Children of the Revolution: Tumblr Webinar for OLC

Tumblr Litmus Test Question 1: Can you recognize these two men? They’ve been all over the news for different reasons, and they’re all over Tumblr because people are fans of their work and they’re incredibly media-friendly.
Tumblr Litmus Test Question 2: Is this funny? (Of course it is.) The willingness to poke fun – gently – at our profession, and our patrons, is a must on Tumblr. And honestly, in our daily working lives. Sanity check, anyone?
Tumblr Litmus Test Question #3: You get this, right? To further expand – knowledge of Buzzfeed, their lists, and the general joke here is a must for making your way through Tumblr. Tumblr users know this stuff, have a good laugh at things like this, and you should, too.
Did you pass? Well, we kind of think that’s up to you. Because if you were able to find some humor in the Tumblr litmus test, that’s a good start. And so we move on, because don’t you want to see what Tumblr can do for you and your library? Of course you do.
--We won’t be telling you things to do here, simply because it would get repetitive and you’ll learn more from our screw-ups and other people’s messes. Plus, later on, Donna is going to show you how to create your own content, which is always a big plus. --Link to your website and other social media platforms. Make sure anyone who clicks on your Tumblr page – and anyone who sees your name on a post – knows who you are, immediately. Ever seen an acronym not in your field and wondered WTF? PHP? C++? Yeah, patrons and other users scrolling Tumblr will wonder that, too, if they see just your library’s acronym and no explanation. Don‘t be confusing. --Consider the infinite scroll. Tumblr themes have an option for infinite scroll-it’s a one mouse click investment that will make trolling your Tumblr easier on everyone. --Clutter – stuff your sidebars with too much, and people will not stick around. It’s like good website design – keep it simple, keep it clean, make it easy on the eyes and easy to navigate, easy to find your social media buttons, any links to other pages (and a nice feature is the “Blogs We Follow”).
--You’re a person. Write like one. Drop all that stuffy sanctimonious speech and forget using the party line, or even toeing it. Social media is crazy, so it’s okay to follow suit a little. Have personality, will gain followers. Take your cues from punctuation – be a little weird, a little mysterious, and a little excited – be the interrobang. Be that oddball semicolon in the middle of a sentence that gives everyone pause, or that misplaced apostrophe. Make people stop and read your ironic sign. (Bonus points to anyone who catches the Firefly joke above.) --Invest in graphics, but make them recognizable, too: similar styles, similar fonts, and your logo prominently displayed. --It doesn’t look like a typical social media page, but you can use Tumblr to promote (lightly) your upcoming events. The ones that are Tumblr audience-friendly, anyway.
Promoting programs on Tumblr: Book Love Connection and Summer Fling with a Book: The former was a brainchild of possible winter programs, designed as a personality quiz/matchmaking service (with books) for anyone who wanted to find his or her next great read, based on questions about his/her reading experiences. So, basically, RA online and opened to EVERYONE. We didn’t purposely put it on Tumblr thinking, “this is definitely going to take off, and all because of Tumblr! It’s Tumblr-ready!” No: it was a happy accident, and it ended up being tremendously successful. And it didn’t hurt that NPR Books saw our post, reblogged our post, and sent many new followers and participants our way – who, by the way, stuck around. And it’s because we dedicated ourselves to one simple principle: people like to be told what to read. And, preferably, they like to be told why they, in particular, should read a particular book. It’s personal, and for people, reading and loving books is personal, too. So we did it again: we created, as part of our Summer Reading program for teens and adults, Summer Fling with a Book – and we opened it to fans of genre fiction, and to readers who were looking to branch out into genres they wouldn’t ordinarily read, but who still wanted a book right for them. And, again, it was massively successful. We’ve included our personality quizzes as part of the informational packets provided for this presentation. If you’re curious, take a look, and you’ll see that a lot of the principles we’re sticking to with our Tumblr page – in particular, the ones about personality – are in evidence in our quizzes.
Here there be monsters… And now to the warning/caution/giant stop sign and red flag portion of the presentation. We’ll start with a question – what happens when a whole bunch of people, who can remain as anonymous as they want, get a platform to rant and rave (both in good and bad fashion) about whatever they want? You get the Internet – you get comment pages on newspapers, you get Facebook, you get Reddit, and you get Tumblr. But Tumblr is an interesting wild child in one way – while yes, it is a personal blog for many people, organizations have turned it into a useful communication tool by posting original content and reposting things that they think followers will enjoy. But by doing so, you attract attention, and that’s usually good….right? Usually. (We’ll talk about that later.) You will gain followers, and you will follow others and your dashboard will fill up with mostly really neat things to look at and learn from. Until you scroll down one day and something makes you blanch…well, welcome to Tumblr, land of some of the most eye-popping, sometimes mind-numbing, always um…interesting content you’ll ever see. If you are easily offended… If you are sensitive… If you have concerns that patrons might see some content on your dashboard… If you can’t scroll quickly… Tumblr may not be for you. It’s the social media Wild West, basically: Anything goes, and it’s not for everyone.
--It’s about to get GRAPHIC up in here! --Yes, Tumblr is overloaded with lots of language, images that are definitely NSFW, and opinions (we haz them). How do you deal with this? By being super careful when you reblog (including watching usernames that have f*yeahs in them), by creating your own content you KNOW is safe, and by not getting involved and invested in the drama. --Don’t be seduced by persuasive arguments, no matter how well-meaning they are, or how much they might appeal to your own beliefs. Libraries are neutral ground – make sure you stay that way on social media as well. --Hopefully you didn’t miss John Green-gate, because that was ALLLL over Tumblr these last few months. Some libraries reblogged/blogged about it on Tumblr, we chose not to. Why? Because it isn’t in our best interests, or that of our patrons, to get involved. Your average patron likely doesn’t even know about the drama, and if they do, they’re followers of John Green, or they’re heavy consumers of book and entertainment news. What would a big fan of Green (likely a teen) think if their library started getting vocal about their favorite author? It isn’t our business to get involved in those battles – reblog kittens, not politics, even book politics.
-cue obligatory slideshow cheesy stock photo of happy chick w/ pen or some other business nonsense/drivel (by the way, don’t EVER use this stuff in your presentations) All of the memes you’ve ever reposted on Facebook or repinned on Pinterest…all of those booklists filled with suggestions that you’ve probably made yourself at one point or another… Tumblr is their home
Or, how to start off geeky and get followers easily
Tumblr is pretty heavy on a few things – social activism, nostalgia, fandoms. Let’s start with nostalgia, since we’re not touching social activism with a thirty nine and a half foot pole. Tumblr users are typically young but that doesn’t mean they’re naïve or not aware of things older than them – this quote, which we put up as “original” content, was reblogged 640 times. Why? People love a good quote. If you can tie it to a celebration, a theme, a popular book or movie or movement – even better.
Good old Dr. Seuss. Ten minutes with some images and a quote – reblog city.
Fandoms are what drive Tumblr (well, that and a whole lot of social activism.) Fandoms are closely tied to either shows, movies, celebrities, or BOOKS. This shouldn’t shock you, Austenites have been a thing for quite some time. They’ve just moved online. So understanding the power and pull of fandom is really important to creating and maintaining a fun and functional Tumblr. The picture above is something to reblog – a bookmark of Benedict Cumberbatch photobombing (Cumberbombing) and in a Jane Austen book? Priceless dashboard fodder.
Some of the most popular fandoms on Tumblr are also some of the most voracious, vocal, and active. Makes sense, right? Being clued into these fandoms and what they like (and what they don’t) will help you not only gain followers, but keep them. Why is this important? These Tumblr users are typically heavy readers and book fans as well (notice the prevalence of literary fandoms above.) Our suggestion, make a fandom-based book list – If you like Sherlock, you’ll love these books and other TV shows! Start there, and watch your dash light up. And a side note: you don’t have to be a FAN of all of these things to understand how popular they are, just like you don’t have to read the entire library’s contents to be good at your job. Get cozy with them just by scrolling through Tumblr for a little while.
You can probably guess what this entails.
Books are still our business and a potential key to Tumblr success: it will help you connect with users in a very personal way, by engaging them in something that truly matters: their love of books. The challenge (and it’s a fun one!) is taking something so personal, and beloved, as books, and translating them into a format that is universally appealing. It’s nearly impossible to do RA globally, because you can’t get an idea of individual reading needs and background. But you can try, especially if what you recommend are books that you, too, are passionate about, and want to advocate for because maybe they don’t get the attention they need. Anchor them with familiar (and yes, popular) titles, and voila: an infographic is born. All of this is a way to help readers make connections between books they already know and those they wouldn’t have ordinarily considered.
Form and Function - First things first, you must have an idea in your head, a solid concept that you believe you can translate into a clear design, this will take you, labor-wise, no more than an hour altogether, if you do it straight through, which, honestly, I didn’t. 10 or 15 minutes here or there. It’s free. It’s easy. It’s recyclable. - Most time? Spent deciding which books to feature, how best to present them in a way that readers can immediately identify, (and identify with), and explaining why they work together. You have to keep that personal connection. Remember, if you do this, it’s without an RA interview, and you’re also trying to do this based on (at least somewhat) recognizable books as your starting point. But this is our bread and butter – learning about, reading, and recommending a book based on traits to which readers will respond. Quick and Easy tips for Construction: Like you layout, make it clear: clear title, clear purpose, and clear usage. Title: Make it clever, make it simple, sweet: make it clear, above all. How Should People Use It? Make the directions pop (here: black on white) Always: top down and left to right, as all good webpages should be For Clarity’s Sake Plain backgrounds, usually white: banner, text, and book cover colors (Tumblr layout) all stand out. Colorful without the obnoxious – especially since book covers are killing it - & appealing to readers who have been scrolling through their dashboards, sometimes for hours. Catch their eyes & don’t clash with your layout Text should – must – be short, sweet, and to the point. Readers must know why these books will connect with them, personally. You MUST give it a personal voice – you are recommending books, telling people/strangers why they must read this. Use your own tone: funny, cheeky, sweet, ironic (Here: snarky/dorky). You’re allowed. You should want that!
Consider, if possible, a format that will allow you to be consistent: the more often you do them, the more closely they’ll be identified with your library: Brand recognition matters, esp. to distinguish from other Tumblrs (and other library Tumblrs). Previous info.: stylistically scattered: a collage here, a flow chart there. Overall: no unifying look, no truly unifying theme (forced & boring). Which, by the way, Tumblr users can absolutely tell. And that’s a concept that also works better, overall: as we said, people are either looking for a new book similar to one they already like, or they’re looking for a new book, period. Rule: Be consistent in appearance – that means both the design and tone of voice, but also when you’re making and debuting your work. Create consistently. Keep yourself in users’ minds as a library that is aware of their needs and responsive to them as well, possibly ahead of trends. For example, this particular flow chart appeared about two weeks after the previous one, in January, and I’ve created others in the meantime: for spring and summer, for fall, and now we’re gearing up already for 2015 reads. And even though all of these books are now past their publication date, they’re still getting reblogged.
How Do These Work For Librarians, Too? Called “unexpectedly” successful: a way for me to keep my head straight about what was coming out in the upcoming year: hearing buzz, hearing about similar books, not wanting to forget or lose out on a possible recommendation. Seen other Like/Try/Whys (LPL is fantastic), put it together, and it grew… So: Upcoming Reads booklists are a great way for you to stay current, and test your RA skills in the meantime: quite literally, answers to “what to read next” that skips the RA interview – which isn’t always possible – but goes straight for personal appeal nonetheless. You can keep track of read-alikes to recommend (in person or online) You can keep track of what is coming out when, for future reference and future booklists (the dragon books, for example. You need to have a dragon booklist. Period. Full stop.) You keep track of emerging trends in literature. And so can your readers: they don’t always have access to the same pre-pub information we have, so you’re getting them excited about a slew of new books – the infamous TBR pile - and reminding them of old favorites they can pick up in the meantime.
Whatever you do, you’re helping readers feed their need to read. This message from one of our Summer Fling with a Book participants is the absolute epitome of why we do what we do, and why we love our jobs: we help people find new and awesome things to love.
Find obsessions: Go by theme. Inspired by summer reading theme of science (gigantic hits). Divert from previous style to immerse in single experience – similar topics, styles of writing, character archetypes. A reading map, if you will. Things of note: YA fiction fans: sorry, but with a few, a very few, exceptions, adult fiction doesn’t fly. YA fiction is what works – it has the dedication behind it. Exception: The Hive booklist on the right. It focuses mostly on adult novels. Why did it work? It’s adult genre fiction, and it extends the focus beyond books: TV series, films, and video games that would be good – if not necessarily expected – watch- and play-alikes for fans of genre fiction. It goes beyond reading to address obsessions, user experience, fandom. YA genre fiction: equally important, but especially sci-fi and especially fantasy reads are, as you’d expect, extremely popular (see above, and next slide) - Mystery fiction, not so much; contemporary does work when it’s part of a larger theme: YA romances? Eh. YA Romances That Will Make You Cry If You Loved If I Stay? Yes. Dramatic fiction, realistic fiction: package them in a way that presents them as new to your users, whether or not the books themselves are newly published.
- Another change-up from the usual style, but done so to address readers’ tendency to enjoy books of similar topics. They allow Tumblr users to “participate” in something they might not have originally been part of: it’s a collection of all our Summer Fling recommendations, recommendations that actually were made to specific individuals – something very personal, intended for an audience of one. We translated it into something that could apply to readers and to genre fans in general by combining the very specific – here, it’s sub-topics in genres – and the very general – genres – and building connections and finding commonalities between them. It’s in a format that everyone can enjoy: i.e., if you in particular like these, great! Try these. If you in particular don’t, great! Here’s something else to try. It says, there’s plenty more where that came from. It adopts its own kind of infinite scroll. - Example of different audience reactions to the same genre. I separated all of the recommendations from our Summer Fling program into two charts: Young Adult fiction and Adult fiction. YA fiction proved, as you can clearly see from the number of notes – which refer to likes/bookmarks and reblogs, content that readers post to their own blogs - to be much more popular.
A good rule of thumb (a great rule of thumb): Go big. Whenever possible, go big! This is another library event that was applied to a global audience: a booklist dedicated to our YA author fest was originally intended for print, not online, publication, but I posted online for extra promotional push (without knowing how much of an effect it could have, similar to the Book Love Connection; also: social media-engaged authors) Originally several smaller graphics for individual books – they got no response. When smashed together: unexpected success. Think again of the Summer Fling flow charts and Sci-Fi/Fantasy Hive list: all are collections of multiple smaller flow charts – that means extra reading and viewing materials for your audience. It reminds readers that, if they don’t respond to a particular book, there are others available. This is really important: capturing the something-for-everyone mindset that is Tumblr. Keep in mind, though, that even though it addresses a library event, users don’t need to attend it or understand it to follow the chart: it sticks with our easy-on-the-eyes design: arrows, logo, images, short and sweet text, and our easy-on-the-brain philosophy: here’s a book, here are some other books, here’s why they go together. Plus the easy-on-your-time philosophy.
Things to Avoid: NO CLUTTER! A scattered design is nobody’s friend, even if the theme is – in your opinion - good. For example: see the Trips through Time booklist. Too difficult to follow, too purposelessly colorful. Pare it down to its simplest elements. Lack of clarity, in both design and concept: Make sure that when you put books together, readers can tell, instantly, why they belong together. Keep your connections close, and relate them stylistically. A specious theme or concept won’t be helped by any design, no matter how clever, or adorable, it is. See the Starcrossed and Love Bites lists above. Do you need to explain your content? Don’t do a collage! They get a title and some covers – no more. Try a flow chart instead. Adult Fiction Booklists – except for the aforementioned, and the about to be mentioned, genre fiction, there is not the audience on Tumblr. Consider Pinterest instead, where there is a larger adult audience, and you can build Pin boards around the same idea, or simply post a booklist to a related board. You can see our Gone Girl readalike suggestion among other Resources – it’s received more than 300 re-pins, while it flopped on Tumblr.
Things to Try: An exception in which adult fiction proves to be incredibly popular: Genre fiction, in particular genre fiction tied to a recognizable pop culture phenomenon: Try Game of Thrones, Sherlock, Supernatural. Consider House of Cards, Orphan Black, and True Detective: if it’s in the zeitgeist, consider using it as a springboard, because they’re known, they’re beloved, and they tend to have many counterparts – not just in fiction, but in non-fiction, film, music, and TV. - If you can, include a YA component, for crossover appeal – young adults may also be heavily invested in these series, and, as you probably already know, many adults read young adult literature. Cover your bases: identify and reflect the known elements that speak to those fandoms (in this case, Supernatural insider information, the mechanics of Sherlock), and bank on one of them to accrue the audience to support other, more esoteric posts: more followers increase the likelihood that later posts, more obscure posts, and even some of your older posts will be reblogged.
Things to Remember: - Does it sound a little mercenary? Well, yes: this is part of your job, so don’t you want that reflected? The slightest bit of goodwill towards your own geekdom means instant feedback on your work, whether it’s the quick little things you throw together, or the things that you labor over, like a Hive booklist. These are two examples of successful posts that require very little effort. The one on the left is a collection of flower-themed YA book covers. THAT’S ALL – plug in some Goodreads book covers, and click post. It’s pictorial, with a very loose theme, so why did it work when it shouldn’t have? It was timed with the season: it debuted on the first day of spring after a miserable winter. And it’s all about pretty book covers. The one on the right is a military fiction-themed book list (which has a much stronger theme), but it focuses on adult fiction. So why did it work? It was timed, twice, with a holiday. Originally posted on Veterans’ Day, and then repeated – with no alteration to the images whatsover – on Memorial Day. The latter run was twice as successful, thanks to the number of followers we had gained in the meantime. And I can’t stress this enough: it included a YA component.
STUFF. YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE STUFF. First and foremost: Do what you do best. Play to your strengths as an organization and as an individual poster. If there’s a better version of theWhat to Read Because The Fault In Our Stars Is Checked Out booklist you had planned, don’t feel you need to compete by creating your own. Reblog it (we’ll get to that in a bit) and come up with something that’s much more you. But, alternately, don’t feel like you shouldn’t make one: If you know of some seriously awesome books that no one else has mentioned (or if you can think of a better way to present them), mention them! Don’t overthink what you’re doing. Flow charts and collages always look more complicated than they actually are, or they’re as complicated as you want them to be. Or they’re as complicated as you want to make them (see previous slides). Be visually oriented: limit your word count – include only what followers must know to understand – and focus on images that readers will recognize and respond to. Ask yourself if you’re restricting your work to books, or are you recommending TV series, films, and music, and video games? Are you restricting yourself to items that are only in your collection? Because the odds that your Tumblr audience has access to your collection are slim. Very slim. If it fits, include it. Get inspired! - Consider book birthdays, release dates for book adaptations and release dates for highly anticipated stand-alone films, new season or new series openers fair game. When the next John Green book comes out, expect new flow charts to go with renewed demand. Before Mockingjay debuts, expect a Hunger Games-readalike flow chart to go with the surrounding excitement. And if you can, get on that trend as soon as possible and make your own. - Follow the official Tumblrs of popular series – Orphan Black and Teen Wolf’s are particularly dedicated and prolific, if you’re looking to get started. - Holiday-themed or tradition-themed posts will probably work well. Make sure you include a young adult component, and, when possible, a fresh angle on them. - Always, always, always, tag accordingly. The Military Fiction post seen on our last slide did fairly well the first time I posted it, as I mentioned. The second time, I specifically tagged the repost with #ya literature as the leading tag. You have to pay attention to who’s out there, who responds regularly and quickly. - Cross-post to other social media outlets. This is a no-brainer, but make sure that you do it if you can: create a Pinterest board of read-alikes for your lists and cross-promote your Tumblr posts via Twitter. With Pinterest, it’s actually better, because you can corral all of your other Internet resources thematically. If you’re seriously committed to an idea, try it elsewhere – there’s no harm in it if you’ve already done the work.
AKA, What to do with other people’s stuff as you’re creating your own. In case you’re not sure, “liking” something on Tumblr means you’ve bookmarked it, and that no one will see that (it’s really a reference for yourself), whereas “reblogging” it will post content to your page, even if the content didn’t originate with you. We say, if you like something, reblog it anyway and share it with your followers. Add a pithy comment*! Add a link! Relate it to your library’s programming, your catalog, a previous post, another social media site…you see where we’re going with this? So, to recap: DON’T JUST LIKE. LIKE AND REBLOG.
Did you find something cool online, but it isn’t your original work? Well, unless you’re a machine that churns out brand new stuff constantly, the bulk of your Tumblr is either going to be cool stuff you saw and you want to share it, or cool stuff someone else already shared and you’re sharing it. Sharing is caring: if you love something enough for it to give you pause, REBLOG IT. Sharing artwork: if you share a post with artwork on it, adhere to copyright rules and regulations, make sure your post cites the original source and credits the artist. Don’t reblog anything that doesn’t credit the artist. It’s not just good manners, sometimes it’s the law. http://pickeringtonlibrary.tumblr.com/post/93790563203/this-is-probably-the-best-thing-we-could-have-seen
Ditto for something you’ve seen on your dashboard. If it’s the sort of cool, nerdy, geeky, fangirl-y type of stuff you want other people to know about: [Say it with us!] REBLOG IT. http://books.tumblr.com/post/93785465930/here-it-is-for-the-first-time-anywhere-the
http://pickeringtonlibrary.tumblr.com/post/89865472128/monstrumologist-movie-in-the-works-at-warner-bros
But, as always, a small warning: While commenting is a way - and a great way at that – to put your own spin on someone else’s initial idea, don’t feel like you always have to comment. Constant Comment is a tea, not a mission statement. Some stuff is best presented as is. Trust us when we say that you’ll get a feel for what to say, and when, and when in doubt, see Hank Green – YOU KNOW WHO HE IS, RIGHT? – above. If it doesn’t merit analysis, and if you are trying too hard to be witty, reblog it and move on. There’s always something new to post.
People of Tumblr, frankly, don’t care that you’re a public institution. Expect criticism when you discuss books. (At least it means people are talking about your product! If no one’s saying anything…that’s another problem altogether: so regroup, evaluate, and adjust your approach.) Then move on.
When we say “not special,” we mean: if things are going well – if you’re gaining traction, if you’re gaining followers, if you’re noticing positive feedback - keep doing the thing that got you noticed. And then do it better. If you’re not challenging yourself to up your game constantly, then -- actually, why aren’t you doing that? You don’t attract new followers that way. And if you just said to yourself, “I’m not here to attract new followers! I just want to get the word out about great books, and art, and programs!” then you…should probably not be on the Internet, because followers are how people find out about your content.
Get familiar with these authors on Tumblr, with huge followings, and consistently original content:
For your daily laugh, follow Librarian Problems – it’s so timely. I Work at a Public Library, as well.

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