It’s been six months since I walked out of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County for the last time as an employee.
You’d think that moving from library staffer to library patron wouldn’t be that big of a revelation. After all, while I worked at the library, I was also a patron.
But there is a mindset shift that happens when you stop working on a library’s communication strategy and start seeing those communications exclusively from the customer side.
Now, when I receive an email from my library, or see a library social media post, or watch a library video, or see a sign at the library branch drive-through window, I don’t know what goal my library is trying to achieve.
I have no idea how long the marketing team worked on those promotional pieces.
I don’t have any insight into the discussion over wording, image selection, and calls to action.
I have no idea how many revisions they went through before they received final approval.
Once I took off my marketing hat and put on my customer hat, I started to see things very differently. I learned some eye-opening lessons.
Patrons cannot fathom the breadth and depth of your services.
Libraries really do offer an extraordinary number of services. It is impossible for a regular person to understand or remember all of them.
I thought I had a pretty good handle on every service provided by my library. But I would be hard-pressed to list them all if I were forced to, even just six months out from my employment.
With that in mind, library marketing needs to get laser focused. Pick your promotions based on your library goals for the year.
With the pandemic, your goals likely shifted in the past few months. So, focus your promotions on achieving those goals.
Release your promotions consistently over a set period of time and on as many channels as makes sense for your audience.
Most importantly, resist the urge to promote everything your library offers. It’s overwhelming to your community. Your message will get lost.
Organic social media is not your friend.
I am a former library employee. I visit the library website at least once a day. I talk about the library on social media.
And yet, I rarely (if ever) get served my library’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram posts organically. Most of the time, I must go looking for them.
If I’m not seeing my library’s social media posts, can you imagine how many other people are not seeing them?
In my new job, I talk with a lot of libraries who rely heavily on social media. I’m not saying that you should not post to social. I just want to remind you that social media is also fickle and imperfect.
Be sure to distribute your marketing messages across multiple channels, including email, so you’re sure your whole community will see your message.
In a crisis, more communication is better.
The pandemic and the resulting shutdown came about six weeks after I left the library. And watching it unfold as a customer was interesting.
My honest assessment is that my library did a great job of communicating when it went into shutdown and when it reopened.
However, in the weeks in between those two major events, there was very little communication to patrons.
And I was craving news, even if it was “Our physical buildings are still closed, and we don’t know when we’ll reopen.” In fairness, this is a criticism I had for a lot of organizations, including my church and my kid’s school.
In a crisis, there is no such things as over-communication. Regular updates to your patrons and community are always better than radio silence.
The more you talk to your customer base, the more likely they are to remember you and support you when the crisis is over.
People just want to be informed. Silence feels like abandonment to your patrons. Communicate more often when your library is in crisis.
A well-designed website is a gift to your patrons and essential to your library’s success.
The main digital entry point for your library is your most important asset.
In my new job, I do a lot of research on libraries of all shapes and sizes. I spend a lot of time looking at library websites.
Some are easy to use and some are not.
It’s no surprise that the libraries with beautiful, easy-to-navigate websites report more engagement from their patron base in the form of circulation, attendance at events (even virtual events), and donations.
If you have any say over your library’s website, it behooves you to spend time making it an amazing portal to your library.
As a patron, I am grateful when I can find exactly what I need when I visit a library website. Need a place to start? Here are some tips.
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It’s Not Personal: How to Deal with Negative Comments and Bad Online Reviews of Your Library
The lowest moment in my library career came about four years ago, when my library endured a year of bad press.
First, a local TV news station ran a story about drug overdoses at the library. Then, our administration briefly entertained the idea of selling a portion of our main library building to a developer, to raise funds for the renovation of other library branches in our system. You can imagine how the community surrounding the main library reacted.
Our marketing department handled the press coverage well. But, in the fallout, we noticed that the negative press coverage led to negative reviews of our library.
Our services hadn’t changed. Our commitment to the community hadn’t changed. But the negative news stories changed the public’s perception of us.
It played out several times a week when we would post announcements on social media. We were met with comments from people who used those posts to try and steer the conversation to the negative library coverage. I admit, it was exhausting and frustrating.
If you are lucky enough never to be the target of negative press coverage, your library will still have to deal with negative comments, one-star reviews, and NextDoor drama. Even when you are trying to make a difference in the community, you’ll be targeted by complainers.
Negativity is bad for you and bad for your library
Ignoring negative reviews and comments is not an option. They have the power to damage your library’s reputation. A study by Moz.com shows one negative review can drive as many as 30 people away from your library. The more negative reviews and comments you have, the more people you lose, according to the data.
Negative reviews can also hurt your library’s ranking in search. Search engines generally list the highest ranked organizations and businesses first.
What can you do?
It doesn’t matter if your library is giving away $10 bills with every checkout… someone is going to find something to complain about. They’ll probably do it online.
It’s hard to know how to handle the situation when an irate, antagonistic library user posts a negative review on a social media site or website. Your immediate reaction is to jump into firefighter mode, drag out the fully charged hose, and put out the flames… pronto.
But it’s important to take step back and see the opportunity in that negative review. It’s your chance to turn that angry user into an evangelist for your library.
If that sounds like an extreme possibility, I want you to read this post by Jay Baer. I’ve heard Jay speak at several conferences. He has taught me everything I know about turning negative reviews into positive customer experiences.
Create a process for responding
A plan for responding to negative reviews and comments is a form of a crisis communication plan. If you have a plan in place before you’re confronted with negativity, you can put your emotional reaction aside and respond calmly, rationally, and with empathy.
A thoughtful and measured response to a negative comment makes your library look human. When you respond to critics, you show that you value all your customers and their opinions. Your plan will have four components.
Respond as quickly as possible. It’s important to address the issue as soon as you can. Talk with staff and senior leaders about monitoring your social media channels and email as closely as you can. There should always be someone who can check the accounts, even at night or on the weekends. If you don’t, you’ll run the risk of other haters hijacking the thread and turning one bad review into a free-for-all.
Don’t censor. Unless the comment violates your social media or website standards of behavior, don’t hide the comment.
If the problem cannot be solved easily online, take it offline. Apologize and address the complainer with empathy, then ask them to contact you by email. You can say, “I’m sorry to hear you are having this problem. We want to make it right. Could you email me at **** and give me some more details about your experience? Then I can make sure your issue gets in front of the right person and is addressed.”
But try to remember that you cannot please everyone. Occasionally, someone will complain about something and you will not be able to fix the problem. Apologize, explain your library’s side of the situation as best you can, and move on.
Encourage library fans to give positive reviews to outweigh negative reviews and increase your overall search engine rankings. Find ways to solicit reviews from the people who love your library. Amplify those good reviews by sharing them on social media, in emails, and in your print promotional material.
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