Marketing the library in a Web 2.0 World: Thing #38

I debated whether to do this month's thing because I would prefer to implement a plan, rather than just write about it.  I don't have the authority to do that at our library. Our library does have a blog but that is maintained by another staff person.  I have suggested a Facebook page or Twitter account for the library but so far, the decision has been to stick with one thing other than our library web page, and that is the blog,.  So far the blog hasn't seen much traffic, partially because new posts are few and far between. 

I did enjoy reading Darlene Fichter's Seven Strategies for Marketing in a Web 2.0 World.  Her comments made lots of sense.  I think the key thing that makes this form of marketing successful is the interaction.  I have a personal Facebook account and without friends adding new updates or photographs, the motivation for me to check my account would decline quickly.  I think that pertains to marketing the library on Facebook as well.

If I was given permission to set up a page for our library on Facebook, I would like to initially start in September when we are starting up our programs again-August has no events or programs.  To get people interested in checking out the page, we would need to give "mini-commercials" at our programs to let our audience know the page exists.  I would make sure that our page would have links to our blog and website and to our Google calendar.   Regular program weekly themes could be shared and special events could be shared and also be event invitations.  I could also envision sharing interesting book titles from our new book display.  I'm not sure I would necessarily do popular authors' new books since those disappear from the shelf so quickly unless I could encourage people to add their names to the request lists.  I think this would be a good start for a Facebook page.

I do use my personal Twitter account to share information about special library events.  I "followed" our county's tourism tweets and responding to one of them that did mention the library.  Now they follow me and have retweeted some of my tweets about library events. 

I have hope that since the local television station has come to the library twice for stories on Facebook, we will have a page in the near future.