The #LibraryMarketing Show, Episode 186: One of my viewers is facing a conundrum.
They have been tracking data on posts on one social media platform. The data tells them that viewers are NOT responding to posts about events. They want to drive attendance at events. So, they want to switch tactics. But…
Their boss said “No.”
So, now what do they do?
I’ve been in this situation before. I’ll share my tips in this episode.
Plus we give away kudos! Watch the video to find out which library is 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.
Thanks for watching!
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The #LibraryMarketing Show, Episode 185: The best way to learn is by doing, right?
I have been extremely active on TikTok recently, as I try to figure out the algorithm. And I sure did learn some things! In the episode, I reveal the four specific things you can do to make certain your library’s TikTok videos get noticed.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for watching!
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You may remember her from this interview last year. I spoke to Barbara about her work turning a stodgy, boring annual report into a storytelling masterpiece.
One thing I love about Barbara: she is always looking for ways to improve.
Hear about Barbara’s approach to the annual report this year
A few months ago, she sent me an email with a link to her current annual report. It is also amazing.
And this year, Barbara decided to take it a step further and promote her report, activating staff to help. So of course, I wanted to know how she did it.
Barbara told me she first spent time thinking about the emotional impact she wanted her annual report to have on the community.
“What do we want our audience to think, feel, and do,” said Barbara. “We wanted to make sure that people can see that we were relevant to their lives, and the lives of the communities. So that’s how we want them to feel this is for them. This is something they are excited about and want to be involved with.”
“We want them to actually reach out and be involved in what we’re doing, to become a volunteer, to become a community member, to bring their skills to work with us, or to actually just come in and enjoy what we do. and just participate and get the value of for them in their lives of what libraries can bring.”
Hear Barbara talk about the goal of this year’s annual report.
Barbara’s first step in this new mission was to focus on the many target audiences for her annual report.
“The audience could be people who are library users but they’re probably people who aren’t library users,” explained Barbara. “They may be potential funders or sponsors, local government officers, and the people who provide our funding. We needed to advocate the value that we have, and that we bring to the city.”
Barbara’s team tried something new this year: a social media campaign to expand the reach of the stories her library is telling. And if you think people aren’t interested in social media posts about an annual review, you would be wrong.
“We had a series of five posts over five days, which were highlighting those key details from the annual review,” explained Barbara. “On Twitter, we had a 4.9 percent engagement rate compared to 2.5 percent, which is the average for the month.”
“There was a particular post that had a 6.5 percent engagement rate on Facebook. That usually averaged 2.5 percent for the month. So, it did engage with people. People were commenting on it, people were sharing it, and the engagement rate was higher than the normal engagement rate. We’re really pleased with that.”
And this year, Barbara and her staff got the rest of the library staff involved. Staff linked to the annual report in their email signature.
“We really emphasize the fact that this was an opportunity for them to not necessarily have a conversation, but through their email, they’re connecting with people, and people can see that annual review,” said Barbara.
The library has one main organizational social media account and branch accounts. Barbara and her staff worked to get all the administrators of the branch accounts to help in the social media promotion of the annual report. Her team provided context and made the ask very simple.
“We talked about what we’re trying to achieve,” said Barbara. “‘We really want you to share those posts through your social media.’ And that’s what they did.”
The plan to involve staff to help spread the message worked so well, Barbara’s team now uses it for every major campaign. She explains the impact her library hopes to have by marketing and shares examples of posts with high engagement garnered with staff support.
“We give examples of the posts that really made a difference because they got behind it,” revealed Barbara. “For example, our summer reading challenge that we do for children every summer, that absolutely by staff getting behind that campaign really made a difference. We’re starting to build that. It’s gaining momentum. And the staff are seeing the value of that engagement, they’re seeing the value of the fact that they can amplify the message and by amplifying influencers as well. “
Barbara hopes her annual report does more than inspire her community to act and support her library. She hopes it inspires you, her fellow library marketers.
“You’ve got your story,” said Barbara. “The people use your libraries, your volunteers, your staff, they know the story too. And there are so many nuggets to choose from. Think about the beginning, the middle, the end, what you’re trying to do, and what you want people to do. It really, really works. It’s the story of the people that’s really important.”
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For the past six years, she’s been the outreach, engagement, and marketing consultant at the Southern Adirondack Library System. Erica works with 34 member libraries in four counties, as well as two correctional facilities and four county jails.
Like many of you, she is responsible for providing high-quality library services.
“My position allows me to do a wide range of things, from onboarding new directors to working with community partners to install Narcan Emergency Kits for public use in our libraries to curating a personal history of the pandemic through our Leaving Our Fingerprints on History Project,” explained Erica.
So, it’s a wonder that she has any time at all left for library marketing. But Erica is responsible for the system’s monthly newsletter and social media promotion.
And her work on social is drawing praise from fellow library marketers. On the Libraries and Social Media Facebook page, one fellow marketer said, “I am here for the brilliance of the social media team/individual at Southern Adirondack. Amazing curation and writing and quantity. It’s been fun watching their reach and followers grow over the year.”
“My philosophy in all things, not just social media, is to build relationships and community,” explained Erica. “Social media is where people go to be entertained and learn something.”
“But the focus can’t be just pushing out content. We must give people a reason to visit our page, so they check in regularly.”
“One of the things that makes me happiest is when I see our followers interacting with each other – finding common interests or challenging someone’s take on things. There’s a conversation that we’re convening.”
As you can imagine, Erica has a limited about of time to dedicate to social media. So, she chooses to post to the platform with her library system’s most prominent established audience: Facebook.
“When I was a library director, I found out how long it took to develop a robust social media presence,” said Erica. “When you lead small, rural public libraries, you do all the things and don’t have much time to focus on something like social media.”
“Since most of our libraries are small and rural, I use our Facebook account to aggregate content they can use on their social media accounts as filler – in between the posts about their programs and services.”
“We don’t want to push content but invite people in to build community. I focus on finding a library or literary memes, or what I consider library-adjacent posts (cats and dogs!), or things that are nerdy and fun. It’s about creating a community of people who enjoy our page, so when we post advocacy messages, we’re reaching a much bigger audience that trusts us.”
Erica says social media is a vital part of the formula for success for libraries.
“We live in a chaotic, information-saturated world,” said Erica. “It can take a lot of work to get your message out, and part of any advocacy strategy has to include social media.”
“I think libraries are getting better at marketing, but we tend to hide our light under a bushel rather than share the great work we’re doing. And in our neck of the woods, local newspapers are few and far between, so the best way to reach people is where they’re already spending time, which tends to be social media.”
Even with her expertise in social media, Erica continues to look for ways to improve her reach and drive more connections for her member libraries. “I would love more time to strategize and devise an evil plan to dominate social media,” shared Erica. “In the best of all possible worlds, I’d create a social media calendar and be more intentional in our content and posting.”
For Erica, it’s easy to find libraries that inspire her. “There are a ton of libraries doing great stuff,” said Erica. “I love what the Stillwater Library does – they take historical items from their collection or community and ask people to respond to what it is with wrong answers only. And they do a lot of great puns.”
And Erica wants to share a piece of advice for anyone working in social media library marketing. It’s something she learned from a presentation by a marketing librarian from the Portsmouth Public Library in New Hampshire, “Be the social media you want to see in the world. That’s what I live by. Be silly, have fun, and help spread the word about the vital work public libraries do each day.”
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Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
My phone has a folder just for conference apps. And perhaps this is super nerdy, but I get a sense of thrill from moving an app from the folder to my homepage. It means it’s time to attend a conference!
Conferences, in whatever form they take, give you space to step away from your normal work tasks and learn, network, and get re-energized.
And for those of us working in library marketing, conference attendance is vital. Promoting your library means you have to balance a number of skills, like creative writing, data analytics, and project management. We need ongoing training and inspiration to do our best possible work. Conferences help you do that!
But, to get the most out of the experience, you’ll need to do more than show up and take notes. Here are my top 10 tips to help you get the most value out of your next conference.
Pick your sessions in advance.
Before you get into the car, train, or plane to travel to the conference, decide on which sessions you’ll attend. Most conferences offer sessions in tracks. Those are a series of related sessions designed to give you an in-depth and multi-layered education about one area of librarianship.
You may be expecting me to recommend that you always attend sessions in the marketing, communications, or outreach track. And I do… but only if your library is sending more than one person to the conference.
If you are traveling solo, choose your sessions based on the needs of your library. Think about the coming year and the kinds of challenges that may lie ahead for your organization. Then pick the sessions that will help you to meet those challenges.
For example, this year at LibLearnX, I attended a session on strategic planning for libraries. I knew that I needed to learn more about the process so that I could encourage libraries to add communication initiatives to their strategic plans.
If you’re on the fence about a session or are having trouble choosing between several speakers running at the same time, do some research on the speakers. Look on YouTube to see if you can find their past presentations. Check their LinkedIn profile, blog, or website. Their presentation style and willingness to share valuable information with their audiences may help you make your final decision.
Sign up for notifications.
Most conferences will send you notices through email or their app (or both) with helpful info, including places to eat and have fun when you’re not in a conference session. They may also alert you when sessions are added or dropped from the agenda. These can be valuable time savers.
Connect with fellow attendees and speakers on social media before you go.
Start checking the conference hashtag a few weeks before the conference to see who is attending and what they’re excited about. That excitement is contagious!
You might also find Facebook and LinkedIn groups connected to your conference where you can meet attendees in advance. Connecting with conference attendees and speakers ahead of time makes it less intimidating to walk into an event full of strangers.
And while you’re at it, update your LinkedIn profile. You can bet people you meet at the conference will be checking you out.
Practice how you’ll introduce yourself to new people and have a few conversation starters at the ready.
You’ll be surprised how fast you can freeze up in a room full of strangers. So even though it feels weird, figure out what you’ll say to introduce yourself and then come up with three questions you can ask someone you’ve just met to help get a conversation going.
Can’t think of any good conversation starters? You can steal mine! Of course, they are all library marketing questions.
What’s the best way you’ve found to send messages to your community?
What social media channels does your library use to communicate with your cardholders? Which one works best for you?
How does your library measure your marketing and promotion success?
Get familiar with the venue and pack your conference tote bag.
Try to arrive on the day before the conference so you can go to the venue. Figure out where the exhibit hall, session rooms, food booths, and restrooms are located. Knowing how to get around can help ease your nerves.
If the conference has early check-in, take advantage of it. The registration desk is always busy on the morning of the first day of a conference. You’ll be glad to avoid the lines and get right into your sessions.
The night before the conference, pack a notebook and pens or your laptop, some business cards, a small snack, your water bottle, and a phone charger into a tote bag or backpack. But be sure to leave room for freebies you’ll pick up in the vendor hall.
Take notes in sessions.
You might be tempted to skip this step, given that many speakers make their slides publicly available after the presentation. But you’ll absorb more of the information if you take notes.
Ask questions of the speakers.
If you are in the midst of a session and you have a question about the material, write it down. Most conference sessions include a question and answer time at the end of the session.
If you find it too intimidating to ask a question of a speaker, approach them after the session. They’ll be happy to talk with you one on one.
Give yourself a break.
I made one big mistake at my first post-pandemic in-person conference. I went from session to session without any breaks all day long! It was exhausting and I never had a chance to reflect on what I was learning.
So now, I make a commitment to myself to take a lunch break every day of each conference I attend. If I can, I take my food outside of the venue or I visit a nearby restaurant and eat while going over my notes. The breaks help me to regain focus for my afternoon sessions.
At the end of each day, go through your notes and compile a summary.
Head back to your hotel and spend about 20 minutes just writing a few paragraphs about what you’ve learned, who you met, and how these ideas can translate into your library marketing work.
The time you spend putting your notes in order will also help to reinforce what you learn. It will also prompt you to start thinking about ways to put those new nuggets of knowledge into practice at your library!
Put what you’ve learned into practice—do not skip this step!
When you return home, I want you to set aside one hour on your calendar as if it were a meeting. During that time, review your notes and pick two or three things you’ve learned at the conference that you can do at your library.
For example, maybe you learned ten new tips to get more subscribers for your email newsletter. Choose a few of the tips and make a plan to actually try them!
Try to do this within a week of returning, when the material is fresh in your mind and your enthusiasm and energy are high.
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The Library Marketing Show, Episode 171: In this episode, I’m going to share an example of a marketing campaign from the makers of the game Monopoly.
This campaign uses a very specific technique to get at the emotional motivation for playing the game. What does that have to do with library promotions? Watch the video to find out!
Kudos in this episode go to a group of Alabama libraries.
👏 I do a lot of bragging about libraries. But I can’t see everything everywhere, and I’m certain I’m missing some of the best #LibraryMarketing examples. SoI need your help! You can share anonymously if you like. Thank you!
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 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.
The Library Marketing Show, Episode 167: This episode is a must-see for any library that posts on Twitter.
Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform has put accounts at risk. I’ll explain the threat and the four steps your library can take right now to reduce the chances your library’s account will be cloned or hacked.
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 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.
Photo courtesy Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
This past week, I spent three-plus hours in a room with 38 library marketers.
We worked together on all those pieces of library marketing that we don’t normally have time for.
We identified our libraries’ strengths and weaknesses. (My weakness: spelling).
We named our libraries opportunities and threats. We set SMART goals.
We identified our target audiences (hint: your audience is not everyone!). And we talked about measuring promotions to replicate success.
These are the fundamentals of library marketing. These are the building blocks that ensure your marketing will be successful.
This was the first-ever pre-conference workshop for the Library Marketing and Communications Conference, which returned in all its in-person glory. Shoutout to the dozens of readers who took the time to say hello to me!
I told the group that I knew, without a doubt, that I would learn something from them. And I did.
My 38 new best friends
Here are the four things I learned from this fantastic, dedicated, intelligent, creative, and curious set of library marketers.
Library marketers need time to think.
We are all doing too much.
We must make print collateral, send emails, schedule social media posts, attend meetings, make press releases, do outreach events, and then attend more meetings.
I asked almost everyone I met at LMCC how things are going at their library. And I lost track of the number of times the response was, “It’s been a little nuts.”
The idea of setting aside time to consider what is to be done, how it will be done, who will do it, and how it can be more effective, is an entirely foreign concept to most libraries.
We don’t give our employees the time to work through strategic planning. There is no rest. At many libraries, the marketing is done by librarians who also have other duties. There’s never any time to breathe.
And then we wonder why it’s so difficult to create successful library marketing and communications.
That happens because we never take the time to do all the fundamental work that is necessary to ensure our marketing is effective. We’re building houses without foundations.
So, the workshop gave these library marketers permission to ignore email, text messages, chats, and outside distractions. They got three hours to focus solely on building the foundations for strong library marketing.
It’s important to create that space for yourself as a library marketer. I know it’s difficult. If you can’t attend a workshop, you can set aside time on your calendar, like you would for a meeting, to do this important background work.
Put your phone in a locked drawer. Turn off your chat program. You can even leave your physical workspace if you need to. When I worked at the Cincinnati Library, I would hide in the stacks when I needed to do this work.😉
Library marketers face the same struggles.
We did a SWOT analysis exercise, where each library marketer identified their library’s strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And then we shared as a group.
How many of these do you recognize as your library’s weaknesses and threats?
A marketing team made up of one person, trying to do ALL the promotions
Difficulty getting people to take an action, like place a hold or register for a program after they engage with marketing
Having too much to do
Having no identifiable library branding
The approvals process
Threats to funding
The list goes on.
During this exercise, the library marketers in the room began to realize that they are not working alone on an island. There are thousands of library staffers out there who understand their struggles because they face those same difficulties. They felt truly seen.
Library marketers have a lot to celebrate.
As much as we struggle to do effective library marketing, we also have many, many, many wins to celebrate. We should be proud of:
Our social media engagement
Our impactful partnerships
The fact that people open and read our emails more than they do for any other industry!
We have so much great content to promote.
We don’t do enough celebrations in library marketing. That’s one of the reasons I started giving out Kudos in The Library Marketing Show and began recognizing libraries via #LibraryoftheDay.
You can help. When you see a library doing great marketing work, give them a shoutout on social media. Better yet, email them to let them know you noticed their amazing promotion. You can also nominate a library for Kudos on The Library Marketing Show.
A little bit of celebration goes a long way to boosting morale for library marketing. We can be each other’s cheerleaders!
Library marketers thrive when they have a friend.
Most of the attendees of the pre-conference session told me they are introverts. But when I asked this room full of strangers to pair up, the room got super noisy!
There were smiles. There was laughter. There were conspiratorial looks and nods of understanding. It was magical.
And it occurred to me… sometimes we just need someone who understands our work.
Or you can message me on LinkedIn. Tell me a little about yourself and I’ll introduce you to a library marketing buddy.
Let’s support and encourage each other. When we work together, we strengthen the library industry and, most importantly, do a better job of providing service to our communities.
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The Library Marketing Show, Episode 163: I’ll share some exciting news for anyone who wants to learn more about library promotions from the top minds in the business.
There is a new podcast in the world all about library marketing. It’s hosted by a library marketer. And it’s called Library Marketing for Library Marketers! I’ll give you all the details.
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 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.
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 