Library News, Reviews, and Views
Master library marketer Alison Circle on promoting your library’s brand and value.
Have you been invited to “check out my stuff on Pinterest” yet? It’s a social media tool based on recommendations and works like a virtual pinboard. You can aggregate a ton of visuals to tell your story and users browse your pinboard. (Just today I was saying that libraries need to redefine the word “browsing ”.) [...]
Patron Profiles is a new quarterly publication from Library Journal, based on in-depth, trended research among a national sample of 2000+ public library consumers. It has so much to offer libraries! If you haven’t yet subcribed to Patron Profiles and want to understand how it can help you….especially from a marketing perspective…join me for a [...]
Here’s a heresy. People don’t like to read. They don’t read signs, they don’t read fliers and they don’t read all that web copy. As a writer, I love me some words. But I’ve learned that to communicate a message less is more. So I wanted to share with you this trend, Infographics: using visual [...]
“If you can’t measure it, it’s just a hobby.” I’m always citing this adage of Jack Welch, former CEO of GE. In marketing, it’s not enough to do, it has to work. That’s where measurement comes in. And, for me, 2012 is all about that. I’m asking these kinds of questions: What do we want people to do [...]
One of the first things on my list — handed to me seven years ago when I started at Columbus Metropolitan Library — was to promote our online databases. I remember being so baffled by that. First off, (being new to libraries) what are they? Second, why is it so hard to find them? We [...]
Oh, my gosh, y’all! What a great, great summit. Wish all of you could have been here at Columbus Metropolitan Library as we helped present LJ’s third annual Directors Summit: Moving from Outputs to Outcomes. CML Executive Director Patrick Losinski welcomes guests at the opening luncheon. Summit Panelists Brad Mitchell, Senior Director, Ohio Appalachian Collaborative [...]
Moving From Outputs to Outcomes – that’s the subject of the upcoming LJ Director Summit. Much of the conversation there will be about value — how to articulate your value in today’s demanding marketplace. My friend Sandy Swanson, of OrangeBoy Inc. (and who will do a breakout session at the Summit) shared with me an [...]
Looking for some guidance on how to maximize your brand via YouTube? At the Ohio Library Council’s convention, Dave Bullock of Cuyahoga Public Library and I did a presentation on this subject. Thought I’d share it with you here. And while you can’t get the full experience, hopefully it will give you things to think [...]
You know that chapter in Good to Great? That’s what came to mind when one of my favorite youth librarians came into my department and said: “You have to blog about this!” She had the latest issue of Voya, the library magazine for those serving young adults. The article: “Market Your Library Like a Bookstore.” Great idea. And [...]
In theory, marketing academic and public libraries should be basically the same. Sure the attributes differ, but the basic approach is probably the same. Even so, I know from hearing from many of you, that challenges at academic libraries can be great due to deeper entrenchment of the way things are. I’ve been working with [...]
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