Museums have always been producers of content and education. But there’s never been a better time to capitalise on the shift away from centralisation toward more dynamic, diverse ways of connecting with audiences. Whether your museum is volunteer-run or equipped with a professional production team, the opportunity is now. With limited and low-cost tools, even the smallest museum can reach a global audience—no matter how niche its collections or stories.
And if your organisation lacks expertise, there is an incredible diversity of free online resources to help you get started. You can also engage digital natives through internships or placements—essential pathways for young professionals to hone their craft and build new skills. Your museum has value, and it’s time to recognise it.
The Tank Museum shows what’s possible when a museum fully embraces video. With a professional production team, it has built one of the world’s most successful museum YouTube channels—transforming a highly specialised subject into global entertainment and education. I never imagined I’d find the history of tanks so compelling until I engaged with their content. That’s the power of storytelling: it makes people care about subjects they never thought were for them.
This shift speaks directly to education. Learners today expect to design their own journeys—choosing what, when, and how they engage. Centralised classroom-based education has significant limitations, creating a gap that museums can fill. Want to understand the gaps your museum could address? Engage with your communities, listen to their needs, and build learning solutions that matter.
The possibilities are rich: educate and entertain through video, create immersive experiences with animation, gamify learning to make it interactive, collaborate with education providers, offer modular online courses, hybrid models, flexible pathways, or short stackable modules. When developing your content strategy, remember media and entertainment have a lot to teach us about audiences and storytelling. Watch, learn, and adapt. Museums—keepers of deep knowledge—can deliver compelling, relevant, and globally accessible content that meets audiences where they are.
The opportunity is here, and the movement is already happening. Will your museum choose to be part of it?
#MuseumInnovation #DigitalStorytelling #OnlineEducation #GamifiedLearning #CulturalInfluence #FutureOfMuseums
