museum foot traffic, museum membership numbers, donors and funding, and civic and school partnerships. A museum’s relevancy should be monitored continuously; a loss of relevancy means a loss in perceived value and usefulness to the community that supports it.  

Small Yet Mighty

Digital storytelling is a small but powerful tool that contributes to a museum’s relevance to the community and adds to its perceived value—all for a relatively small resource footprint. Increased audience engagement through multi-vocal storytelling and expanded museum relevance are two achievable benefits for any museum that embarks on creating a digital storytelling program.  

Next time, we will review the final major benefit: how digital storytelling improves collection access and makes museum content more accessible online. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is multi-vocal storytelling? 

Multi-vocal storytelling incorporates multiple perspectives or voices in a narrative. It enriches the story, helps audiences connect emotionally, and makes exhibits more relatable.  

How does digital storytelling improve collection relevancy? 

Digital storytelling allows museums to highlight how artifacts relate to broader narratives, improve online visibility through SEO, and strengthen audience connections. 

How can a museum benefit from implementing a digital storytelling program?

Benefits include increased audience engagement, enhanced collection relevancy, higher museum foot traffic, improved memberships, donor interest, and stronger partnerships with schools and civic organizations.

Is digital storytelling resource-intensive?

No. Digital storytelling is a “small yet mighty” tool. With relatively modest resources, museums can achieve meaningful engagement and improve the perceived value of their collections.