The Pensacola Pin Series: Promoting Historic and Archaeological Sites through Free Stuff

Summary

Social media has fantastic potential for promoting heritage resources, however, a ‘critical mass’ of participants is often necessary before a program can become effective. This year, the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN) began using the social media site Foursquare to promote local historic sites and museums. To stimulate traffic, FPAN released a series of six collectible lapel pins which participants were required to attend events and check-in on Foursquare to acquire. After the Pin Series Program ran for three months, the number of participants involved in both the program and Foursquare were used to measure the effectiveness of the collectible series as a promotional tool. This paper describes the program and its results in the hope that others can make use of similar methods to promote heritage tourism in their area.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Community Education and Public Engagement   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-79,05