Wiki Main Page > Online Outreach & Marketing for Libraries > Be Where Your Users Are
Online Outreach & Marketing for Libraries :: Be Where Your Users Are
Be where your users are
- Be where your users are and connect on a human level
- Provide tools to search the catalog, get assistance, access databases, etc.
- Be their "question answering service"!
- Interact with users - answer queries, ask for input, respond and thank them.
- Don't be annoying though! :-)
Social Spaces
- MySpace- Still popular with teens, generally a younger target audience than Facebook.
- Facebook- Facebook lets you Create a Page for your library and other members become "fans" of your page. You can also add links back to pages set up by other organizations in your area, making connections. You can list events, news, have discussions, use one of the RSS applications to pull in news from your libary blog. .Create a search box for your library catalog (takes some programming skills) and others will be able to add it to their own facebook account. Add photos, video, etc.
- LibraryThing - This is a wonderful community for people who love books. Join in the fun and share your favorite books and thoughts.
- Add your library's catalog to the list of "Book LInks". Then let your community know they can find you there. When they find a book they're interested in, all they have to do is click on your catalog link to see if you have the book.
- Add your events to the Library Thing Local service
- Set up a group in LibraryThing for discussing and sharing with your community. (Example: luv2read - San Jose PL Teen book group)
- Add books! Perhaps a staff picks approach like Allen County (IN) PL is doing. They add a link back to their catalog in the comments section.
More Resources
Be Available
If we don't do it, others will - and hey, guess what? They have!
- kgb - text to 542542 and for 99 cents (+ your own carrier charges) kgb gets you an answer.
- ChaCha - text to 242242, free except for your phone's regular texting charges.
- Vark - Gets answers from your own social network.
You answer questions at the desk, you answer your phone, you answer email questions, why not use Instant Messaging services and texting services. I don't remember the advent of phone reference, but I do remember the beginning of email reference and I bet the objections I heard about email were the same with the phone and are the same you're hearing about IM and texting! "if they can't be bothered to come into the library...., we'll be swamped with questions...., how will we make sure questions get answered....., who's going to do the extra work.... " Sound familiar?
With a bit of planning and training, most staff will be comfortable with the tools. That is key! Staff just need practice to see how easy it is to use the tools and understand who's going to be monitoring the service.
Need some talking points to convince the staff and/or administration? Read this terrific post by Aaron Schmidt: IM talking points and check out this list of libraries providing IM and text reference.
How to get started with IM services
- Pick a user name for your IM service and open accounts on all the major services. AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, Jabber and any others your customers might use. Don't know what they use? Ask them!
- Use a handy tool like Meebo to funnel all your instant message services into one place.
- Then include your IM name on your business cards, web pages, use it as a screensaver on your public computers, plaster it everywhere!
- Think your customers won't use IM? Maybe they won't, but they'll probably use the chat box you can put on your web pages. They don't need their own IM account to get help when they need it. Demo for Class: Blog page with meebo widget on the side.
- The meebo chat box is a widget that can be placed just about anywhere. Take a look at these examples
- Try adding a chat box to your test wiki page here. In Meebo, it's listed under Preferences --> MeeboMe Widgets
SMS Texting
Can I make a public confession? I don't text well. The buttons on my phone are so small, just dialing a phone number is a challenge. I don't want to text on it. But that's just me! Tons of other people do text and for them it's second nature. So why not make it easy for them to text you too.
There's a handy way to use your AOL IM account to receive texts.
- Send text to: 265010
- Send the message in this format, using your AIM user name
- pollyalida: are you open tmrw?
- If you're using meebo, that message will pop up in a window and you can reply right from there!
- For more info, check out the Online Reference page on the LibSuccess wiki.
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