‘Snackable’ art served up by LACMA’s social media maven

Maritza Lerman Yoes said she was worried when she first joined Snapchat on behalf of her employer, the LA County Museum of Art–believed to be the first art institution to deploy the youth-oriented social media app. Would the brand of irreverence necessary to succeed on Snapchat offend her bosses at the museum?

The answer is, it seems, no: Last week one of the big VPs asked her how to download the application on her phone. There’s been some buzz about her funny posts, which deploy the assets of the institution in fun ways, and which lead us to pay her a visit.

In her nine months on the job managing the museum’s social media presence, Yoes has enjoyed having a run of the museum to think creatively about social media promotion, and interacting with followers. “People send me just the weirdest stuff. People love it,” she said. She’s also there to be human and says people get excited when she writes back. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Yoes calls her quest to create “snackable” content part of her job as a digital storyteller at the museum–be it at a studio visit or wandering around the grounds of the facility.

Here’s our conversation: