Redefinitions
Of all the thought-provoking and timely discussions we had as a class on Monday (November 9) the one I wished we’d been able to spend more time on was brought about by guest speaker Jeremy Shermak during his discussion of how the New York Times was able to turn their fortunes around during the early days of the redefinition of the newspaper from print icon to digital news source. He talked about how the New York Times had to turn themselves into “a digital media company that happens to print a newspaper” and how they found they could still offer the high quality journalism that made them the “Gray Lady” while offering it in a way that would appeal to the Buzzfeed crowd. (Note too that recently CNN has attempted to do this by creating their “Great Big Story” site/app)
If this doesn’t perfectly encapsulate the same issues the library is undergoing I don’t know what does.
In my experience it has seemed that libraries often use their digital resources the same way newspapers did fifteen years ago — as afterthoughts; as secondary; as “less than.” While there are a few — mostly University, though a few Public — libraries that have fully embraced all that the digital tools available to them can do to not only market but also expand on their services, for the most part many library websites resemble glorified geocities pages from the late nineties. This, I feel, has more to do with many people in the library world not understanding how information is shared today. As Jeremy mentioned in his talk about the New York Times Dialect Map, it was almost exclusively shared via social media pages and not the New York Times home page.
http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/10-social-media-marketing-tips-for-libraries/
The article linked above breaks down many things that a library can do to become more media savvy in the mobile age. Many of these suggestions are the same as what other “old media” companies have done to improve their own images.
The most important thing, I feel, that a library has to realize when using social media accounts is that they do not (and should not) have to create all original content. The library should use their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other accounts to share content that they find entertaining, thought-provoking or in some way related to the mission statement of the library. If 80%-90% of your social media content is of this nature, then the self-created content acts as a bonus for users who can then drop by when an event is going on that they want to check out. Like the newspapers providing solid journalism within the context of interactive media, the library must provide solid community-related information within the context of an entertainment aggregator.
A library that can master using their social media sites as more than just library news feeds will find that not only is it great way to share information but it will more deeply engage the library with the community itself and in turn become a significant marketing tool for the library as well.
