In this episode, I’m sharing two tools that will help you when you’re writing any kind of library promotional copy for any type of marketing tactic.
Kudos go to the Elizabeth Public Library in New Jersey for their great work with their immigrant population and with job seekers.
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.
“The only way we can differentiate ourselves is in how we communicate.”
I heard this quote at a conference six years ago and it’s never left me. I can’t remember who said it, but I remember that it changed the entire way I thought about library marketing.
We do a lot of push promotions in the library world. We try to inform our communities about what our library has to offer. We tell them why they should support the library.
Honestly, we do a lot of talking at people. And we end up sounding like every other advertiser.
When is the last time you asked yourself: how can I differentiate my library from the crowd of competitors?
Content marketing is a good place to start. It is, according to Content Marketing Institute founder Joe Pulizzi, “a strategic approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience–ultimately, to drive profitable consumer action.”
But what does that mean for a library?
It means we can’t rely on disruptive marketing to capture the attention of our cardholders. If we want to attract and retain people who will use the library and support the library and convince others of the value of the library, we have to be more strategic.
Think about how you go about interacting with signs, ads, and social media. Do you give every message your full attention… or half of your attention… or even a glance?
Unless something is seriously compelling, you filter it out. So do our cardholders.
Content marketing sticks with your audience because it’s not an ad. It doesn’t push.
It is stories about your library, your staff, or your community. Your cardholders will remember these kinds of promotions because stories make us feel emotions. And emotions are memorable.
Summer Reading, or any large library event or initiative, is the best time to be purposeful about using content marketing to promote your library. It’s also the best time to gather stories for promotion later in the year.
Here’s what I want you to do.
Gather stories about how cardholders are using the library. How is your library improving their lives? How is your library helping people get back on their feet or back to normal in this phase of the pandemic? Ask your library workers to be on the lookout for great story ideas.
Gather stories about your staff–who are they? What do they like to do in their spare time? What do they love about interacting with cardholders? How their approach to work changed during the pandemic?
Gather information about your cardholders. Survey your users or use social listening to create a list of the problems they are facing. Ask your cardholders specific questions like “Tell us about a time when your library helped you find some information you thought you’d never be able to uncover.” Or “Tell us your favorite library memory from your childhood.”
Set up a form on your website and solicit cardholder stories on social media, in your email, and printed newsletters. That list will be the basis for further content marketing your library can create down the road that answers those problems.
And then, tell those stories using the platforms you have available. Write them up for your blog. Create social media posts. Add them to your newsletters. Start a landing page on your website. Make videos.
There are three key pieces to look for in a good content marketing library story.
Emotion. The joy of finding a book, the fear of not getting a job, the frustration of another night of homework without any help… these are all emotions felt by our library’s customers. Other people can relate to these experiences and empathize.
A good emotional story activates many portions of the brain, including sensory, memory, and empathy sectors. The more active the brain is while reading, the more likely it is that the listener/reader will remember the story.
Emotion is the most important criteria of a good story. If it makes you feel something, it’s worth pursuing.
Conflict and a resolution. A good story includes some conflict, whether minor or major, and a problem or situation that is resolved. Without conflict, a story is flat and unmemorable.
Look for stories with a beginning, middle, and end including a story arc that leads to a resolution.
Simplicity. A story that’s direct, with less adjectives and more heartfelt and straightforward language is more likely to be remembered by the listener than a complex story with a long, winding narrative and lots of details and unnecessary description.
When writing content for marketing purposes, draw a straight line from beginning, middle, and end. Keep the story moving forward with clear language.
Content marketing gives you a chance to tell your library’s story without making a direct pitch. It increases brand awareness and affinity and improves your library’s image. And stories are fun to tell!
We cannot rely on this old disruptive marketing policy to be the driving force behind our library marketing efforts anymore. We’re better than that.
We work with stories every day. Let’s start telling them.
Do you use content marketing in your library promotions? Do you have some great stories that you’ve gathered about your library and cardholders? Do you have questions about storytelling and how it works for libraries? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, andLinkedIn.
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.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, andLinkedIn.
In this episode, I take a question from an author, who asked about how she can work with libraries to promote her appearances and book talks at the library.
Kudos in this episode go to the Vancouver Island Regional Library for their innovative e-sports competition.
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.
This week, I heard a truism about email marketing.
Marketing expert Ann Handley said, “Email is the only place where people, not algorithms, are in control.”
When the pandemic struck, email became the only reliable way libraries had to communicate with their patrons. More libraries are sending email newsletters. And they’ve gotten good at the basics.
So, it’s time to take the power of email newsletters to the next level.
Focus less on the news, more on the letter
Handley has one of the best newsletters I’ve ever seen. It stands out because she focuses less on the news part… and more on the letter. Sign up, and you’ll see what I mean.
What I’ve learned from Handley is that your newsletter is your opportunity to directly connect with cardholders in their inbox. What does your community need? What can you provide for them? And most importantly, how can your library demonstrate the way it is different than any other organization?
Ann recommends you lose the marketing voice for your newsletter. Instead, write as you would if you were trying to convince a friend or family member to use the library. Be personable and relatable. Your authentic voice will connect to your readers.
New topic ideas for your library email newsletter
Your library newsletter can and should contain more than book recommendations and announcements about programs and services. Here is a list of ideas that go beyond the typical library information.
Send simple how-to instructions for using your library.
There are all kinds of opportunities to share instructions. Write simple steps for using one of your services. Or share instructions on how to complete a task outside of your library, like fill out an absentee ballot form or make a COVID-19 vaccination appointment.
Step-by-by-step instructions shared in your newsletter will help you build a relationship and form trust with your community. It demonstrates your library’s ability to find solutions to your community’s most pressing problems.
Answer frequently asked questions.
Ask your front line staff, your chat service operator, or the person who handles your library’s main email inbox to share the questions they get most frequently from the public. Then, answer them in your newsletter!
Your email audience will learn new things about your library. You’ll make your library more accessible. And you’ll build trust with your community by proving your library is a place where answers are found.
Promote blog posts.
Use your newsletter to promote your blog and get more views.
Take the first few lines of your post and use them to tease your newsletter audience. Include a photo or graphic from the post to tie your newsletter into your blog. If you send one newsletter a month but post several blogs, tease each post and include a link.
Your newsletter audience will be introduced to a new way to interact with and get news from your library. It will also give you valuable information about which blog posts your newsletter audience is interested in.
For instance, if you see that your newsletter audience always click on links for blog posts about genealogy and history, then you’ll know to write more posts on that topic and include them your next newsletter.
Promote your videos.
If your library is creating and posting videos on YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, or another platform, your newsletter is the perfect place to give those videos an extra boost. As with the blog posts, share a sentence or two to entice your audience to click on a link to the video.
One note: Include a link to the video on the original platform to which you published. Don’t embed the video in your newsletter. Many email services view embedded video code as suspicious, and will mark your email as spam.
Create lists.
There’s a reason Buzzfeed articles are so popular… they contain listicles, which are articles that feature a numbered list (Hey, this post is a listicle of sorts!) A list is easy for your audience to digest and remember.
Create a top ten list of anything: your staff’s book picks, the ten things a patron can create in your Makerspace, the best albums to download from the library… the possibilities are endless. Your email readers will love it. You can even ask your readers to suggest a topic for a list in your next email newsletter!
Share social media content in your newsletter.
If you library had a popular social media post, you can replicate it by adding it to your newsletter.
For instance, if your library posted a book review that got a lot of comments, likes, and shares, put that post into your newsletter, along with a link so your patrons can visit the social media platform, see the original post, and interact with it.
Likewise, when your library gets a great piece of user-generated content, share it in your newsletter as well as on your social media audience.
Share testimonials and reviews.
We know that trust is built between your community and your library through social proof: namely, other community members talking about how they’ve used and loved your library. So, when you get those reviews and testimonials, insert them into your newsletter.
You should also ask your email readers to share reviews and testimonials of your library. Include an easy way for them to send you feedback on what they love about your library. Then share those in your next newsletter and on social media.
Advocate your library.
As a library staffer, you likely know about all the good work your library is doing. But your community has a very limited understanding of the value of your work.
Your newsletter is a great way to begin to share examples and stories of how your library works to make your community a better place. Share short tidbits or an infographic to explain your library’s value.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, andLinkedIn.
In this episode, I talk about a crazy story of monkeys on the loose in Cincinnati and introduce the concept of newsjacking. I share the four questions you should ask yourself before you use newsjacking to promote your library.
Kudos in this episode go to Patchogue-Medford Library for their baby chick cam!
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.
Kudos in this episode go to Richmond Public Library for their Binge Bundles Bags. They were nominated by Chris Boivin of the Jacksonville Public Library.
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.
One of the hardest and most rewarding things I ever did while working for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County was to start a blog. It took me five years to get it off the ground. I wrote about that experience in this blog post.
I worked hard to get a library blog because I knew it would be a transformative and powerful communication asset.
A blog allows your library to tell your own story, create brand awareness, and promote your library to your own audience for free, without having to deal with the rules of someone else’s platform.
If your library has a blog, you will want to make sure you are doing everything in your power to grow your audience. In this post, I want to share the best practices I’ve learned from years of blogging.
A calendar will let you see all the promotions your library is doing in one glance. It will help you schedule posts that amplify your other marketing messages.
You can use your calendar to formulate due dates and publication dates for blog posts. You can also plan the promotion of your library blog posts on other channels, like your email newsletters and social media platforms.
The three main genres of library blog posts
The best blogs are a mix of these three types of blog posts.
Promotional posts: Most library blog posts are promotional. They focus on telling readers about an event, service, or collection item available at the library.
Promotional posts tend to be shorter. They also need to be frequently updated as services and collection items change.
Example: Jacksonville Public Library uses their blog to help their community find information on their website without having to create special landing pages for events and services.
Opinion posts: These posts demonstrate what the library stands for. They center on questions people have about libraries but are afraid to ask. Opinion posts also celebrate the strengths of libraries and the opportunities for improvement.
Opinion posts are compelling and allow your library to cement your voice and your position in a way that your readers and cardholders will remember. It’s great when a library takes a stand. People will respect you for it.
Example: The Stark Library CEO and Executive Director took a clear stand against racism in this recent blog post.
Authoritative posts: These posts demonstrate your library’s expertise in a subject. For instance, a post that highlights your library’s award-winning family history department is an authoritative post.
If you’ve been asked to write a post on your library’s blog, your journey begins with what my favorite marketer Ann Handley calls The Ugly First Draft (UFD).
Your first job is to get all your ideas down in whatever format they escape from your brain. Write your draft without worrying about spelling, grammar, punctuation, or phrasing.
Open a Word document and try to keep typing until you can’t think of anything else to say on a subject. If you are a skilled typist, look away from the screen so you’re not tempted to focus on spelling or grammatical errors.
Revise to create the perfect library blog post
Write short paragraphs, not short posts. It’s a myth that short blog posts will attract more readers. If your blog post is long but compelling, you’ll have no problem holding the attention of your readers. A longer post that is well written and contains keywords will do better in Google search than a shorter post.
However, you should break up your blog post into shorter paragraphs. Short paragraphs are easier to read and understand. They open white space on your blog, which makes your post more inviting.
Writing experts recommend paragraphs of no more than 150 words. I started writing shorter paragraphs about two years ago and saw a big boost in my metrics.
Be deliberate with your keywords. In the blog text, you need to include keywords for search.
You’ll notice I use the phrase “library marketing” and “library promotion” frequently in this blog. That’s because people searching for help with library marketing use those two phrases most often. Try Keywordtool.io. It does an amazing job of helping you to narrow your target phrase.
Put your keyword phrase in title, header, and body of blog post at least two times but more often if it makes sense.
Include images. Images can help you craft your message and tell your story. They also help to break up the text of your blog posts.
Use images to explain concepts or enforce the emotion you are trying to create.
Link to other content from your library. Your blog post can funnel your readers into engaging with your library. If you are talking about a specific service or a part of your library’s collection, include links embedded in your text to help readers find more information.
Make sure your links open in a new tab. There’s nothing more annoying that clicking on an embedded blog post link in the middle of a post and then having to tab backwards to read the rest of a blog post.
Create engagement opportunities for your reader. Use your blog posts to start a conversation with your readers. Ask a question and invite readers to post their answers in the comment.
Your library can also embed a social media post in your blog so readers can post a key point to their social media. This gives your post the potential to reach new readers.
Spend a lot of time on your headline. A good headline should give your readers a hint at the copy that lies ahead without giving away the whole story. It should trigger an emotional response that includes an irresistible urge to read more.
Incorporate several rounds of edits for spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors. Run your blog posts through an online editor to catch errors. Ask your co-workers to edit your blog as well.
Print your blog post out and read through it, word for word, out loud. Doing this will force your brain to pay attention to the extra attention to what you’ve written. Your brain will often fill in or gloss over errors when you silently read. But if you read your post out loud, those errors become obvious and can be fixed before publication.
Four more tips for library blog success
Use your blog as a networking tool. Ask community leaders to write guest posts. Reach out to school administrators, policy makers, influencers, and other nonprofit organizations. Or use your blog to interview someone.
Once you publish, send a link to the contributors or interviewees. Ask them to share your post with their audience. This will amplify your message and expose your blog to a new audience of readers.
Example: The National Library of Australia interviewed fashion designer Nicky Zimmermann in this blog post that led to lots of media exposure for the library.
Post consistently. The best way to maintain web traffic to your blog is to make sure people are always waiting for an article to go live.
Decide how many posts you can create a week and which days you’ll post on. Then stick to your schedule.
Promote your blog posts on other platforms. Most of your readers will not just stumble upon your post by accident. You need to make sure they know that your library has published a post.
Promote your posts on your social media platforms, in your emails, and in patron interactions.
Your blog can also be used instead of a press release to pitch a story to a member of the media.
Evaluate your post metrics. Check in once a month and enter your metrics on a spreadsheet so you can track results over time.
Compare views, watch time, and bounce rate for your posts. You can also compare post length.
Your metrics will help you to continue to improve and update your blog based on your audience’s needs and wants.
Does your library have a blog? I’d love to see it!Share a link in the comments!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, andLinkedIn.
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.
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 