Interview with the Seattle Public Library
Interviewees:
Stephen Halsey,
Director of Marketing and Online Services
Toby,
Virtual & Instruction Services
When did you begin implementing a social media presence for your library and how has it changed and developed since it first began?
The Library has had a Facebook page since early 2008, launched by a Teen Advisory Group at our Central Library, and then turned over to our Communications Office. We considered multiple Facebook pages, but decided to focus our energy on a single main page and treat it as one of our regular communications channels. For a time, the Communications Office managed the page and posted once or twice a week but it was clear we would profit by involving more front line public services staff and posting more frequently. A couple of librarians were added to the team to create content that tied into library materials and services, and readers advisory. As the workload (and number of platforms) grew, we grew the Social Media Team into our current structure (5 librarians, 2 staff from Marketing). Having public services staff as content creators and managers has been key to our voice and personality.
We joined Twitter in 2010, becoming more active in 2011. We launched a presence on Pinterest in 2013 and Instagram in 2014.
We are currently most active on Twitter, with Facebook second. Our involvement on Instagram and Pinterest varies according to content availability.
You can view our current social media sites and get an idea of what we post here:
https://www.facebook.com/SeattlePublicLibrary
https://twitter.com/SPLBuzz
http://www.pinterest.com/seattlelibrary
http://instagram.com/seattlepubliclibrary#
Is there a certain demographic of patrons that you have found to be more interested in participating in the social network aspect of the library system?
In terms of age and gender, our social channels see largely the same type of engagement that those same channels do in other industries. For instance, Facebook is a bell curve with our largest usage among those 25-44 and with usage then dropping off within younger and older demographics. We also tend to skew more female in usage as well.
In terms of other demographics types like race and income level it’s tough to say as it’s harder for us to track these effectively. Looking at all of those who are engaging with us across all of our channels, we actually see quite a variety of users.
That said, we are currently not resourced to engage with non-English speaking patrons effectively though we are looking at a few different ways to engage the non-English (or ESL) populations we officially support which for us are Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian and Chinese.
What strategies have you used to market your library's social media initiatives?
We’ve marketed our social media initiatives via a variety of different methods. Those methods range from cross channel integrated campaigns promoting specific library programs or services with some type of social media tie-in, to running paid social media campaigns specifically to increase reach and gain followers. There are plenty of offline channels that we use as well, from in-person and word of mouth networking to outreach events to earned placement in local media outlets like radio, TV, and newspapers. The cross channel campaigns are particularly effective as we are promoting similar types of calls to action with consistent messaging and so it tends to resonate more strongly since those messages are seen in multiple places.
What types of content do you usually post on your social media accounts (news/updates, photo galleries, video, book reviews, and promotions for events)? Is there a certain type of content that receives more feedback than the others?
This has varied over the years, sometimes based on changes to the social media platforms themselves. Three years ago, asking a question on Facebook (e.g., “what’s a science fiction book you’d suggest to friends who say they hate science fiction?”) was a way to have higher engagement. It’s especially exciting when a question like that turns into a real conversation, with people recommending books/DVDs/music to one another.
On Twitter, questions often become a conversation between the library and the individual, rather than a larger group.
We have the highest interaction with followers when we are talking about books, music, TV and film. Though we are still relatively new on Instagram, and our followers are not near the size of our other sites, as a percentage of followers we have a great level of interaction with our posts there.
What strategy do you take for managing your library’s social media accounts? Is it a collaborative effort between all librarians, or are there devoted social media specialists, etc.?
We currently have a team of 6 who meet weekly and take turns being responsible for creating content and posting/responding on all our social channels. Anyone in the library system can suggest posts via our internal website, which goes to a calendar that the social media team manages.
We have a very collaborative and creative posting team, who are interested in making a robust and interactive online forum with our patrons. Since January 2011, we have met weekly to brainstorm and discuss various topics.
Does your library have specific social media policies in place and, if so, how often are these policies analyzed and updated in light of the library's evolving goals? What procedural system do you have in place for policy changes regarding social media? If not, do you see a need for a social media policy?
In terms of official policy, we have the same online policies in place for all platforms and our website. They are outlined on our website here (see the sections “What you can expect of us” and “What we expect of you”). We are in the process of revising our guidelines for each platform.
How do you decide what social media technologies are worth investing in? With the growth of specialized social media networks, how do you find sufficient data for picking-and-choosing social media vehicles that will yield a long-term return on investment?
We currently choose which networks to participate in via a variety of ways. In terms of data, we look to see which networks have more engagement and reach with specific audience segments that we feel we need to engage with and who align with our specific facets of our overall business strategy. We start with our own market segmentation and research to identify those audiences with whom we are not engaging very well (eg. Hispanic or Spanish speaking patrons who seem largely engaged on mobile) and then cross reference that with national and local research (eg. PEW, Simply Measured, City of Seattle sponsored research) into what that particular segment uses the most and in a way that we want to engage.
To be honest, we also look at things from less of a long-term ROI standpoint (though this does contribute), and instead look at what our overall key performance indicators are. Those can be both short and long term. Since many of these networks are newer than our own business strategy cycles and their own lifespans are yet to be determined it’s a bit difficult to choose them on an individual basis with long-term ROI in mind. For example, teens are a very fickle group when looked at individually and as a generalized segment. Their tastes change fairly rapidly in comparison with other audience segments and of course any individual teen’s engagement with a particular network changes as that person gets older.
What metrics do you use when assessing the success of the library’s social media initiatives?
There are common KPIs that we track, like the number of followers, fans, users, reach and other engagement metrics, etc. But other metrics are dependent upon what it is we are trying to do. If we are trying to drive library card sign ups, than card sign ups are what we’ll track with referral traffic from social networks being the other associated metric measured with that campaign.
If we are activating a social media initiative to provide a time limited reader’s or music listener’s advisory session than we look at engagement in that particular channel. In that particular example, we use Facebook and Twitter most often for those advisory campaigns, so metrics like the number of people engaged is a metric and then shares, favorites, likes, etc. of that engagement are other metrics we’ll track.
What are your long-term goals regarding social media and how will it serve the mission and purpose of your library?
Overall, our long-term goals are increased growth and engagement with our online community in the networks that they actively participate in. We’ll continue to look to grow our resources to provide more reference and customer service support. Customer service in particular has seen tremendous growth and need for additional resources, a trend supported across just about every industry actively engaged in social media and that provides some type of product or service to consumers. We’ll continue to use it as a marketing channel to help raise awareness and usage of library programs and services. Finally, we’ll also look to see how we can effectively support non-English speaking audiences more effectively.
Social Media must be taken in context with digital engagement strategies and less as a standalone group of initiatives. Earlier this year, our “virtual library” of digital resource usage, social media engagement and general website visits became our largest circulating and most
visited branch. Social media was a key driver of this as was eBook downloads. Because of that continued growth of our virtual library, we see Social Media as being an agile tool to support our overall mission, purpose and values of The Seattle Public Library.
What would you say is the strongest aspect of your social media presence and, conversely, what is the weakest?
The strongest aspect of our social media presence is that Seattle Public Library is a trusted source; if we link to something or share a resource, people know we’re reliable.
The weakest aspect is promoting events. With broad fan/follower bases coupled with 27 physical locations, it is hard to generate buzz for something that is hyper local to a neighborhood.
Stephen Halsey,
Director of Marketing and Online Services
Toby,
Virtual & Instruction Services
When did you begin implementing a social media presence for your library and how has it changed and developed since it first began?
The Library has had a Facebook page since early 2008, launched by a Teen Advisory Group at our Central Library, and then turned over to our Communications Office. We considered multiple Facebook pages, but decided to focus our energy on a single main page and treat it as one of our regular communications channels. For a time, the Communications Office managed the page and posted once or twice a week but it was clear we would profit by involving more front line public services staff and posting more frequently. A couple of librarians were added to the team to create content that tied into library materials and services, and readers advisory. As the workload (and number of platforms) grew, we grew the Social Media Team into our current structure (5 librarians, 2 staff from Marketing). Having public services staff as content creators and managers has been key to our voice and personality.
We joined Twitter in 2010, becoming more active in 2011. We launched a presence on Pinterest in 2013 and Instagram in 2014.
We are currently most active on Twitter, with Facebook second. Our involvement on Instagram and Pinterest varies according to content availability.
You can view our current social media sites and get an idea of what we post here:
https://www.facebook.com/SeattlePublicLibrary
https://twitter.com/SPLBuzz
http://www.pinterest.com/seattlelibrary
http://instagram.com/seattlepubliclibrary#
Is there a certain demographic of patrons that you have found to be more interested in participating in the social network aspect of the library system?
In terms of age and gender, our social channels see largely the same type of engagement that those same channels do in other industries. For instance, Facebook is a bell curve with our largest usage among those 25-44 and with usage then dropping off within younger and older demographics. We also tend to skew more female in usage as well.
In terms of other demographics types like race and income level it’s tough to say as it’s harder for us to track these effectively. Looking at all of those who are engaging with us across all of our channels, we actually see quite a variety of users.
That said, we are currently not resourced to engage with non-English speaking patrons effectively though we are looking at a few different ways to engage the non-English (or ESL) populations we officially support which for us are Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian and Chinese.
What strategies have you used to market your library's social media initiatives?
We’ve marketed our social media initiatives via a variety of different methods. Those methods range from cross channel integrated campaigns promoting specific library programs or services with some type of social media tie-in, to running paid social media campaigns specifically to increase reach and gain followers. There are plenty of offline channels that we use as well, from in-person and word of mouth networking to outreach events to earned placement in local media outlets like radio, TV, and newspapers. The cross channel campaigns are particularly effective as we are promoting similar types of calls to action with consistent messaging and so it tends to resonate more strongly since those messages are seen in multiple places.
What types of content do you usually post on your social media accounts (news/updates, photo galleries, video, book reviews, and promotions for events)? Is there a certain type of content that receives more feedback than the others?
This has varied over the years, sometimes based on changes to the social media platforms themselves. Three years ago, asking a question on Facebook (e.g., “what’s a science fiction book you’d suggest to friends who say they hate science fiction?”) was a way to have higher engagement. It’s especially exciting when a question like that turns into a real conversation, with people recommending books/DVDs/music to one another.
On Twitter, questions often become a conversation between the library and the individual, rather than a larger group.
We have the highest interaction with followers when we are talking about books, music, TV and film. Though we are still relatively new on Instagram, and our followers are not near the size of our other sites, as a percentage of followers we have a great level of interaction with our posts there.
What strategy do you take for managing your library’s social media accounts? Is it a collaborative effort between all librarians, or are there devoted social media specialists, etc.?
We currently have a team of 6 who meet weekly and take turns being responsible for creating content and posting/responding on all our social channels. Anyone in the library system can suggest posts via our internal website, which goes to a calendar that the social media team manages.
We have a very collaborative and creative posting team, who are interested in making a robust and interactive online forum with our patrons. Since January 2011, we have met weekly to brainstorm and discuss various topics.
Does your library have specific social media policies in place and, if so, how often are these policies analyzed and updated in light of the library's evolving goals? What procedural system do you have in place for policy changes regarding social media? If not, do you see a need for a social media policy?
In terms of official policy, we have the same online policies in place for all platforms and our website. They are outlined on our website here (see the sections “What you can expect of us” and “What we expect of you”). We are in the process of revising our guidelines for each platform.
How do you decide what social media technologies are worth investing in? With the growth of specialized social media networks, how do you find sufficient data for picking-and-choosing social media vehicles that will yield a long-term return on investment?
We currently choose which networks to participate in via a variety of ways. In terms of data, we look to see which networks have more engagement and reach with specific audience segments that we feel we need to engage with and who align with our specific facets of our overall business strategy. We start with our own market segmentation and research to identify those audiences with whom we are not engaging very well (eg. Hispanic or Spanish speaking patrons who seem largely engaged on mobile) and then cross reference that with national and local research (eg. PEW, Simply Measured, City of Seattle sponsored research) into what that particular segment uses the most and in a way that we want to engage.
To be honest, we also look at things from less of a long-term ROI standpoint (though this does contribute), and instead look at what our overall key performance indicators are. Those can be both short and long term. Since many of these networks are newer than our own business strategy cycles and their own lifespans are yet to be determined it’s a bit difficult to choose them on an individual basis with long-term ROI in mind. For example, teens are a very fickle group when looked at individually and as a generalized segment. Their tastes change fairly rapidly in comparison with other audience segments and of course any individual teen’s engagement with a particular network changes as that person gets older.
What metrics do you use when assessing the success of the library’s social media initiatives?
There are common KPIs that we track, like the number of followers, fans, users, reach and other engagement metrics, etc. But other metrics are dependent upon what it is we are trying to do. If we are trying to drive library card sign ups, than card sign ups are what we’ll track with referral traffic from social networks being the other associated metric measured with that campaign.
If we are activating a social media initiative to provide a time limited reader’s or music listener’s advisory session than we look at engagement in that particular channel. In that particular example, we use Facebook and Twitter most often for those advisory campaigns, so metrics like the number of people engaged is a metric and then shares, favorites, likes, etc. of that engagement are other metrics we’ll track.
What are your long-term goals regarding social media and how will it serve the mission and purpose of your library?
Overall, our long-term goals are increased growth and engagement with our online community in the networks that they actively participate in. We’ll continue to look to grow our resources to provide more reference and customer service support. Customer service in particular has seen tremendous growth and need for additional resources, a trend supported across just about every industry actively engaged in social media and that provides some type of product or service to consumers. We’ll continue to use it as a marketing channel to help raise awareness and usage of library programs and services. Finally, we’ll also look to see how we can effectively support non-English speaking audiences more effectively.
Social Media must be taken in context with digital engagement strategies and less as a standalone group of initiatives. Earlier this year, our “virtual library” of digital resource usage, social media engagement and general website visits became our largest circulating and most
visited branch. Social media was a key driver of this as was eBook downloads. Because of that continued growth of our virtual library, we see Social Media as being an agile tool to support our overall mission, purpose and values of The Seattle Public Library.
What would you say is the strongest aspect of your social media presence and, conversely, what is the weakest?
The strongest aspect of our social media presence is that Seattle Public Library is a trusted source; if we link to something or share a resource, people know we’re reliable.
The weakest aspect is promoting events. With broad fan/follower bases coupled with 27 physical locations, it is hard to generate buzz for something that is hyper local to a neighborhood.