Promotional techniques and Marketing

Non-traditional promotional techniques (NOT UPDATED SINCE 2016)

This page is the parent of a few non-traditional activities in libraries that may promote usage. These are:

Bookmarks

Why not get library bookmarks?

Events

Ideas for specific parts of the year, book types, etc:

Halloween: US survey of ideas for libraries.

Services

Moving into new services in response to user demands, market research or “just what’s successful” is something librarians do a lot. Here are some ideas:

Selling local authors. “. Starting with a group of about 20 authors she managed in very little time to produce 10 books. This success showed her that there is a great demand for guidance and help for local authors and by now she has a group of 220 authors, publishing books on demand or finding their way to regular publishers. Recently Karin opened up a bookstore for these works in the library and is selling quite well”.

Social media

Social library: how public libraries are using social media – ReadWriteWeb (USA). “The American Library Association (ALA) released a report earlier this year entitled The 2012 State of America’s Libraries. The report states that “Facebook and Twitter in particular have proven themselves useful tools not only in publicizing the availability of online collections, but also in building trusted relationships with users.” According to a survey conducted by the South Carolina State Library, 88% of respondents (all library workers) claimed to use Facebook in their work. Twitter was second most popular, at 46.8%.”
Useful resources via the Reading Agency here inc. template to justify social media presence for libraries.

Videos

Using video to promote your public library – New Jersey State Librarians. Jumping on a popular bandwagon for a parody may sometimes get massive numbers of views: see this video by University of Maryland featuring the library which has had over a hundred thousand views.

Public library examples include;