In this episode, I answer a viewer question from Natasha Buran of Thousand Oaks Library. She asked, “I was curious if you’ve seen other libraries use ‘Revue’ – Twitter’s newsletter tool for writers and publishers. I thought it would be interesting to add monthly programs or resources and pin it to our profile. I haven’t seen libraries use this feature before and thought I’d ask.”
I gave my answer in the video. This is just my opinion of course!
Kudos in this episode go to the Topeka-Shawnee County Public Library. They recently opened a resource center for community members without a computer or internet access.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know by clicking on the feedback button. And subscribe to this series to get a new video tip for libraries each week.
In this episode, I’ll address a post I saw recently on the Libraries and Social Media Facebook page. A library staffer shared their plans to pull back on the amount of posts they are doing on Twitter. There was a bit of debate among the members about whether that was a good idea.
Kudos go to the San Marcos Public Library for their Breakfast Club inspired photo shoot.
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 video tip for libraries each week.
In this episode, we’ll go through the latest updates for social media platforms and what they mean for libraries.
This month’s headlines include a change in Twitter’s image cropping policy, a new report on Instagram use, and another new report that lays out the “alleged” best times to post on each social media platform. Watch the video to find out why I believe libraries should take this third report with a grain of salt!
Kudos go to the Coralville Public Library. Watch the video to find out why a fellow viewer nominated them for mention in this episode.
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 video tip for libraries each week.
In this episode, I want to inspire you to experiment with your library marketing and promotions this summer. I’ll give you some ideas to help you do this, and I’ll explain why right now is the perfect time to try things you’ve never tried before.
Kudos go to the Iowa Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. They were honored by the Library of Congress for their work during the pandemic.
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 video tip for libraries each week.
In 2016, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County caught wind of a fantastic promotional opportunity.
I don’t remember the exact quote, but this is a paraphrase of a Tweet our library saw that revealed a local man’s big plan.
“My son and I are planning a big adventure. We’re going to try to visit all 41 Cincinnati library branches in one day. We’ll take a picture at each branch. Wish us luck!”
The father didn’t tag our library. Still, our social media manager found out about the plan by practicing social listening.
What is social listening?
Your library already tracks mentions, shares, comments, and hashtags related to your library. They record and analyze those engagement metrics to figure out the effectiveness of your library’s promotions on social media.
Social listening is a step beyond that.
Social listening is the purposeful search for conversations about your library on social media platforms, both the ones you are using to promote your library and the ones you are not using.
It’s not looking to see how your library’s marketing is landing. Rather, it’s looking to see the conversations that happen about your library between people who may or may not use your library or who may or may not see any marketing from your library.
Imagine if you could eavesdrop on the conversations people are having about your library when you’re not around. What do you think your community would say?
“That children’s librarian is a hoot. His storytimes are fun, even for the adults.”
“I cannot believe I have to create a separate login and password to use some of the library’s free stuff. It’s so frustrating and time-consuming.”
“Big interview on Monday. I could really use some help figuring out what kinds of questions they’ll ask and practicing my answers. There ought to be a service like that at the library.”
These three made-up examples illustrate the valuable information your library can uncover when it practices social listening.
Social listening will give you a clearer picture of how people feel about your library. You may be able to spot problems before they happen. And you will certainly spot promotional opportunities which you can amplify to connect to more users.
In the case of the father and son Cincinnati Library branch adventure, our marketing staff reached out to the dad. We told him we loved his plan and wanted to follow along. We ended up turning their marathon day-long quest to visit all our branches into a memorable cover story for our quarterly content marketing magazine, Library Links.
Read the story about the Grand Library Adventure
Free social media listening tools
If your library uses a social media scheduling platform, it will have the ability to integrate social listening into your dashboard in some form. Check the help section of the platform for instructions.
There are also free tools to help you with social listening.
Boardreader: This site searches forums, websites, blogs, and messaging boards. Type the name of your library into the search bar to find all the posts mentioning your library.
TweetDeck.com: This tool is run by Twitter and lets you monitor live feeds across the platform.
Also, read this post to see how to use Google alerts for social listening as well as catch media mentions of your library. If your library gets media coverage, you may find conversations about your library in the comment section of the story and on the social media pages of the media outlet.
What to monitor with social listening
You’ll want to set up your social listening tools to monitor:
Your library’s name and social media handle
Common misspellings of your library’s name and social media handle
Names of your services, especially branded names, like the name of your bookmobile, your Library of Things, your summer reading program, your storytimes, etc.
Common terms associated with libraries like reading, librarian, book drop, etc.
The names of senior leaders like your director and board members
The names of your branches and locations
Opportunities to gain from social listening
Social listening means you can interact more with your community. Cardholders (and non-cardholders) may talk about your library but not directly tag you. If you are doing social listening, you will still spot those interactions.
You can also spot problems and trends. If you notice that a lot of community members are posting negative comments about a service, you can elevate that to senior leadership.
Social listening also means you’ll know more about your competitors. If you are “competing” with other organizations in your community or with for-profit companies that provide services similar to your library, you can use social listening to look for opportunities to position your library as a free and better alternative to those competitors.
Finally, social listening can also help you identify library advocates. They might be vocal about their support of the library. You want to connect with these people who already love your library and ask them to speak out for you.
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In this episode, we’ll go through the three big new stories on social media that impact your library work. This includes new Pew Research on social media use, YouTube’s overview on how it recommends videos to viewers, and a new feature for Facebook posts.
Kudos in this episode go to the Siouxland Libraries for their new library card designs.
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 video tip for libraries each week.
Every night before bed, I watch TikTok for about 20 minutes. The videos in my “For You” feed consist of funny animals doing hilarious things, fashion and makeup (I really miss dressing up!) and books.
I’m outside of the platform’s average demographic in terms of age, but I love the original and creative content. I find it inspiring.
I have only created a few TikToks to share. It takes a lot of effort and time. And that is why I usually hesitate when I am asked if libraries should be posting on TikTok.
Consuming TikTok content is easy. Making it is harder.
But in the past year, TikTok has really taken off. As of March 2021, the app has 689 million active users worldwide. By comparison, Facebook has 2.8 billion users and Twitter has 192 million active daily users (Twitter doesn’t report monthly use).
TikTok says it’s users are roughly 60 percent female and 40 percent male. Most of the global users are under the age of 34 years.
But here’s the kicker. The average user spends about 52 minutes a day on TikTok. By comparison, the average user spends 53 minutes a day on Instagram, 33 minutes a day on Facebook, and six minutes a day on Twitter.
It took Twitter and Facebook years to get to the same level of use that TikTok enjoys now, so clearly people love TikTok. But does that mean that your library should spent time and energy posting to TikTok? And if you do, will you see any measurable marketing results?
Here are some things to consider as you make that decision.
The TikTok algorithm is kinder to libraries.
TikTok’s algorithm offers more organic growth potential than any other major social platform.
TikTok shows a new post to a small group of people (both followers and non-followers) who are likely to be interested in the content. It shows up on a user’s “For You” page. If that content gets a lot of engagement on the “For You” page, TikTok will then expose the post to more people. As the content continues to drive engagement, the algorithm keeps adjusting to show it to a wider and wider audience.
By contrast, other platforms like Facebook and Instagram filter content in feeds. Facebook and Instagram have lots of rules in place that make it unlikely that your content will ever be seen by all your followers. And getting Facebook and Instagram posts in front of non-followers is nearly impossible unless your library is willing to pay to boost a post or buy an ad.
There isn’t as much content about libraries and reading.
Although TikTok has a lot of users, the competition levels in the feed for the kind of content your library would likely create is very low. There are really only a handful of libraries posting to the platform right now.
That means your content has more of an opportunity to catch attention and gain popularity on TikTok than on other platforms.
TikTok only lets you add links in your bio.
As is the case with Instagram, you can’t embed a directly clickable link in your TikToks. If you have a call to action that requires a link, you’ll have to add it to your bio.
Great content on TikTok doesn’t equal effective marketing.
The TikTok algorithm does not take the location of your library into account when it shows your content to followers. That means many of your most engaged followers may live outside your service area. Your library may have a huge, highly engaged TikTok following without any measurable marketing results.
It takes time to learn to create TikTok content.
I found creating my own TikToks to be time-consuming and a little confusing. And I think I’m adept at social media, plus I have video editing experience!
That said, if you have staff who are driven to post on TikTok, there are lots of great tutorials on YouTube about how to use the various creative tools. Some of the best are this one by Katie Steckly and this one from Social Media Examiner.
You can get super creative on TikTok.
TikTok has more tools to create unique videos than most other social platforms.
For example, the duet feature lets you make reaction videos in response to what other users post. You can also add music and special effects to posts.
Each of these tools adds a layer of difficulty and a measure of time in creating content. But they also increase the chances that your TikToks will be engaging and impact more people.
Advertising on TikTok is expensive.
Right now, the cost of buying an ad on TikTok is $10 per 1000 views, which doesn’t seem like much. But the platform requires you to spend a minimum of $500 per campaign, which immediately prices it out of the range of most libraries.
What to do if you decide to try TikTok
Set an experimental period of one to two months.
Decide on a consistent posting pattern, like once a week or every Monday and Friday. Then stick to it for the entirety of your experimental period.
Keep a record so you can track how your posts are doing. Start a spreadsheet and record the type of post you create, when you post it, how long your video is, what affects you use, and how much engagement you get. If you are using your videos to drive attendance at an event or drive circulation, be sure to track that.
At the end of your experimental period, you’ll have enough data to determine if it’s worth your library to continue to post on TikTok.
I also suggest you read this article by Kelsey Bogan, a library media specialist at Great Valley High School, for the perspective of a library staffer who is using TikTok. Scroll to the bottom for a great list of libraries and book accounts to follow on TikTok for inspiration.
What to do if you decide NOT to try TikTok
Get on the platform and claim you library’s name anyway, in case you change your mind later. This is especially important if you use the same handle for all of your library’s social media accounts. Save the name and password you create.
Libraries, librarians, and book-related accounts to follow on TikTok.
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It’s time for our social media updates for Library Marketing! In this episode, find out about updates to Instagram Stories, YouTube shorts, and Facebook.
Kudos in this episode go to Illinois Prairie District Library for their purchase of a Short Story Cube.
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 video tip for libraries each week.
In this episode, I’ll answer a question from Jennifer of the Park Ridge Public Library. She asked, “What advice would you give to a library needing to reboot the way they use YouTube? We have a YouTube account but only used it sporadically in the past. How can we effectively use it to promote programs, host book talks, share big library news?”
Kudos in this episode go to the Sierra Madre Public Library for their amazing work on TikTok!
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 video tip for libraries each week. Thanks for watching!
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 