It’s not surprising that Tina Walker Davis and her communications team at Deschutes Public Library in Bend, Oregon, have a robust and interesting video strategy for YouTube. Tina, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and graduated from Washington State University, has a previous career as a television anchor and reporter.

“I left journalism to go into marketing and communications and owned my own marketing business for 10 years until I made the financially disastrous decision to open an independent bookstore,” explains Tina. “While the bookstore didn’t pan out, it did enmesh me in the literary community here, including the library system.”

Tina took a job at the library in 2012 in event planning and coordination. Now she’s Communications Manager for the library. She manages four people, including a Graphic Design Coordinator and Dana O’Connell, Keifer McCool, and Michael Rivera, who are all Digital Communications Coordinators.

“Michael almost exclusively does video work, and Dana and Kiefer both manage social media,” says Tina. “Dana also does all of our Spanish-language communications. I’ve told the team many times that I’ve never worked with such a collaborative group.”

“We have bi-weekly brainstorming sessions that are so fun. There’s no agenda. It’s just a time for us to come together and talk about what we’re seeing, what we’re excited about, and generally throw some spaghetti at the wall. A lot of our best content was conceptualized in those brainstorming meetings.”

Deschutes Public Library’s YouTube channel was already up and running when Tina began her job. At first, Tina’s team used it to share story time videos and videos of their marquee events, as well as a Why We Love the Library series in 2016 and 2017. At the end of 2019, they had 265 subscribers.

Then COVID hit. Like most libraries, Deschutes Public Library pivoted to online programs and saw its subscriber count grow to 14,500 at the time of this writing.

When Tina hired Michael in 2022, he “brought a wealth of professional video production experience—just phenomenal skills in shooting and editing, but also a fantastic eye and ear for storytelling,” exclaims Tina.

“The first video he did for us was promoting our Summer with the Library program, and I knew immediately that we were going places with our videos. He started another Why We Love the Library series, with this video being one of my absolute favorites.”

“I don’t know if it’s my background in journalism, but I’ve always believed in the power of stories to do the work that we can sometimes struggle to do in marketing.”

Dana says the library’s strategy, when it comes to producing videos for YouTube, is to strike a balance between the information the community needs to know about the library and fun or trending content.

“Everyone who comes into the library has a story,” explains Dana. “Some of our human-interest pieces come from referrals by our public services staff, in the form of kudos from our online web form, or a chance meeting while in one of our branches.”

“Staff, volunteers, and customers offer the chance to talk about the library in a unique voice where we aren’t necessarily promoting a product or service. For me, it’s about having a touch point with a customer and listening to what excites them about the library; no two answers are the same.”

“One thing we do every time someone is interviewed for a video, regardless of the topic, is to ask, ‘Why are libraries important?’” adds Tina. “The answer to that question is evergreen. We can pull the answer and use it along for a series of shorts, turn it into a graphic quote for social, or string together several answers for a stand-alone piece.”

Dana and Kiefer shoot and edit the short-form, vertical format for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube shorts. Michael uses videography equipment to do the longer-form and documentary-style videos.

“But rarely do they work alone,” explains Tina. “They’re writing together, and often Dana or Kiefer will act as Michael’s grip during shoots and take care of the interview portions. Michael is definitely a dedicated videographer, but it’s truly a team effort between the three of them—and it’s magical.”

All videos from Deschutes Public Library have captions for accessibility and clarity. They also have video thumbnails featuring a branded, consistent look. That helps to capture the attention of scrollers while making sure viewers know this content comes from the library.

“When I choose the image(s), I’m looking for a visually pleasing frame that tells the viewer just enough to pique their interest without giving away too much of the story,” reveals Michael. “The best images will also have some clean space in the frame that the title will naturally fall into.”

“The title in the thumbnail usually doesn’t match the video title, and that’s on purpose. The main title is always clear and matter-of-fact, while the thumbnail title often uses one of the most impactful quotes in the story. The key here is to be concise to maximize the size of the text in the frame, so the titles are usually no more than six words.”

Deschutes Public Library doesn’t rely on pure chance to get views on its videos. They promote them!

“Our flagship eNewsletter has 55,000 subscribers, and we’ll sometimes link to videos from the newsletter,” says Tina. “We embed some videos on our website. In particular, we’ve used our videos on our website to help inform the public about our bond projects.”

“I also do some paid promotion of videos on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram if I can see that a monetary ad boost is needed and will help us really target our Deschutes County residents.”

“So, with all that said, our investment in YouTube as a platform was very organic. It started slowly, but we saw real growth. But nothing happens on YouTube alone in terms of storytelling. Anything that is shared there is also pushed out on Instagram and Facebook, and some also make their way to TikTok if they’re humorous or have that viral potential.”

Tina and her team say the videos help boost awareness of the library and its services, and they’ve received a wealth of positive community feedback.

“Our recent viral video — where our director, Todd Dunkelberg, is giving a Gen Z-inspired tour of the new Redmond Library — was a great community experience. Between Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, we are now close to 5 million views on that video. But what I loved seeing was locals commenting amongst folks from across the country and the world — the locals took so much pride in claiming the library as their own (‘That’s MY library!’).”

“And Todd became a little local celebrity after it, with folks coming up to him in the community and telling him how much they loved the video. We immediately jumped on the ‘Slay’ and ‘So Julia’ lines and created stickers with the characters Todd points to in the video, and those were really popular with our customers.”

For inspiration, Tina and her team often look inside and outside the library world.

“I’m guilty of being an Instagram reels scroller,” confesses Tina. “My brain often goes to, ‘Could we put a spin on that?’ Often in our brainstorming sessions, we’ll bring forward videos that we’ve seen over the past two weeks, share them with the team, and see if there’s something we can do along those lines.”

Tina says the key factors in the success of the library’s video marketing strategy are her talented team and library leadership that believes in the power of communication.

“I know that for a lot of libraries across the county, being able to spend this kind of time on video work is an absolute luxury,” says. Tina. “I feel very fortunate to not only have the trust from our leadership to do that work, but also lucky to work with a team of communications professionals who are passionate about the work and the message.”

“The goal is to remind our customers, the taxpayers who make the library’s work possible, that the library is here for them, in whatever way they may need, from checking out a book to finding a job. We’re here to meet people where they are and make their lives better.”

Need more inspiration?

From Shelves to Screens: How an Academic Librarian Captures Student Narratives for Library Marketing

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