Angela Hursh leads an outstanding team of marketing and training professionals at NoveList, a company dedicated to helping libraries reach readers. A 2023 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, she has also created courses on LearnwithNoveList.com designed to help library staff learn how to create effective marketing. Before her job at NoveList, Angela led the content marketing team for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. She also has more than 20 years of experience as an Emmy-award-winning broadcast TV journalist.
In this episode, I will share four major social media headlines for libraries. These pieces of news apply to any library using TikTok or Instagram, and they could have major implications for your library’s promotions–in a positive way!
Kudos in this episode go to Berkley Library. Watch the video to see why they’re being recognized.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
And subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
In my many years of personal and professional social media use, I’ve never gone viral.
Until two weeks ago.
My brief moment in the sun came out of nowhere. And it was so crazy that I wanted to dissect it, to see if there was any lesson I could share with my library friends.
Experimenting with Instagram Reels
For the past few months, I’ve been experimenting with Reels so that I can give the best advice possible to libraries.
I started by creating my own original Reels. I shared recipes, book reviews, and homages to my co-worker. The results were nothing to write home about. I got a couple hundred views and a few likes for each video.
Then I changed focus. I decided to share my favorite genre of TikTok videos. These videos feature lots of home organization gadgets and cleaning products in action. They’re soothing to watch and usually contain some oddball element, like a fake plastic spider in the rice container!
I screen-record these videos. Then, I re-upload them on Instagram with my own narration, pointing out the things I love. I use similar captions and hashtags for every video. Sometimes I add emojis to the caption. I also add close-captioning to all the videos, using Instagram’s in-app creator tool.
Hitting the jackpot
On Sunday, August 14, at 3:30 p.m., I uploaded one such Reel.
This was the fourth Reel in my experiment. The most popular of the last three Reels got 4500 views and 26 likes.
But for some reason, this Reel was magic.
It received 1800 views in the first 20 minutes and a constant stream of likes. It was so wild that I took a screen recording of the notification stream.
Then I looked again at the views 40 minutes after I posted the video, and my jaw dropped.
22,000 views.
For a brief moment, I felt like that most popular girl at the dance.
But it was over as quickly as it started. 60 minutes after I posted my Reel, the notifications abruptly stopped. And the view count halted.
Understanding the Instagram Reels algorithm
The first step in the journey to dissect the success of this Reel is to understand the Instagram algorithm.
The main goal of Instagram Reels is to entertain. As a result, many of the videos that show up in a follower’s feed are from accounts they don’t follow.
And that’s certainly true with my Reel. Nearly all the likes I received from my Reel were from non-followers. Instagram was showing my Reel to those people because the algorithm predicted that my content would entertain them enough that they would watch all the way through and like or comment on the video.
These predictions are called ranking signals. They are part of every social media platform’s algorithm. The ranking signals for Instagram Reels are:
Recent user activity: Instagram predicts which Reels its users will find engaging by comparing new content with the kind of Reel a user has most recently liked, shared, or commented on.
Interaction history: If an Instagram user interacts with an account, Instagram will continue to show them content from that account, even if they aren’t a follower of that account.
Reel information: Signals about the content elements in a Reel, including the audio, hashtags, and keywords in the caption, help Instagram decide who to serve the Reel to.
Information about the poster: Instagram serves Reels from accounts that post consistent, entertaining videos.
Other factors that can impact the engagement of your library’s Reels
There are a number of things your library can do to try and boost the reach of your Instagram Reels.
Post at the right time
Since interactions are a strong ranking factor in the Instagram algorithm, you need to get as many likes and comments as possible within the first few seconds of posting your content. That’s why it’s important to catch your followers when they’re the most active on the platform.
The perfect timing will be different for every library. Check your Instagram insights to see when your audience is most likely to be using Instagram.
Carefully consider your caption
Write captions that give context or tell a story about your Reel. Consider a longer caption to boost the time people spend interacting with your posts as they read your caption.
Add one or two hashtags to your caption. Hashtags are an important ranking signal as they help the algorithm to understand what content is contained in your Reel.
Finally, add emojis to capture the attention of scrollers.
Interesting content outweighs expert advice on length
Experts say the optimum length of an Instagram Reel is 7 to 15 seconds. However, my viral Reel was much longer, at several minutes.
I’ve been experimenting with Instagram Reels length. I’ve found that length really doesn’t matter, so long as your video is interesting.
Really, it was just plain dumb luck
It’s most likely that my experience had nothing to do with my skill on Instagram. In fact, I’m sure of it.
Going viral on social media is like winning the lottery. You can plan and strategize and spend lots of time creating great content. And you may never go viral. That’s okay!
Going viral will bring you fame and brand recognition in markets outside of your service area. But that won’t increase your circulation or program attendance.
Your library’s goal should not be to go viral. Rather, create engaging content that speaks to YOUR audience and aligns with your library’s overall goals.
Final results and what I learned
In the two weeks since I posted my Reel, it’s received nearly 23,000 views and 609 likes. I got about 15 new followers from the Reel.
I have not seen a substantial increase in the number of visits to my blog. And I’ve got no website traffic or purchases for my day job at NoveList.
So, while it was exciting and interesting, my viral Reel did nothing to help me reach my strategic goals.
And that’s the most important thing to remember about social media. You can’t control who sees your library’s content. But you can create engaging posts aligned with your library’s goals.
Want to learn how to transcend algorithms and get the best results for your library’s social media promotions? I’ve created a self-paced course to help you reach your goals.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
And subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
For many of us, a hamburger is a delicious sandwich, no matter where you get it. No one can mess them up.
But there are things you can do to make your hamburger exceptional. For me, that means the addition of bacon, cheese, and avocado. I’ll still eat and thoroughly enjoy the hamburger if those ingredients aren’t available. But they make the hamburger go from good, to memorable.
Hamburgers are like marketing. Much of the work you do to promote your library is already good (because I know you’re doing good work!) Now, you’re on the path to maximizing the effectiveness of your marketing.
One of the ways you can ensure success is to make certain your marketing content is the perfect length. It may seem insignificant. But the right number of characters or words for a piece of content can make all the difference.
How do you know how long your tactics should be? I did the research, so you don’t have to.
Ideal length of a Facebook post: 100-259 characters
Research from experts on this one is mixed. Some studies suggest you keep captions at 50 characters or less.
But in my work with libraries, I try to pay attention to engagement rates and post length. And I personally think 50 characters is too short. So, I would suggest you try to write between 100 and 259 characters.
Ideal length of a Tweet: 240-259 characters
Most experts agree that using slightly less than 280 character limit on Twitter is ideal. That gives people the room to quote Tweet your library.
But you can do two other things to improve your library’s Twitter engagement.
Include rich media in your post, like photos, graphics, and video. In fact, multiple photos or a mix of photos and a video will help your Tweet get more engagement.
Use emojis at the beginning of your Tweet to capture attention and stop people from scrolling past your messages.
Ideal length of an Instagram post: 138-150 characters
Fun posts should have shorter captions. Information or educational posts should have longer captions.
There are other caption tricks that help with Instagram post engagement.
Add spaces between your sentences, so they look like paragraphs. Here’s an example from Amherst Town Library.
Weave in plenty of emojis. You can even substitute emojis for words to add character to your post.
Include multiple kinds of rich media, like photos and videos all in the same post, to increase the value.
Ideal length of a TikTok video or Instagram Reel: between 7 and 34 seconds
There is not a lot of data or research surrounding TikTok videos or Instagram Reels. It does appear that, even though the platforms allow you to create videos that are several minutes long, shorter videos lead to maximum engagement.
Ideal length of a LinkedIn post: Less than 210 characters
There is lots of dispute around this recommendation. I’ve picked the median number. And to help with engagement, I have a formula that’s worked well for me.
Construct a good, first teaser sentence, and then put a space between it and the rest of your post caption. This will cause your reader to have to click on “see more.” It works!
Good content on LinkedIn is also important. Videos natively uploaded to the platform get lots of engagement. Also, try polls to increase engagement.
Ideal length of an email: 100 words
Different types of emails should have different lengths. If you’re sending someone an onboarding email, you’re going to need to write more than if you’re sending an email promoting an upcoming event.
There are some scenarios where a couple of sentences is plenty to capture your cardholder’s attention and others where you’ll need several paragraphs to get your full point across.
In general, keep your email text as simple as possible. Be straightforward about the benefit of your library service or collection item or event. And drive recipients to your website for more information.
Ideal length of an email newsletter: 3-4 pieces of information
In my experience advising libraries, email newsletter recipients never click anything past the first 3-4 pieces of content in an email. I always recommend sending shorter, more frequent email newsletters rather than one long monthly version.
If you don’t have control over how long your email newsletter is, you can help engagement by placing the 3-4 most important things at the beginning of the email. If your email provider has a table of contents feature, use that to drive interest to content further down in the email.
Ideal length of an email subject line: either very short (30 characters) or very long (90 characters or more)
It appears that the extreme ends of length catch the attention of the inbox scroller.
Longer subject lines boost response rates, according to Adestra, a U.K.-based email service provider. Its analysis of more than one billion emails showed that subject lines of 90 characters and more produced the highest response rates. They theorize the added characters increase engagement because they can communicate more value to the recipient.
But their research also found that subject lines at 30 characters or less performed well. That’s because the full subject line can usually be seen by the recipient, both in desktop and mobile versions of mail provider apps.
Experiment with both ends of the length spectrum to see which your audience responds to. And keep in mind the other factors that can impact subject line effectiveness.
Ideal length of a YouTube video: Between 7 and 15 minutes
This stat comes from several sources, including Social Media Examiner.
It’s important to let your content dictate video length. A how-to video may need five minutes or more to show the process. An unboxing video can be shorter. If your video is interesting to watch, the length won’t really matter.
Ideal length of a podcast: 22 minutes
Your target audience will really dictate the perfect length for your library. Most research I found recommended 20 minutes for podcasts aimed at listeners who are doing chores or taking short walks, 40 minutes for people commuting or doing longer chores, or 60 minutes for those who want an extended listen.
Ideal blog post length: 2,000 words
That’s a lot of words! For context, the Monday articles here on Super Library Marketing run between 1,000 and 1,500 words each.
So, before you get anxious about word length, remember that quality blog posts will always do well, no matter how long. If your post contains valuable or interesting information that your reader wants and needs, it will do well.
If your blog is less than 2,000 words, there are some things you can do to make it feel meaty to the reader. You may have noticed these tricks in my blog posts.
Present information using bullet points or lists.
Write longer paragraphs at beginning of the article.
Insert scannable headlines.
Include images, especially those that explain concepts or demonstrate your point.
Finally, it’s important to include keywords in your title and frequently within your post. You may notice I use the terms library marketing and library promotion in almost every title and throughout my articles. That’s because I know those are used by library staff searching for help with their marketing.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
The Library Marketing Show, Episode 155: In this episode, I want to share the early results of ongoing research in Poland about how non-library users view the library.
This research is being conducted with the help of mystery shoppers, who are asked to go into a library and perform a specific task. After their experience, they are interviewed.
The results are fascinating. I’ll share some topline findings and ideas for how to counter these results with smart library promotions.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments. And subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Photo of the Old Main Library reading room for the blind, courtesy Cincinnati & Hamilton County Library
The Town Hall Library in North Lake, Wisconsin occupies a quaint white building with black shutters that looks like it might have once been a church. It serves a population of about 10,000 residents and its website says it’s “known for its friendly service and varied collection”.
The library’s summer reading program has two more weeks to go. But Town Hall Library is already taking the data from the program and putting it to use in its promotions.
The Library created a Facebook post that leads to an infographic, which lays out the number of participants, visitors, programs, and pages or books read in plain, easy-to-understand details.
Libraries have long counted circulation statistics, program attendance, minutes logged during summer reading, and the number of visitors who walk in and out of their building on any given day.
They’ve taken those stats and created videos and infographics. They’ve used those numbers to win awards. And they share that data to prove their value to their community, donors, legislators, and whoever controls their budget.
I wish libraries would measure their digital marketing with the same dedication. That data is crucial to figuring out which library promotions are working.
Metrics are the key to confidence in library marketing.
When I ask libraries if they measure their digital promotions, here are the three most common answers I receive.
“Measurement is hard.”
“We think we’re reaching our community.”
“It seems like our promotions are effective.”
My co-workers often describe me as “a data nerd.” And it’s true. But I’ll share a secret with you. My love of numbers is rooted in insecurity.
That’s because promoting your library can be scary. I often don’t know exactly which of my choices will work.
And when I’m facing a decision that could either lead me to a successful promotion or a total failure, I lean on the numbers to help me decide.
If you are not tracking the results of your digital library marketing, you are setting yourself up for failure. You may think you are doing a decent job.
But the only way to know if you are truly connecting with your community is through the consistent measurement of your digital promotions.
Measurement of digital library marketing is necessary and transformative.
Metrics are a game changer for your digital marketing.
They tell you what is working so you can replicate that success. They tell you what isn’t working so you can stop doing those things.
They give you the proof, in the form of data, to back up your decisions. They can justify more budget for things you need to reach your audience.
And most important, data holds information about when and where your specific audience wants to receive promotional messages from your library. You’ll also learn their favorite types of content.
Digital marketing metrics every library must track
On a basic level, every library should consistently track the following metrics.
Email
Open rate: the percentage of people who receive your email and open it.
Click-thru rate: the percent of people who click on something inside your email.
Actions taken by email subscribers: did they register for a program, check out a book, or use a database after receiving your email?
Social media
Reach: total number of people who see your content.
Impressions: the number of times your content is displayed. Impressions will always be higher than reach because your content may be displayed more than once to the same people. That might sound like a waste of time. But a high impression count means the social media platform you are using thinks your content is so good, that they want to make certain people see it!
Engagement: the number of times people take an action, such as liking, commenting, or sharing your post.
Website
Number of visitors to your website
Number of new visitors versus the number of returning visitors
The length of time visitors spend on your website
Traffic sources that determine how visitors find your website
What this data will reveal about your digital library promotions
At the basic level, measuring your promotions will ensure that you are using your valuable time and energy in the place where it will be the most effective.
Data can also help you make sure you create more effective promotions! Leslie Marinelli is Communications Manager at Forsyth County Public Library. She’s been closely monitoring the data around her email marketing.
She noticed her library’s subscriber list got smaller and smaller each month, even though her library was signing up a substantial number of new cardholders every month.
Because she was monitoring her email metrics, she was able to uncover a hole in her subscriber list process. Fixing that process led to an increase in subscribers to her email list each month. And that means more people in her community will discover what the library can offer them.
Make measurement part of your daily library work schedule.
Block off five minutes in every workday to gather or analyze the metrics of your marketing and promotions. Honestly, it only takes five minutes a day.
Check the basic numbers listed above. Every. Single. Day.
Pretty soon, you’ll notice patterns. You’ll be able to predict the types of content that get the most engagement. You might also notice that promotions on certain days of the week get better results.
At the end of your first month, ask yourself what is working and what isn’t. And adjust your promotions accordingly.
Tracking metrics will lead to more effective promotions. It’s that simple!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
The Library Marketing Show, Episode 154: In this episode, I will share how your library CAN compete with Amazon for readers!
A study by two researchers from Portland, Oregon shows us why readers prefer Amazon.
But libraries can win those readers back with some simple changes. I’ll show you what the researchers said libraries need to do to compete with Amazon.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments. And subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Photo courtesy Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
Imagine for a moment that you are walking down a city street, minding your own business when you see the clown Pennywise.
That’s right. The terrifying lead character from the Stephen King film “It,” remade and re-released in 2017, is hanging out in your city.
Now, what if I told you that the reason this horrifying clown was roaming the streets was to promote a library event?
Yea, that’s the reaction I had too.
But a library in St. Petersburg, Russia really went this route. And you know what? It worked.
The library used the wandering horror film character as a chance to draw attention to their Stephen King Festival. Someone dressed as Pennywise “would walk through the city, frightening passers-by and informing them about the upcoming festival.”
Honestly, I would never have approved this when I was working as a marketing manager in a library.
But it worked for this library. Because the media found out about the Pennywise clown stalking pedestrians. The clown, and the library, were covered in the press. We’re talking about dozens of outlets.
And that’s how people found out about the event. That led to record attendance. The library said 800 people showed up for the festival, more than four times what they had expected.
How do you draw attendance without scaring your community
Promoting your library is difficult. Events, renovations, new services, and additions to your collection cost money. They come with high expectations and goals. They require months of planning. The pressure to prove the value of your work to your community is high.
But there are things you can do to increase the likelihood your library gets noticed. This list does not include having someone dressed as a horror character wandering around your city or town.
But you know, I’ve learned a lesson from reading about the Friends Library. Sometimes you must be bold to get results.
Use storytelling to capture attention.
The first step is to think differently about the way you promote your library to the world. You want to capture the attention of your community, your cardholders, and the media. Telling a great story is a powerful and effective way to do this.
Your promotions need to do more than list off the details about your library. You want to set up the reason why your community should use your services. You want a memorable, compelling way to convey the valueof your work.
A simple storytelling formula begins with the people.
Talk with the library staff and community members about whatever you are trying to promote. If you’re focused on a big event, follow the organizers around for a bit as they attend meetings, make calls, and get materials ready for the big day.
Interview a community member who is benefiting from the event, service, or collection item. If you are promoting a project that involves a partner or sponsor, get an interview from those organizations.
You don’t have to do a full-length Barbara Walters-style interrogation. You can ask a few simple questions that will add color and humanity to your promotion.
Here are some interview tips.
Write down your questions ahead of time.
Ask open-ended questions like, “Why did you sponsor this event?” or “Tell me why the library is offering this new service to our community.”
Actively listen and ask follow-up questions.
End the interview by asking if there is anything else the interviewee wants to say that you haven’t covered.
Once you have all your interviews, it’s time to write.
Focus on the characters, not the library.
Put all the quotes you want to use into your document. Then, work the details of the event into your story where it’s appropriate. Before you know it, you have a compelling piece that you can use to promote your event on social media, in email, and in print.
Guille-Alles Public Library is on the island of Guernsey, just off the coast of Normandy. And they work with Storybook Dads, a charity that helps incarcerated parents stay connected to their families by recording a bedtime story for their children. The Library’s Outreach Team has been working with Guernsey Prison for several years to provide books and readers’ advisory support for people convicted of crimes on the island.
To show the value of their work and to make sure their community knew about this project, the library wrote a compelling story. It featured interviews with library staff and incarcerated fathers.
The logical place to put this story is on your library blog. Another option is to create a landing page on your website and post your story. You want your work somewhere where you can easily share a link, preferably on your own website.
Housing your story on your website has an added benefit. You’ll also be rewarded by Google, which will pick up you keywords in your post and start showing the post in search results for anyone looking for those keywords. Google doesn’t catch keywords on PDF or Word document press releases posted to a website.
If you are not allowed to post your story on your own website, you can post your story on Facebook or on LinkedIn as an article. Both social media outlets offer you plenty of space. Facebook gives you 60,000+ characters, which can be roughly 8-10,000 words. LinkedIn articles give you twice that amount!
Share your story link everywhere.
Your library has an available audience on a variety of platforms. Now it’s time to make sure they read your story!
Send an eblast to your cardholders and include the link.
Share the link on your other social media platforms.
Make bookmarks that include a few sentences teasing your article and a shortened URL. Insert those bookmarks in all your holds and checkouts leading up to your event. Share the bookmarks with your partner organizations.
And send a link to your story to your media contacts in a personalized email. I know it takes longer to send an email to each media contact than to send one mass email, but it’s worth it.
Here are some tips for writing the perfect pitch to journalists by email.
Keep the body short but personalized. Address the journalist by name.
Keep the subject line short and simple but intriguing.
Get to your point quickly and include the link to your story.
Explain why news of your upcoming event is beneficial to that media outlet.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
The Library Marketing Show, Episode 153: In this episode, I will try to put to rest a question that continues to permeate the library marketing world.
Libraries are defenders of truth, democracy, and privacy. And in that noble quest, they sometimes hurt themselves by repeating the false myth that they cannot send emails to their patrons because it’s an invasion of privacy.
Email marketing is not an invasion of privacy. I’ll explain why and what you can do even if there are laws (not privacy-related!) that limit the amount of emails you can send.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
And subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 