For the third year in a row, the MDC collected data on online visits showing the total that the number of user activity on museum websites has decreased compared to 2021; however, virtual tours offered by more museums have seen a jump compared to 2020, as well as newsletters with a less dramatic but stable growth.

Out of 168 museums listed in the Register of Public and Private Museums in the Republic of Croatia, 75% responded to the survey on the online attendance of Croatian museums in 2022.

The number of user activity on museum websites in 2022 is 4,192,259, as reported by 95 museums—3.3 million less than in 2021. When analyzed by the type of content, online collections had 454,499 visits, online exhibitions 188,052, virtual tours 727,860, online education programs 76,753, and live online events 25,158, while the newsletters of twenty museums had 254,592 visits.

For all 121 museums that provided data for social media use, Facebook is indispensable, as in previous years. The data on views and activity indicate that it is the most used online social media (15,166,344), followed by Instagram, which 70 museums use (1,366,724). The most common among Croatian museums is the combination of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, while only ten museums are Twitter users (with 79,689 visits and reactions).

YouTube is the preferred online video platform used by 60 museums. The number of TikTok users increased to five museums in 2022 (compared to three museums a year earlier), although the data on views, followers, and reactions to the content (22,130) do not show the kind of boom we witnessed in 2021.

The online video platform Vimeo rose from one museum that used it in 2021 to three in 2022, while the total number of views of the offered content is 726.

Despite wanting to measure audience interest in various online museum contents, the numbers alone cannot be the only indicator of the success or quality of a program. The goal of using online media should be interaction with a user who could, through selected content, enrich their knowledge, supplement and deepen the information obtained in a museum or become interested in the museum content, with the added benefit of having fun in the process.

(Tea Rihtar Jurić, published originally in News from the Museum World 189, 21 March 2023; edited and translated by Ivona Marić)