TweetUp in Bonn: Florentine Twittering 2.0

If you Google “TweetUp,” you will receive 1.5 million hits.
Even for renowned museums, that is simply too many to allow the trend of “real life meetings via Twitter” to pass without leaving a trace. But should TweetUps be taken seriously as an approach to providing information about art, or is it merely a form of advertising? Is communication via Twitter worth the effort? Is the multitasking involved in shuttling between absorbing information and commenting too exhausting, or instead a digital fun factor? And what can actually be achieved?

Museums, theaters, and opera houses in particular remain in a state of uncertainty – the more adventurous are simply trying it out. The Bundeskunsthalle (Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany) in Bonn, for example, organized a guided tour with twittering guests through the exhibition “Florence!” on February 6.

There, 26 participants were invited to attend the 45-minute guided tour, hundreds of tweets were sent, with nearly 50,000 Twitter users reached during the first 24 hours. Resulting alongside these were Flickr photo albums, Facebook posts, and a radio contribution by the WDR5 – all of which were disseminated further. A rapid and numerical success that simply fizzles out in the fog of millions of daily tweets? Or the digital positioning of a renowned institution that thereby certifies its flexibility and its attunement to the Zeitgeist?

Anyone who wants to answer this question for themselves can follow the hash tag #tweetup at Twitter or take part themselves. After all, anyone can tweet.

Arnika Fürgut went to Bonn to report for #32, and tweeted enthusiastically. Incidentally, she is convinced that way back then, the Medici of Florence would have done so as well – if only they had had smart phones instead of rolls of parchment.