Thing 19 - Marketing 2.0

I was in the public library at the weekend looking for some reading and a book called 'Dewey: the small-town library cat who touched the world' caught my eye. I'm only on about chapter 10, so if you've read it, please don't give away the ending! The loveable library cat seemed to engage existing library users, attract new ones and strengthen the relationship and communication between the library and the community it served.

I don't think a cat would fit in well at the UL, but the book has made me think (just at the right time for 23 Things!) about who our users are, and how to engage with them. Marketing using social media is a particularly exciting Thing to investigate. I did a marketing module on my library course 3 years ago (how time flies!) and as part of it we briefly discussed ways of marketing using social media, for example with a library presence on Facebook. Debate started over whether library users, especially undergraduates, would want the library in their 'personal' space. Now so many libraries have Facebook pages with library user followers that the question seems to have been answered - yes they do (at least some of them).

Social media cards are an interesting idea, and great in principle to enhance library users' relationship with the library. At the moment though, I would rather not make my facebook/twitter/blog available to library users. If we were to go down that route here, I would either create a more 'professional' facebook identity or pay great attention to limiting who can see each piece of content on Facebook. I would also ensure I actually used Twitter more, as a rarely-used account will not engage library users!

The Orkneys' use of Twitter seemed to generate or reflect a great sense of friendly community and they had some good ideas - perhaps every now and then the homepage for the computers in the UL could be set to the UL Twitter page? Maybe it could be featured for a while on the library display screens? The article made a good point that social media allows us to reach those who are away from the library - in our case they might be on summer holidays back home or researching abroad.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of a cat:

Photo from ~Sage~ on Flickr