Marketing today is largely done on social media. It is a relatively easy and low hassle way of bringing marketing and PR messages to the general public. This obviously applies to libraries as well. Libraries are able to use their social media platforms for both social awareness campaigns (or other forms of PR) as well as low cost high visibility marketing plans. 

Recently, the Marigold Library System has embarked on a campaign to raise public awareness about the high cost of e-books compared to physical books for libraries to purchase. They are posting a series of awareness campaigns, on social media with pictures as well as a call to action. This is an example of a potentially effective campaign. It is an easily share-able message, that seems like it will be able to promote conversation.

Promoting conversation and awareness is probably a common goal of most social media campaigns, even if it is not the primary goal. This is fast-paced world with an incredibly short attention span. Social media posts need to be catchy enough to catch people’s attention and stimulating enough to promote conversation either in or outside of social media. This can be very challenging, and usually follows a specific formula. Posts that are the most successful usually involve a statistic, a picture, and a call to action. This allows users to see something in a picture, stop scrolling and read the post, and then perform the action. A good example of this in action is Marigold’s campaign to raise awareness about the cost of e-books vs print books. The call to action is to go to a website and learn about how to share and hashtag posts to get the attention of publishers.  The picture includes a startling fact about the price of books.

Now that the situation has been thoroughly communicated, this is a great way for libraries to engage with more than just their regular patrons in the community. By spreading information and events that are related to some of their services, like audiobooks, it can potentially create intrigue among other citizens in the community. While some platforms over the internet may not have a lot of members that live geographically close to each other, the positive messages that are promoting a library’s services could actually get people to want to check in on their own community’s library.

The specific social media campaign we are discussing features a call to action to visit a website. This website was created by the Canadian Urban Libraries Council in an attempt to bring light as to why Canadian public libraries don’t have as many eBooks and audiobooks as library users want for signing out. The main message that CULC is trying to get across is if people want to help, they can continue to share the page and hashtag across the internet or to get in contact with these publishers.

We have provided a link to an example of the kinds of successful social media posts we have discussed in this entry. https://m.facebook.com/MarigoldLibrarySystem/photos/a.158187994239343/2180910808633708/?type=3

If you would like to support Alberta Regional Libraries in their campaign to lower the prices off e-books, please follow this link to get involved: https://econtentforlibraries.org/.