Learn the basics of marketing in Part 1 of MLC's Social Media for Libraries series with Kayla Martin-Gant, MLC's Continuing Education Coordinator. YOUTUBE: http://bit.ly/librarymarketingplaylist RESOURCE GUIDE: http://bit.ly/socmedforlibraries

1. Social Media for Libraries
An Introduction to Social Media Marketing

2. AGENDA
Marketing 101
Rules of Content
Intro to Social Media

3. Marketing 101:
The Basics

4. Whatis
marketing,
exactly?
“Marketing represents the long-term planned
activities and communication strategies an
organization engages in so they can connect their
products and services with their intended users.”
- Mark Polger, Library Marketing
Basics
For libraries, the goal is simple:
increase awareness of who you are, what you do,
and how much value you bring to the table.

5. BranchesofMarketing
• When employees are enthusiastic about your services, they can better relate
the value of them to your patrons.
Internal
Marketing
• Building personal relationships with patrons keeps them coming back, and
they often bring people with them.
Relationship
Marketing
• Social marketing is used to advance a social cause and attempts to modify the
behavior of the target audience.
Social
Marketing
• Marketing services is centered on patrons instead of products and involves
building relationships with customers via services that make their lives easier.
Services
Marketing
• Compelling visuals, audio, and text draw people in and aid in promotion, social
engagement, and the development of a library’s personality and presence.
Content
Marketing

6. Marketing
Strategy
1. Investigate the wants, needs, and habits of your
users while self-identifying gaps in service
2. Identify and group user demographics for targeted
marketing (segmentation)
3. Set content and frequency goals for each target group
while asking questions and getting to know them
4. Create, promote, and deliver products and services
according to market research
5. Gather and review feedback and adjust accordingly
6. Rinse and repeat when improving and updating
products and services

7. How does this
benefit ME?
You have to answer THIS
question for your audience.

8. Segmentation
& Personas
 Market Segmentation—dividing your audience
into groups based on what they have in common.
 Personas—profiles that represent a specific part
of your target market and/or target audience.

9. Target Market—who you’re marketing to
Target Audience—who you’re advertising to
What’s the difference?
Here’s an example:
If you’re trying to pitch a visit
from Elephant and Piggy, your
target market is kids—but your
target audience for your
marketing efforts is kids and
their parent or guardian who
are taking them to the library.

10. Types of
Segmentation
Geographics: location and living conditions
•Towns, cities, regions, postal codes
•Nature and history of community
•Rural, suburban, or urban area
•Size, climate, socio-economic index
Demographics: social characteristics
•Age, weight, height, gender, orientation
•Race, ethnicity, nationality, religion
•Languages spoken, education, income
Psychographics: motivations and lifestyles
•Values, attitudes, beliefs, emotions
•Community sore spots, societal/cultural norms, roles
•Budgets and activities
Behavior: relevant actions to consider
•Hobbies, habits, styles, and aesthetics
•Media consumption, social media/mobile phone use

11. Personas
Why create and use personas?
 Personas are useful tools for marketing because
they allow you to have concrete examples of
different populations you’re trying to reach at any
given time.
How do you create a persona?
 There are lots of different persona templates out
there, and HubSpot even has a persona generator
that can get you started. To build personas, you
need to research your market and determine various
segments before choosing specific ones to target.

12. Personas
Consider these questions:
 What are their demographics?
 What are their values and beliefs?
 What are their interests and habits?
 What are their needs and goals?
 What obstacles may prevent them from seeing or
engaging with our message?
 How do they prefer to receive information?
Where do you get this information?
 Library user statistics
 Surveys
 Social media analytics
 Interviews
 Observations

13. Content Marketing:
Rules & Key Concepts

14. Effective
content
marketing
Before creating and posting content,
ask yourself these questions:
 Is it strategic? You must have a plan of action.
 Is it relevant? What you’re sharing or creating should
provide value to your audience.
 Is it targeted? Gear your content toward a specific
audience—one size does not fit all.
 Is it consistent? Effective marketing is consistent
without being constant.
 Is it goal-oriented? What you’re sharing or creating
should have a specific endgame.

15. Promotion vs Marketing
Promotion
 Tweeting an announcement of a
new book being available
 Posting a link for an upcoming
program on Facebook
 Creating a video showing a
patron happily using a
database
Marketing
 A series of tweets describing
one book
 Sending an email to specific
patrons, building anticipation
 Creating a video clearly
showing real uses of a database
--From Laura Solomon’s The Librarian’s Nitty-Gritty Guide to Content
Marketing

16. Content curation takes:
PLANNING EFFORT TIME TEAMWORK

17. Social Media:
What You Must Know

18. What is
the point of
social media?
 Making connections & building relationships
 Prompting & facilitating engagement
 Cultivating & maintaining a “personality”
 Promoting collections, services, & programs

19. What role does
social media play
in marketing?
Your library’s social media
channels can and should contain
content specifically designed for
those platforms.
-HOWEVER-
They also act as the main
distribution centers for larger
forms of content—blog posts,
newsletters, video campaigns, etc.

20. Social Capital
“Having social capital is, in many ways, equivalent to having
credibility in a selected online community. It means that others
recognize you as someone who provides value…Social capital
can only be earned over time by participating appropriately
in the community.”
–Laura Solomon, The
Librarian’s Nitty-Gritty Guide to
Social Media

21. The Social
Media
Jungle
Statistics as of December 2018
Graphic designed by leveragestl.com

22. KeystoSuccess
STRIVE
FOR:
 Strategy
 Creativity
 Quality
 Consistency
AVOID:
 Stodgy voice
 Walls of text
 Promotion over engagement
 Focus on numbers
ADDITIONAL TIP:
Frontload the best content in both your text and
video postings. You’re a library, not a recipe blog.

23. Kayla Martin-Gant
ContinuingEducationCoordinator
kmartin-gant@mlc.lib.ms.us
601.432.4057