I had a completely different topic planned for today’s Library Marketing Show.
Then Facebook dropped some news that could have a big impact on how libraries use social media: the platform is beginning to charge some libraries to include links in their posts.
If Facebook is one of your library’s primary ways of driving people to your website, events, programs, resources, or online services, this is something you need to understand.
In this episode, I’m breaking down what’s happening, what it could mean for library marketing, and why this may be a sign that we need to rethink how much of our marketing strategy depends on social media platforms we don’t control.
Photo courtesy of Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library
“Curiosity Isn’t Quiet” helped King County Library System rethink what library marketing can look like. And the results are remarkable!
Libraries spend a lot of time talking to people who already love libraries. King County Library System wanted to do something different.
KCLS serves more than 1.6 million residents through 50 libraries just outside Seattle. But after several leadership changes and turnover within its Communications and Marketing department, the organization saw an opportunity to rethink how it told its story.
The goal wasn’t simply to promote programs or convince existing patrons to attend another event. It was to get people who hadn’t visited a library in years — or perhaps had never visited at all — to reconsider what a public library could offer them.
So KCLS embarked on a campaign built around a deceptively simple idea:
Curiosity Isn’t Quiet.
And the results? Chase Gallager, Director of Communications and Marketing at KCLS, says, “A 22-point jump in brand awareness across non-members. And among our members, they were increasingly convinced that their public investment is worth it.”
“For an institution serving 1.5 million people across King County, those aren’t vanity metrics. That’s people rediscovering something they’ve forgotten was theirs.”
Chase was gracious enough to share how his library did it, so you can replicate this at your library.
Starting With a Question
The campaign began in September 2024 with a question that plagues many libraries: What do people who aren’t library users actually know about us?
KCLS wanted to reconnect with its community and “reinvigorate our marketing with a fresh campaign to drive awareness of KCLS and reconnect with our patrons.”
But the team didn’t want to rely on assumptions about what the community knew or didn’t know about the library. So they did some research.
KCLS surveyed both patrons and non-patrons to establish a baseline for brand awareness and awareness of specific library services. That research helped the team identify opportunities to showcase services that people might not associate with a modern public library.
As part of the campaign development process, KCLS brought together leadership and staff from across the organization for brainstorming sessions. The goal was to make a list of everything the library does for its community.
“Starting with leadership and staff from around the organization, we held brainstorming sessions to chart out all the things that our libraries do every day for patrons,” recalls Chase.
Chase says the collaborative process did more than generate ideas. It built trust and support internally for the campaign’s development.
That turned out to be important because KCLS wasn’t simply creating a new advertising campaign. It was changing the way the organization thought about marketing.
Meet “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet”
Eventually, the team landed on “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet.” The line works on several levels.
It plays with the traditional image of the library as a place where everyone is expected to whisper. But it also reframes curiosity as something active, energetic, and even a little disruptive.
Chase says that ultimately, the campaign became “both a playfully tongue-in-cheek reference to the hushed library hallways of the past, and an invitation to our audience to be bold and inquisitive.”
Marketing to People Who Aren’t Already Library Users
One of the biggest strategic decisions Chase and his team made was to focus on people who weren’t already regular library users.
That meant the library couldn’t simply rely on the channels and messages it had traditionally used to communicate with existing patrons. It needed to compete for attention.
Chase said the messaging was designed to reach people “who hadn’t set foot in a branch in years, maybe ever.”
“Surgically Targeted” Advertising
KCLS has historically spent an average of about $327,000 a year on advertising since 2022. That sounds like a lot to many libraries (including mine!), but it comes out to roughly $0.25 per person in its service area.
For “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet,” the team decided to make that money work harder. Rather than primarily boosting organic social media content or relying on broad-reach broadcast advertising, KCLS shifted to a social, video-first strategy.
“We worked to develop thoughtful targeting focused on our service area, as opposed to broadcast mediums that had historically spread our advertising dollars too thin.”
Chase says the library used more efficient ad types that are favored by the algorithms.
The result? KCLS cut the cost of its digital advertising by 66 percent, meaning the library could reach far more people without increasing its advertising budget. That’s a pretty compelling argument for being more strategic about who sees your advertising.
And the campaign wasn’t just about paid media. KCLS also brought in a new social media strategist shortly after the campaign launched.
“She brought fresh thinking and smart strategy to our social content,” says Chase.
The combination of targeted advertising and a stronger organic social strategy helped drive rapid growth in social engagement, including more than 50 percent growth on Instagram during the year.
The Number That Should Get Your Attention
The headline result from the campaign was dramatic: Brand awareness among non-members increased by 22 points.
That number came from comparing the baseline brand survey conducted at the beginning of the campaign with another survey conducted nearly a year later.
Because brand awareness is the central objective, Chase and his team plan to continue monitoring perception, awareness of specific library services, and other measures through additional surveys.
The Library Card Became a Piece of Art
One of the most delightful parts of the campaign was a completely different kind of marketing opportunity: the library card.
Many of KCLS’s library card designs were more than a decade old. So, the library partnered with local artists to create seven new library card designs. The team created video interviews with each artist, giving patrons a chance to hear the stories and perspectives behind the artwork.
The response was outstanding: The new cards depleted KCLS’s annual supply in just a few months.
New library cards are sometimes treated as a marketing gimmick. But here’s Chase and his team have to say about that.
“There isn’t always going to be a return on investment on revamping library cards,” says Chase. “Seeing smiling patrons with their new miniature pieces of art will always win us over.”
Curiosity Became a Summer Reading Strategy
The “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet” campaign didn’t stay confined to advertising.
KCLS used one of the concepts developed during the campaign — “Curious Creatures” — as the foundation for a new kids’ summer reading program. The library reconsidered its reading incentives and introduced a branded Welcome Kit box as part of the experience.
The results were striking. In 2024, KCLS had approximately 12,000 summer reading finishers across the system. In 2025, more than 30,000 readers had signed up, with the numbers continuing to grow through the end of July. That’s more than double the previous year’s number.
And it illustrates something important: A strong brand idea can become a platform for many different campaigns and initiatives.
Not Everything Went Smoothly
Of course, even a highly successful campaign comes with challenges. For KCLS, one of the biggest was production.
“Internally producing creative requires a lot of planning, and often we ran up against deadlines,” remembers Chase.
As a small internal team, maintaining the production pipeline remains a challenge. The library is now looking for ways to improve that process and stay ahead of deadlines.
There was also some internal confusion about the campaign itself. In particular, some staff members thought the “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet” icon was the library’s new logo.
I can relate to that problem, and it highlights an important lesson for libraries considering a major brand campaign: Changing how you market externally can also require significant internal communication.
When you’re introducing a new visual identity for a campaign, staff need to understand what it is, what it isn’t, and how it fits into the larger organizational brand.
“It’s a challenge to break preconceived notions, internally and externally,” admits Chase. “Often it takes a team working together to show a new path forward for library marketing.”
“We have learned to think big, lean into the sparks of creativity that come from brainstorming, and give new things a shot.”
The Most Important Result Might Be Hard to Measure
The numbers are impressive. But Chase says some of the best results aren’t numbers at all.
“We’ve seen a rapid increase in social engagement,” he points out. “It’s getting such amazing feedback and joy from our patrons with their new library cards, or spotting the campaign in the wild.”
To me, that’s the amazing part. Because it’s one thing for someone to see an ad because you paid to put it in front of them. It’s another thing for them to recognize your campaign when they encounter it in an unexpected place. And that recognition is exactly what brand awareness is supposed to accomplish!
What Other Libraries Can Learn From This Campaign
So what should another library do if it wants to move beyond promoting individual programs and start building a true brand campaign? Chase says, you have to start with the library staff.
“Start internally to build excitement and gain alignment with staff, especially in organizations absent other cohesive marketing campaigns,” he advises.
What I learned from writing this post is: Curiosity isn’t quiet. And neither is a library brand that knows what it wants to say.
Don’t forget to take part in the 2027 State of Library Marketing Survey! You only have a few more days to enter your answers. Results will be published January 4, 2027, and will inform the contents of this blog for the next year!
Subscribe to this blog, and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Photo courtesy of Cincinnati and Hamilton County Library
Your answers will help shape the blog posts, videos, and resources I create for library marketers in 2027.
For the past 11 years, I’ve asked library staff who work on marketing and promotion to share what’s working and what isn’t working for their library. But this year, I wanted to get more granular and provide results that help libraries improve their marketing.
To do that, I crowdsourced questions from library marketers and communicators, and some of the best ideas made it into this year’s State of Library Marketing Survey.
That makes this year’s survey especially meaningful to me because these aren’t just my questions. They’re questions our library marketing community said they want answered.
If you work in library marketing, communications, outreach, social media, programming, or any other role that involves promoting your library, I’d love to have your perspective. The survey takes about 7–10 minutes, and the results will be published on January 4, 2027.
Subscribe to this blog, and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Have you ever looked at your library marketing calendar and said to yourself, “I have to promote story time again. What on Earth am I going to say this time?”
Your library’s evergreen services are really valuable, but it can get tedious promoting them over and over again.
So, how do you do it in a way that keeps that content fresh and interesting, and perhaps brings new people to your library? We’re going to talk about it in this episode of The Library Marketing Show!
Plus, kudos go to a library that combined a pop culture moment with a popular book series for timely, authentic marketing magic.
Do you have a suggestion for a future episode’s topic? Do you want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here.
When we think about library marketing, we usually think about patrons. But every great patron experience starts with staff who know what’s happening.
That’s why I recently spoke with Nina Kenney, Head of Communications at Lake Villa District Library in Illinois, about how her library transformed internal communication.
The project was a way to strengthen culture, improve workflows, and help every employee, from part-time shelvers to department heads, feel connected.
“This project shined a light on the importance of internal communication. You can’t underestimate it.”
-Nina Kenney
The Problem: A Bigger Building Created Bigger Communication Challenges
When Lake Villa District Library moved into a new 66,000-square-foot building in 2019 — double the size of its previous location — communication became more difficult.
The old building naturally encouraged casual conversations. The new three-floor building meant staff rarely crossed paths, making it much easier for information to stay inside departments.
At about the same time, the library welcomed a new director, launched strategic planning, and created a Learning & Development Coordinator position. That is a lot of information to be shared!
Suddenly, email became the default communication channel for everything. Staff quickly became overwhelmed. It’s no wonder that when the library surveyed employees about their biggest frustration, the answer was clear: Too many emails.
That’s a tough piece of feedback. As library marketers, many of us are tasked with communicating both internally and externally. Half of our job is to make sure all staff have the information they need to do their jobs every day.
So if you can’t send an email every time you need to communicate with staff, what do you do?
The Goal Was About Communication… and So Much More
As the team evaluated intranet platforms, they realized they wanted to:
Reduce email overload
Create a single source of truth and information
Streamline marketing and service requests
Build community across departments
Make part-time staff feel just as connected as full-time employees
That last goal became especially important.
“We really wanted everybody to feel like they were part of the team,” says Nina.
What They Built
Lake Villa eventually settled on a staff hub, which became the “one source of truth” location for staff.
Their staff hub includes:
A personalized dashboard
Marketing request forms with automated tracking
Learning & Development resources
Policy documents
Board packets
Leadership notes
Knowledge base articles
Project workspaces
Team collaboration areas
Staff recognition
Birthdays
Social groups like “What Are You Reading?” and “What Are You Watching?”
One feature Nina especially appreciates is the marketing request tracker. Instead of chasing down emails or worrying about forgotten requests, every project automatically enters a queue.
“I used to miss jobs because requests got buried in email,” laments Nina. “That doesn’t happen anymore.”
Building Community Matters to Staff
So many of us think of internal communication in a very formal, business-like way. I love that Nina’s library took staff communication to the next level, intentionally building spaces where staff could simply connect.
Employees share what they’re reading. They recommend television shows. Birthdays are celebrated. Staff can publicly recognize one another for great work.
Those little interactions help replace the spontaneous conversations that disappeared after moving into a much larger building. And they create a culture that keeps staff feeling engaged, informed, and connected to the library’s overall mission.
Did It Work?
According to Nina, yes! Staff engagement has been strong, although adoption wasn’t immediate.
The team involved employees throughout development, asked them to help name the platform, and even introduced it with a fun “infomercial” during Staff Development Day.
That investment paid off. Today, staff know where to find updates, training, forms, policies, and project information without digging through overflowing inboxes.
A Surprise Takeaway About Email
One insight from our conversation surprised me. Even after building an impressive employee hub, Nina doesn’t think email should disappear.
When I shared that the library where I work sends a daily staff email, I admitted I initially assumed employees would find it overwhelming. Instead, staff told us they appreciate it. Nina wasn’t surprised.
“Say what you will about email, but it does create community. If people don’t feel engaged or they don’t feel they belong, everything else becomes harder.”
-Nina Kenney
That’s an important reminder. Internal communication works best when you choose the mix of tools that works for your staff. And that’s going to be different for every library.
Final thought
If, like me, you are trying to improve internal communication, here are some questions you can ask yourself, according to Nina.
Where do staff naturally look for information?
Are we creating unnecessary email?
Can employees easily find policies and forms?
Are project requests getting lost?
How do we help part-time staff feel included?
Are we creating opportunities for staff to connect with one another?
Subscribe to this blog, and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
When your library promotes a book, what benefit do you usually talk about?
Maybe it will help you learn something new. Build a skill. Expand your knowledge. Improve yourself.
Those are all good reasons to read, but what if we’re missing the reason people actually want books in their lives? We’ll get into it in this episode of The Library Marketing Show.
Plus, see how one Michigan library got a ton of fantastic publicity for two amazing programs.
Do you have a suggestion for a future episode’s topic? Do you want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here.
Photo courtesy of Cincinnati & Hamilton Public Library
For years, library staff and library marketers have worried about reaching Generation Z, the generation roughly born between 1997 and 2012. Currently, this group is between the ages of 14 and 29.
We’ve been asking ourselves the same questions (myself included): How do you reach people who have grown up with smartphones? How do you compete with TikTok, YouTube, streaming services, AI, and an endless supply of digital entertainment? Does this generation have attention spans so short that nothing we create will stick with them?
New research suggests we may have been worried about the wrong thing.
A Library Journal analysis of nationwide survey data contains encouraging news. Public library use among Gen Z has increased significantly since 2022, and many of the assumptions we’ve made about young adults simply aren’t true.
This study shows that Gen Z cares deeply about libraries. (Hooray!) They also reveal several opportunities for library staff and library marketers.
Here are the top five takeaways from the analysis.
Gen Z use of libraries is increasing
I think we should print this statistic out and put it in every staff workroom in every library!
67 percent of Gen Z respondents reported visiting a public library in the past year. That’s a dramatic increase from 54 percent just three years earlier.
That’s pretty amazing. Let it soak in for a second.
This is the first generation raised entirely in the digital age. They have instant access to entertainment and information. Yet more than two-thirds are still visiting and using the public library.
Books are still the gateway
One of my favorite findings from the research is that books remain central to the relationship between Gen Z and libraries.
Libraries ranked just behind bookstores but ahead of Amazon(!) as one of the primary ways Gen Z gets books. Librarian recommendations are also increasingly influential, with more than one-third of Gen Z saying they discover books through librarians.
For years, library marketers have felt pressure to market everything except books. But this research reminds us that books are still one of our strongest brand assets. Instead of treating books as “just another service,” we should recognize them as our biggest marketing opportunity.
Every book recommendation, staff pick, reading list, and display becomes a chance to build trust with a young audience actively looking for guidance.
Discovery doesn’t always happen where we think
The study also reinforces something I’ve written about before. People don’t simply wake up and decide to visit the library.
Discovery happens through many different touchpoints. Sometimes it’s BookTok. Sometimes it’s a friend. Sometimes it’s attending one event and falling in love with the library.
Marketing doesn’t create library users overnight. Marketing creates hundreds of small moments of awareness that eventually add up to a visit.
Gen Z users have one thing in common with older generations of library users
The report also uncovered a familiar problem. Even among Gen Z library users, awareness of other services offered by the library besides books remains surprisingly low.
That means the phrase that’s the nemesis of every library marketer, “Wait…the library has that?” may also be uttered by this young generation.
I know this can feel like a marketing failure. But here’s how I look at it: Do you know everything that your local grocery store carries? Probably not! And that’s okay.
You go to the store to buy the things you want or need. And when you want something new or different from your regular order, you likely search by asking an employee or pulling up the store’s app or website.
It’s unrealistic, in my opinion, to expect the public to know all your library’s services. So, let’s work on making the search element as good as possible.
Can folks easily find things on your website or app? Does your staff know about all the things available at your library? (The answer you get from staff might surprise you!)
Gen Z wants authenticity, not perfection
While the survey focused on library use, it aligns with broader trends we’ve seen in digital marketing.
Gen Z responds to authenticity. They value recommendations from real people. They appreciate transparency. They trust creators more than institutions.
Fortunately, libraries have something most brands would love to have: Humans who genuinely love helping others. That’s your competitive advantage.
Instead of relying exclusively on polished graphics and promotional language, show off your staff.
Film a librarian recommending their favorite mystery novel. Record someone unpacking new books. Capture genuine moments during programs. Introduce the faces behind your services.
People connect with people. Libraries just happen to employ a lot of wonderful ones.
What library marketers should do now
Reading this research, it’s clear that to win with this generation, we should double down on what already works.
That means:
Keep marketing books. They’re still one of your strongest draws.
Make librarian expertise visible through videos, blogs, newsletters, and social media.
Look for opportunities to explain your other services and don’t worry if library users can’t name everything you offer.
Show real staff interacting with real patrons.
Remember that one promotional piece rarely changes behavior. Consistent storytelling does.
Final thought
Every generation wants to belong somewhere. Every generation wants recommendations they can trust. Every generation wants spaces that feel welcoming
Marketing is constantly evolving, but human behavior doesn’t change nearly as much as we think.
That’s why I think this study is so encouraging. It reminds us that libraries remain incredibly relevant even to the generation that grew up with the internet in their pocket. And that’s something we can build on.
Subscribe to this blog, and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
I have a small scheduling change to share for Super Library Marketing and The Library Marketing Show.
Over the past few months, I’ve settled into my role as Brand and Communications Director at Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library.
I’m loving the work. But it’s also a big role, and I want to make sure the content I create for you continues to be thoughtful, practical, and worth your time.
So, I’m making one small change. I explain in the video.
Do you have a suggestion for a future episode’s topic? Do you want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here.
