A new study about books and publishing reveals two concrete action steps you can take to prove the value of your library and increase circulation! Those steps are revealed in this episode.
Plus, kudos go to a library that received coverage for an event on Yahoo News!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And thanks for watching!
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On a cold Sunday in February, I hopped onto a Zoom call with someone I felt I already knew.
About 8 months prior, this Solano County, California resident appeared on my “For You” page on Instagram Reels and TikTok. He shared joyful, heartfelt, hopeful stories of his work and the profound impact libraries had on his life.
So, I must admit that when Mychal Threets came into view on my laptop screen, I was a bit starstruck.
Seated in a staff work area, with a giant cutout of Bob Ross behind him, Mychal graciously squeezed an interview with me into his workday. He answered my questions about the impact his simple, yet profound stories have had on the public’s perception of libraries.
“March of 2023 is when I shared that first story of the library kid who asked me if I’m a boy librarian or a girl librarian,” recalled Mychal. “And I thought that was great. This is the 15 minutes of fame for libraries. Maybe a few more people will get library cards. But it just kept on going, and I’ve just been sharing daily stories and affirmations ever since.”
One of Mychal’s earliest memories is from age three when his mother took him and his siblings to the library to get books. At the age of 5, he got his first library card. But Mychal did not aspire to be a librarian.
“I wanted to be an astronaut, a firefighter, or a police officer,” chuckled Mychal. “I never saw any men behind the library desk. I never saw any people of color behind the library desk.”
“I was struggling, waiting for my next career path. I was at the local library trying to think of my next steps. And I was like, let me ask the person at the desk about how a person ends up working for the library. She already had the site pulled up. She was like, ‘I knew you’re going to ask that soon enough.’”
In 2018, Mychal became a children’s librarian. He loved the silly, carefree nature of the kids he worked with, and he wanted to share stories about the joy of his work with children. So, he started posting to Facebook. The response was positive.
Then, during the 2020 pandemic, Mychal downloaded TikTok and Instagram and began experimenting with videos on those sites. But it wasn’t until March of 2023 that he started sharing those personal stories… and getting traction.
“I was just trying to remind people that the library exists. I try to remind people that the library is for everybody, that everybody belongs. The library is for them, whatever they’re going through in life. That was my whole goal.”
Mychal Threets
As of this writing, Mychal has more than 682,000 followers on Instagram and 680,000 followers on TikTok. His videos have gotten millions of views, and he’s been interviewed by the New York Times, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, and Huffington Post, among others. He received the “I Love My Librarian” award and the day before my interview with him, was the recipient of the Tri-City NAACP Unsung Shero/Hero Award.
It hasn’t been an easy road. Mychal is open about his struggles with mental health. And, as is the case for any internet star, he’s faced insults. But his thousands of fans were quick to come to his defense.
His reach extends beyond the normal library loyal crowds. I cannot count the number of non-library friends and family members who have sent me his videos, usually accompanied by the comment, “Have you seen this guy??”
“What I’ve achieved thus far, was never in my mind. I never thought it was a possibility,” admitted Mychal. “I didn’t think I’d go viral once, let alone several times. That has been a huge surprise.”
Mychal’s videos highlight his work and focus on “patron as hero” stories. Mychal explains how the library has impacted the community members he interacts with, in big and small ways.
He fiercely protects the privacy of his patrons, sharing his stories without using names or genders, instead calling his patrons “Library kids” or “Library adults.” He also says that technique prevents misgendering and disrespecting his patrons.
“Most library people don’t mind their stories being shared,” said Mychal. “I’m aware of the platform that I’ve grown. I know that it’s weird to have your story shared with the amount of people who follow me.”
Besides sharing his stories on social media and working full-time at the library, Mychal is working with author, influencer, and illustrator Blair Imani on an event in late March that will be a celebration of natural hair.
“We’re going to get a bunch of books donated celebrating hair love, and we’re just going to give them out to people who come to come to the event,” explained Mychal. “We’re going to have hopefully some very cool people present, including authors, illustrators, barbers, and hairdressers. It’s just a chance for people to celebrate their hair love, to get some free books, and celebrate literacy.”
“My other goal is that I just want everybody to get a library card if possible, and to fall in love with books. So, I’m trying to pursue a nonprofit LLC to celebrate literacy, celebrate our right to read, celebrate the joy of access to books, and just put books in the hands of kids and get them excited about reading.”
Mychal is a big fan of his own library on social media, but he also has praise for other libraries’ promotional work.
“Milwaukee Public Library is probably the best library on social media,” declared Mychal. “They just do such a wonderful job of following trends and then putting a library spin on it.”
“Harris County Library is in a similar vein. They also are very good at accepting being ‘cringe-worthy’ as a library system.”
“Storybook Maze is a street librarian in Baltimore, Maryland. She also has a fascinating job.”
“But otherwise, just BookTok and Bookstagram, in general, is just an easy way to find social media platforms doing great things for libraries, putting libraries on the map in the best way possible to remind people that everyone belongs in the library any different day.”
“I’m constantly impressed by the different libraries that tag me and want me to see their videos. People are doing such wonderful things for libraries and for books and literacy overall.”
As we wrapped up our interview so Mychal could set up a library program, he shared advice for library marketers.
“Always remember, the library is a place where everybody does belong. As I repeatedly say, you don’t have to leave your anxiety, your depression outside the library doors. It’s all welcome inside the library. Every day is a library day.”
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TikTok or Reels. Which one is better for library marketing?
I came across some new research that will help you determine where to spend your precious energy and time on library marketing. The answer is revealed in this episode.
Plus, kudos go to a library that showed authenticity when it made a mistake on New Year’s Day!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And 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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Photo courtesy Cincinnati and HamiltonCounty Public Library
Do you feel like you’re playing a rigged game of hide and seek as you try to figure out how to reach target audiences?
Hide and seek is fun for kids. For adults working in library marketing… not so much.
Loyal library users and fans are likely subscribed to your library’s emails. They follow you on social media. They visit your library either in person or virtually.
But (and I know I’m stating the obvious here) finding community members who have no regular interaction with your library is incredibly difficult and costly.
This is where robots can be helpful. You can use ChatGPT to figure out the channels your target audience uses.
Here’s how this works
Let’s say your library has partnered with a health and wellness center to create a new, monthly program for community members with memory loss. The program will include activities for caregivers as well.
Your job is to make sure the right people know the program is available for free at your library. Specifically, your marketing goal is to ensure at least 10 people attend the program each month.
Who do you target?
Your first step is to figure out who your target audience is.
For this example, you could go to the Alzheimer’s Association website and search for statistics on patients with memory loss and their caregivers.
From this, you can create two focused target audiences.
Memory loss patients: Specifically, women of color over the age of 65, who are most likely to suffer from memory loss.
Caregivers: Women between the ages of 30 and 50 with a household income of $50,000 or less are most likely to be caring for someone with memory loss.
Double-checking your work
ChatGPT can help you check your work. Did you miss anyone who might be interested in the memory loss program?
In the ChatGPT search, you can type “Pretend you work at a library. The library has partnered with a health and wellness center to create a new, monthly program for community members with memory loss. The program will include activities for caregivers of those with memory loss as well. Can you give me the target audience for promotions of this program?”
ChatGPT will weigh in on whether you’re on the right track with your two target audiences. But it will also show you audiences you would have missed. In this instance, ChatGPT says:
With this information, you are ready to move to your next research step.
How do you reach these three audiences?
Of course, you would start by sending an eblast to the members of your subscriber list who match this target. You would also promote the program on your library’s website, through in-library digital signs, and bookmarks.
But outside of your library resources, what other channels can you use to reach these three audiences? ChatGPT can be a starting point for answering that question.
In ChatGPT, you can type, “What online blogs or publications are most popular for women in *your area*?” (For this example, I used Cincinnati because that’s where I work, which allows me to check ChatGPT’s accuracy.)
Now you have a list of publications to start your research. You can go to those websites, see what kinds of articles they publish, and determine if they would be a good place to pitch a story about your new memory loss program.
Radio stations are still popular with people over the age of 50. And your might be wondering if it would make sense to advertise your memory loss program on the radio.
There are 30+ radio stations in Cincinnati! I suspect there are a similar number in the city or town where you live. You’ll want to whittle your list down before you research. You can use ChatGPT for that too.
In the search you can type, “Which radio stations are most popular for people over the age of 65 in *your area*?”
ChatGPT identified four target stations in Cincinnati. That’s so much easier than going through the list of 30 radio stations!
Help from ChatGPT with another idea
There may be neighborhoods in your city or town that consist mainly of people over the age of 65. You can use ChatGPT to help you identify those neighborhoods.
In the search, you can type, “Which neighborhoods in *your area* have a population that is mainly over 65?” Here are the results for Cincinnati.
With that information, you can do some geo-targeting with your message.
For example, you can pull a list of cardholders who have named the branches in those neighborhoods as their home branch. Then, you can send them an email about the memory program.
You might also consider boosting a Facebook post and targeting users living in your target neighborhoods.
Finally, you can ask ChatGPT, “How do I reach an audience of doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals who work with patients with memory loss in *my area*?” ChatGPT will give you a list to use as a starting point.
While you will still need to do some research, ChatGPT is a helpful and free tool to help you get started as you identify ways to reach your target audiences. The results it generates for this task tend to be more focused and helpful than a Google search.
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How many spam Facebook messages have your library’s Facebook page gotten? Lately, they’ve been downright scary.
They tell you that your account is at risk of being suspended because you’re violating regulations. They make it seem like your library has done something wrong and they try to pressure you to respond. And they are a security risk.
I’ve learned a technique to stop these messages. I’ve used it on NoveList’s Facebook account and it works.
I’ll show you exactly how to do it in this episode.
Plus, kudos go to a library from a library marketer who admires their work.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And 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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
Mike Paulus had a career path like many library marketers I know.
The Eau Claire, Wisconsin native earned a degree in creative and technical writing. He planned and wrote educational video games for the speech-language pathology field. Then he worked at an arts and culture magazine.
“My wife had already worked here for a few years in Youth Services,” explains Mike. “So, I jumped at the chance. I’m still downtown, working a block away from that magazine, trying to have a direct impact on this community. Pretty lucky!”
Mike and his four co-workers in the Programming and Communications Services department oversee all digital and print promotions. They also do a good chunk of the library’s event programming, managing all adult events that use outside presenters. (Sound familiar to anyone?!)
Last year, Mike was given the task of coordinating cross-departmental, library-wide events. The most successful of those events was a Card Crawl.
“Our building recently underwent an $18.5M renovation,” remembers Mike. “We’d just moved back in and reopened the doors in October of 2022. So, the library had a lot of new rooms and amenities, including all these cool outdoor spaces.”
“In spring 2023, we held our ‘Outdoor Open House’ to showcase the new patios, the terrace, the plaza, and whatnot. Just a few hours one afternoon, with free ice cream, free fresh-cut flowers (my wife’s idea), and light activities. We had 750 people show up. This became the model for the Card Crawl.”
As Mike explains it, the Card Crawl is a more robust version of past cardholder appreciation days, held in September during Library Card Sign-Up Month. The library previously had a prize drawing and offered patrons free candy if they showed their library card.
But last year, they expanded with a full-day event on a Saturday in late September.
“We decided to upgrade the cardholder appreciation day using the Outdoor Open House’s basic concept of having activities and giveaways stationed all over the library, near all the cool, new stuff,” says Mike. “The idea of showing your library card to get free stuff (and have fun) was a no-brainer, leading to the ‘Card Crawl’ name.”
“We just wanted the public to get in here and wander around. But showing appreciation for current cardholders and making new ones was the most important part. We wanted to help people feel proud of having a library card, foster those vibes.”
Besides building a lasting relationship with cardholders, the Card Crawl had another big benefit.
“We used the Card Crawl as a way to get different departments working together and excited for a common goal, something tangible of which we all had ownership,” explains Mike.” This included our Friends of the Library group. We also used the event to strengthen some community partnerships, working with Eau Claire Transit on free bus rides, and a local chain restaurant for free ice cream.”
Mike and the rest of the L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library marketing team used the landing page as a hub and promoted the event on all their available channels, including:
Press Release(s)
Facebook posts and Facebook event
Instagram posts and Reels
Email newsletter features
A dedicated email newsletter
In-house posters
Partner promotions
Day-of directional signage and flyers
“For about six weeks before the event, we just feed the new copy and graphics into those channels whenever possible,” remembers Mike. “We also made three HUGE library cards. Before the event, we used them for some fun Instagram stuff. During the event, we set up two selfie stations so people could pose with them, post, and tag us. And now we have these fun, massive library cards to use for whatever.”
Mike says the biggest challenge the marketing team faced was “reigning in all the ideas.”
“Our library’s slogan is ‘So Much More,’” says Mike. “But staff jokes that it should be ‘Too Much More.’ Everyone has such great ideas, and they all want to dive into them. So, my job was to try and keep things doable and sustainable without too much stress. Our committee’s motto was ‘big impact for little effort.’”
“That said, we still had A LOT of moving parts to promote, and you can’t promote everything all at once in every little Facebook post, etc. or it becomes white noise. I had already dealt with this at the magazine I’d worked for, with some large, festival-style events we’d staged.”
“You need to choose a small handful of things (or just one thing) at a time, and then decide the best channel and tone. But when you promote, you’re always pointing back to the landing page for full details.”
The marketing team’s careful balance worked out. The Card Crawl brought in about 1,800 people, three times the library’s normal Saturday attendance.
“We did a week’s worth of card signups, renewals, and replacements in a single day,” recalls Mike. “Checkouts and circulation were through the roof. Culvers scooped 630 scoops of free, frozen custard. Our Friends group had one of their most profitable book sales. We gathered a few hundred emails in a prize drawing. And Eau Claire Transit gave a ton of free rides all over the city to cardholders.”
“We’re lucky enough to have a great Library Board and some big supporters on our City Council. So, we invited those people to come volunteer at the Card Crawl giving away prizes, and to just be a part of the day. It gave the ‘powers that be’ a nice, close-up look at what we do. They got to see our customers all being happy. They got a little ownership of what we do for the community.”
“The day had a great energy with both kids and adults excited to roam the library and bust out their cards for prizes. My wife and I were ‘Card Crawlers’ who snuck around the library with special prize wagons, waiting to be found. Since I don’t work a desk, this gave me an amazing chance to interact directly with customers, which really doesn’t happen that often.”
The prize giveaway the team ran during the Card Crawl not only collected emails for the library’s subscriber list, it provided a little post-event promotion when the library announced the winner in a video.
Mike will do a few things differently for the 2024 Card Crawl. For example, he wished the team had taken more photos of the event.
“Our Youth Services desk pulled double duty as a prize station, in addition to setting up a few different activities,” explains Mike. “That was just too much for the staff we had on hand. Next year, we’re planning on adequate staffing and extra hours.”
“The other big thing was the event’s end time. Things really tapered off in the last two hours of the day. We only had passive activities happening during that time. So, we either need to end it earlier or plan more scheduled events.”
But until September, Mike and the team at L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library have plenty to do.
“Sustaining our annual events, programs, and promotional cycles is enough to fill our days,” exclaims Mike. “The challenge (as always) will be figuring out how to do new stuff while maintaining the old. Maybe letting some stuff go.”
“Right now, our video work goes in phases. We do a lot more videos during promotional downtimes. So, we’ll go from weekly videos for a few months to no videos at all. Finding a better balance is big on my list.”
“We’re also hoping to make time to develop general library marketing campaigns. So more of the ‘Hey! We’re cool! And you’re cool when you use the library! Tell your friends!’ type stuff.”
“If we’re not careful, all we do is fill the promo channels with upcoming events after upcoming events, which gets boring for people pretty fast. We need room for more fun, brand loyalty stuff.”
“Oh, and we also need to top last year’s April Fool’s Day video.”
When he needs inspiration, Mike looks to the work of other libraries.
“The Southern Adirondack Library System’s Facebook account is an absolute meme machine. Slam dunk upon slam dunk. I have no guilt in this: I steal their stuff all the time.”
“I have to mention the Milwaukee Public Library, right? We’re all Sconnie-proud of them. If they could stop being so cool, that’d be a big help.”
“The Joliet Public Library is another favorite on TikTok.”
“I like following libraries with cool or interesting events and services and thinking about how I’d market their events if we were the ones doing them. This usually gives me ideas on how to handle our own stuff. It helps to jump-start your creativity, like a thought exercise.”
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They’re big and bold. They promise your library continuous exposure to a diverse audience. And… they’re expensive. Are billboards actually a good use of your limited library marketing budget?
I’ll lay out the pros and cons of billboard advertising for libraries in this episode.
Plus, kudos go to a library that received media coverage for bringing back a popular program.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Or do you want me to come and speak at your event? Let me know here. And 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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Photo courtesy of Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
If you send emails for library marketing, you may have been scared by recent articles on X, LinkedIn, and other marketing blogs that predict doom and disaster for email marketing in the coming months.
Last October, Gmail released this blog post, outlining changes coming to the algorithm they use to determine whether incoming emails make it into the regular inbox or go to the spam or promotions folder. Yahoo soon followed suit.
The response in the marketing world to these announcements took on a somewhat frantic tone.
“Are our emails going to be delivered?”
“What changes do we need to make to ensure we don’t end up in the junk folder?”
The short answer is that with a few small changes, your library emails will be delivered. Yahoo and Gmail want you to:
Authenticate your email
Enable easy unsubscribe
Reduce unwanted emails
Let’s go through each of these steps, beginning with authentication. Authentication means that your library’s email sender reputation is sound.
What is email sender reputation?
Email sender reputation is a score that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigns to any organization that sends an email. The higher the score, the more likely an ISP will deliver emails to the inboxes of recipients on their network.
Like any algorithm, Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and other email providers use ranking signals to determine the folder in which your email lands—or if it’s delivered at all.
Here is what we know about those ranking signals, according to my research. Sources I’ve used for this post include marketing expert Michael Barber, Mailmeteor, and my co-workers in product management at NoveList.
Sender Authentication and IP Address Reputation
Sender authentication involves verifying the authenticity of the sender’s domain. The email providers are looking at past sending behavior coming from your IP address.
The bad news is that your library has very little control over either the sender authentication or the IP address reputation of your emails.
For example, MailChimp’s website says their customer’s emails, including those from many libraries, are sent from an IP address that is shared by multiple customers. If one or more of those customers send emails that negatively impact MailChimp’s overall IP address reputation, your library’s emails could be affected. Your library can purchase a dedicated IP address from MailChimp for an additional monthly fee.
Domain Reputation
Email service providers also consider the reputation of the domain name in the email address. The domain is the part of your email address behind the @ symbol.
The email providers look at past sending behavior and the overall quality of emails from that domain. Specifically, they are looking at 3 factors.
Spam complaints
Email recipients click the spam (or junk) button for three reasons:
They don’t realize the email is coming from your library.
They can’t remember signing up for your library’s emails.
They can’t find the unsubscribe link.
Get ready for a shock, because I’m changing my position on a major part of my email marketing advice.
In the past, I was a proponent of opt-out emailing for libraries. But because of recent changes in the algorithms used by Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo to sort messages…
Your library should make your emails opt-in. This ensures your emails are going to community members who want your content, which protects your sender reputation.
You can also reduce the likelihood that someone will mark your library emails as spam by making sure your “friendly from” line includes your library name. Add a first name to the friendly from (it doesn’t have to be a real person!) like “Angela from The Central Library.”
Make sure your reply address is a real email address as well. Let subscribers know how often you’ll be sending emails. And don’t send so few emails (yes, you read that right!) that subscribers don’t remember signing up!
Recipient inaction
When your email recipient either deletes your library’s email without opening it or leaves your library’s email sitting unopened in their inbox, that’s recipient inaction.
You can reduce recipient inaction by making sure your library emails are targeted to the audience that most want that information. Create interest groups and an opt-in page like this one from Delafield Public Library.
Letting your community members choose the information they wish to receive by email from your library will reduce recipient inaction and spam complaints against your library.
You can also reduce recipient inaction by spending time making sure your email subject lineis as good as it can be.
Engagement metrics
Open rates and click-through rates play a significant role in email reputation. Higher engagement indicates that recipients find your emails valuable and relevant, leading to better deliverability. Low engagement metrics tell the email algorithms that that your emails may be unwanted or irrelevant.
One-click unsubscribe
The biggest change is that Gmail and Yahoo are asking marketers to add one-click unsubscribe. Most email marketing providers are addressing this issue and have plans in place to include one-click unsubscribe this year.
To encourage your library email recipients to reply, ask for their feedback on a service within your email. Or ask recipients to reply with the name of a book they think should be included in your next booklist or book display. This is a chance for you to be creative!
You don’t have to respond to every email reply. But it is an opportunity to improve your sender reputation while gathering information that will help you to better serve your community.
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Morning drive time. Evening drive time. Afternoon talk show. Radio stations, their formats, their audiences, and their ad prices vary greatly.
You might be wondering if an ad on a radio station is an effective use of your limited library marketing budget.
I’ll break down the list of things you’ll need to consider if you want to buy a library radio ad in this episode.
Plus, kudos go to a library for media coverage of a new service at their organization.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Or do you want me to come and speak at your event? Let me know here. And 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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 