Digital Culture Network Award category
About Digital Culture Network Award
The Digital Culture Network Award recognises outstanding commitment to digital skills development or implementation of digital technology to drive change within an organisation or by an individual.
The Digital Culture Network Award category allows us to celebrate organisations and individuals who’ve approached the Digital Culture Network for support and are committed to harnessing the power of digital technology and utilising it to better engage with and understand their audiences, streamline their processes and find opportunities for growth. We want to share their stories so they can inspire and facilitate others on their digital journeys.
Each candidate is nominated by one – or more – of our Tech Champions, for their commitment to digital growth. Meet the Winners and all the nominees below!
The Winners
Samia Malik
Samia Malik was nominated for her dedication to exploring new digital platforms to engage fresh audiences and her proactive efforts to upskill in multiple digital areas.
Image credit: Samia Malik
Norwich-based Urdu English singer-songwriter Samia Malik enlisted the help of the Digital Culture Network to support her Arts Council Project Grant-funded 2023 album Songs to Heal and Empower. Through this, she embarked on a significant learning journey, revolutionising her approach to digital marketing.
With the help and encouragement of the Tech Champions she embraced social media paid marketing and gained an understanding of email campaigns, SEO, analytics and data, shaping a cross-channel digital strategy to spectacular and transformative effect. With the help of effective Meta advertising campaigns, her planned digital reach increased by 500%, growing from under 400,000 to over two million engagements. In addition, she used targeted YouTube ads to generate 634,114 views of a live event recording. The campaign’s combined digital engagement was 2,155,528 across Facebook, Instagram, Spotify streams, unique website visits, and Mailchimp email activity.
Samia is now building on that work and making digital reach a primary focus moving forwards.
Migration Museum
Migration Museum was nominated for driving impressive revenue growth in their online shop using social media advertising campaigns.
The Migration Museum has harnessed the power of Meta advertising to refocus the promotion and sales strategy for its online shop, resulting in impressive revenue growth.
Image credit: Migration Museum
Retail Manager Katy Clinch sought assistance from the Digital Culture Network to help the museum maximise sales by using Meta ads. Katy set up custom audiences to more effectively target both existing and new customers and move them through the marketing funnel, while utilising already well-received video content in a new ad campaign.
Strengthening her skills, Katy set up lookalike audiences to bring users into the top of the funnel, created ad variations to tailor the language for different audiences, and deepened her understanding of tracking and reporting.
As a result, online sales soared by 387% week on week, and the learnings from this were used to inform the museum’s Christmas gifts campaign, and Katy and the team have continued to innovate within this successful format.
Barber Institute of Fine Arts
Barber Institute of Fine Arts was nominated for their dedication to transforming visitor data collection through the development of impactful survey design and effective surveying strategies, to better listen and respond to their diverse audiences.
Image credit: The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
In 2023 The Barber Institute of Fine Arts undertook significant research into survey design, culminating in the redesign of their survey to better support their KPIs and mission to be a ‘responsive’ museum. This, alongside survey training, led to a 104% increase in visitor surveys collected.
With support from the Digital Culture Network, Communications and Marketing Officer Nadia Sommella created a new, more focused and effective survey from scratch. The updated approach better meets the needs of colleagues and stakeholders across marketing, curatorial, events, education, outreach, and the University of Birmingham, where they are based. Training, provided by the Digital Culture Network, for the organisation’s front-of-house and learning and engagement teams increased confidence in survey delivery. This project led to the completion of more than 600 surveys in just over three months, a hugely impressive figure not only for the Barber but for the wider museums and galleries sector. A call to action on surveys also led to a 30% growth in mailing list subscribers.
With a closure for major building improvements, an ambitious event programme, and a reimagining process underway, the audience data collected in 2024 will be instrumental for them to develop future strategies and achieve their mission.
Gulbenkian Arts Centre
Gulbenkian Arts Centre was nominated for repositioning and executing their digital marketing strategy to include innovative, fun tactics resulting in an impressive jump up in their target audience numbers.
Image credit: MisterEB
David Yard and Maeve Mena are the team behind guiding the cinema at Gulbenkian Arts Centre through several significant challenges over recent years. With competition from a new Curzon branch nearby, the rise of streaming platforms, and the impact of Covid on the cinema industry, they had to re-evaluate and reposition their marketing strategy. To tackle these challenges, they worked with the Digital Culture Network Tech Champions to evaluate plans and shift their focus on engaging students and local residents. They used their unique position as a university cinema with a diverse film selection to their advantage, launching two key campaigns: “Your Cinema on Campus” targeting students, and “Canterbury’s Independent Cinema” for locals.
To enhance their digital presence they focused on revamping their website to improve navigation and user experience. They also made social media a core focus by launching the cinema’s first Instagram account. Aware of the high student footfall in the space during daytime lectures, they employed innovative in-theatre tactics, like QR code stickers on seats, which significantly boosted student engagement.
As a result, since the September 2024 launch, overall ticket sales for film screenings have risen by 13.3%, with tickets purchased by students and young people increasing by 75%, now representing a third of total ticket sales.
The Longlist
Blast Theory – Nominated for their skilful use of a social media advertising funnel for ‘Cat Royale’ with outstanding results.
Foundling Museum – Nominated for an empowering and staff-led digital transformation, overhauling the full tech stack for the museum, delivered through innovative collaborative partnership.
Gravity & Levity – Nominated for their inspiring use of video to create an accessible how-to guide for people to attend their workshops.
Institute of Contemporary Arts – Nominated for their sector-leading commitment to creating an extensive range of digital access support tools for both visitors and staff.
Shakespeare North Trust – Nominated for their commitment to building accessibility into shows and experiences, including creative captioning in performance.
SAMPAD – South Asian Arts Development – Nominated for their commitment to digital strategy development. Embracing change and using strategic principles to bring together a wide-ranging programme.
Tall Stories – Nominated for transforming their organisation by dedication to systematically embedding a digital culture, driving meaningful improvements and impact using data.
Dorset Museum & Art Gallery – Nominated for successfully creating and implementing a brand-new digital marketing strategy and prioritising digital upskilling across their team.
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