Case Study 3 - The Gallery at NUA, Norwich.

Now that I have found a gallery that is very similar to The Old Lookout, both in size and the manner in which they are run, I thought it would be a good idea to look at somewhere that maybe has a slightly higher profile, but is still institutionally run and owned. The Gallery at NUA is the main exhibition space for Norwich University of the Arts students, and features their graduate shows in the summer alongside regularly changing exhibitions. Similarly to the Lookout, it is a simple space, which can be transformed according to the style of whichever artist is showing there. Importantly it is also free admission, which, having visited myself several times, is always a draw for people. However, in contrast to the Lookout, The Gallery at NUA offers people to sponsor it, giving them priority invitations to private views and ticketed fashion shows in return. This, presumably, generates revenue as well as being funded by the university. Also, in off-season months the gallery is available to rent, therefore pushing it more into the commercial galleries category.
However, as an institutionally run space, I still feel it would be worthwhile to look at their online presence, and what kind of tone they take in their updates. I also think it would be interesting to know who actually makes the tweets/updates - whether it is the person in charge of curating the gallery in general, or different students/contributors depending on the exhibition.

Images from https://www.facebook.com/galleryatnua

As expected, the gallery does have a section on the main NUA website. Although this site looks clean and slick, the actual functioning of it is not entirely clear. When the visitor first clicks onto the NUA website, a link to a page about the gallery doesn't appear obvious. You have to click through a few menus to be able to find it.

However, once the viewer has accessed the gallery's page, all the information is there, even if it is not arranged in the most helpful way. Rather than having several different pages, one for each aspect that a visitor might want to know about, everything is on the one page. This is probably because it is part of the university website. Having said that, the style of the page is consistent, and when clicking through to 'Exhibitions Archive' the right kind of information that potential visitors may want to see is provided.

On the front page of the website, links to the gallery's social media pages are quite obvious, which is good. As far as I can see, and similarly to what I have already found, they mainly use Facebook and Twitter.  In contrast to both The Old Lookout and The Ben Oakley Gallery however, the NUA Gallery has a page as opposed to a group on Facebook, on which visitors can see updates, but cannot make their own. You can also 'like' pages like these.

What is particularly noticeable in a good way about their Facebook page is that as soon as the viewer clicks on the link, the address, opening hours and contact details of the gallery are right there, easy to see and to access (excuse the fact that my Facebook language is set to French). In a way, this makes the details more accessible than they are on the website - as long as a potential visitor knew the name of the gallery they could immediately access this information, along with a map and photos of private views etc.
However, the updates on this particular page don't seem to be very regular - when I scroll down 5 posts or so, the last one was made at the end of April. This shows that this page is not kept particularly up to date. One of the main purposes of businesses using social media for me is to provide the viewer with something that they wouldn't be able to access by looking at a poster or a banner, for example. The passing on of new information needs to be quick and easy for the viewer, so having a page that is not kept up to date is probably not very useful.
For me, this page had both strengths and weaknesses. The information that would allow the viewer to get to the gallery, and not arrive when it's closed is very easily accessible. However, when the page is not updated often enough with different information, such as which exhibition is on at the moment, what the gallery looks like inside, what visitors can expect there etc, it can look unprofessional.

In contrast, the gallery's twitter page appears to be regularly posted on, but not too much as to seem overwhelming.

In a similar way to the fact that I immediately noticed the information on the Facebook page, what I notice here is the lack of information. Anyone clicking onto this page by accident should be drawn in by information/images provided, whereas here I feel that the viewer would just be confused. Consistency between a gallery's different sites I feel is important; on each page the viewer should know exactly what they are going to be reading about and should have relevant links that can direct them to other online profiles. For me, this is completely lacking here.
Having said that, the tweets themselves do give the information that perhaps is lacking on the Facebook page. Again, behind the scenes kinds of images and links to articles about exhibitors work feature a lot. There is more of an emphasis on selling work from The Gallery at NUA than at The Old Lookout, perhaps because it is more overtly a university-owned gallery, and the students are encouraged to sell work. The tone of the tweets is consistent, and conversational enough so as not to look stuffy, but not entirely relaxed and informal. On a couple of occasions they have also referenced local businesses in the area: "LATE NIGHT OPENING TONIGHT - 9pm - why not take in our Degree Shows on your way to a Thursday night drink @norwichplay". This helps create more of a community feel, even though the gallery is in the middle of a city, which I feel would appeal to potential visitors.

Overall, I feel that the online presence of this gallery is relatively strong. However, there are just a couple of issues which could be easily rectified - unifying the information about opening hours/contact details/address across all of their pages would ensure that whichever page a viewer visits, they are still provided with all the information. Also updating both social media pages regularly would help with this too. I feel that the use of a page is stronger than an open group on Facebook, but this may be something I need to look into in further detail. The Gallery at NUA have kept their online presence relatively simple, which I think works in this case, and keeps everything uniform across the different websites.