Leveraging Your Social Media to Gain Friends and Influence People

• Julie Theado, Social Media Manager, Columbus Metropolitan Library
• jtheado@columbuslibrary.org
• @columbuslibrary
• Columbus OH...big budget cuts in 2010...needed to tell story and focus social media presence
• big need to be consistent in their message
• needed to gain support for a levy
• Julie is happy to share their social media policy (email her for a copy)
• need to know your customers
• monitor, measure and respond (if nesc)
• used editorial calendars: scheduled messages (what they would say and when they would say it...all planned, not random)
• did FB, twitter, blogger outreach, youtube
• scheduled FB chats...including author chats w local authors (can you chat as your page?...hmm...look in to that)
  
• "Who Knew Wednesdays": weekly feature to promote...posted interesting questions that staff have answered
• also did FB ads
• Twitter: @LibraryJennifer @PatLosinski (executive director)
  
• followed media, legislators and customers
• held tweetup as part of the levy outreach: allows people to meet...twtvite is a twitter invitation tool
  
• blogger relations: did a blogger event, just before summer reading club kick off...invited local bloggers to attend in person, and then they all blogged about it...interesting idea...I should get to know TBay bloggers...they invited Mommy bloggers + did special story time for their kids
• bloggers have their own audiences which you can leverage
• lessons learned: know who you are trying to reach / know your audience
• write punchy and conversational: too much copy is difficult
• approach staff involvement with a strategy
• measure and monitor
• creating quality experiences with your customers in social media is more important than the number
• monitor what is being said about you online: Facebook Insights, Google Alerts, NetVibes.com, Twilert.com
• tools they use: hootsuite, google alterts, twilert, netvibes, issuu (check them out)
• what's next: pinterest
• if it doesn't create results, they stop doing it
• social media from destination to driver (ie driving traffic to web site)
• question about pinterest and copyright...take a look at pinterest...one thing this lib is doing is posting book covers and linking to their opac...similar to what I do with flirck display pix...take a look at it and explore...can you tell how many TBay peeps are using pinterest?
• need to read the pinterest policy (non-profit rules)
• think about following back those who follow us on Twitter...prob will make them more engaged