Facebook in the Library: Enhancing Services and Engaging Users

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hi! So let’s talk about Facebook. Specifically, using a Facebook Page in an organizational setting. With the broad goal of enhancing services and engaging our customers. We’ll do that by covering these three areas:
• #3: Rebooting, the “Three M’s,” and getting engaged. I’ll tell you more about each of those areas as we get to them.
• #4: So first, how about a reboot? Here’s the problem I see
• #5: At this point, most of us libraries have a Facebook Page. 1. but not all libraries do! Some libraries don't have them yet! 2. many times, they are used as one-way broadcast tools
• #6: so, some confusion is taking place We know how to use it personally - friend to friend. But organizationally? It’s a different beast. Here’s what we’re used to: Mainly, a “new tool” / “old philosophy” thing, taken from the business world. We’re still thinking in terms of old media, physical interactions, using the “best,” correct wording in our writing, sending out “broadcast, newsletter-y” content to a wide audience, not expecting a response, etc. The focus is still on us, on getting our communication out, etc.
• #7: Meanwhile, in the real world of our customers ... they are already talking about us in Facebook. Taking photos of what they like and what they don't like and sharing that. Making a video about it even. Making recommendations to their community - friends and family, or - more of your patrons.
• #8: So I think a “Reboot” is needed! Here’s what I mean by Reboot - you know how movie studios take an older, classic movie, and remake it with modern technology, younger actors, a more gritty story, etc? You know - making it work for this day and age? That’s what we need to do with our Facebook Pages. Many of us started them with no plan other than: - Facebook is Cool! - Social media is Cool! - I’m cool and want to do Facebook! - My boss told me to do it - my employees told me to do it - our customers like it! And that was the extent of our plan. I’d suggest we do this:
• #9: Another way to say “time for a reboot!” The great thing is this - with social media, you don’t have to delete anything, you don’t have to build something. You can just do some brainstorming and planning, and ... just get it better the next time around. That’s my goal with this presentation - to give you some tools and tips to make your pages better, and help you figure out a plan to make that happen.
• #10: So - there are three things to think about with our Reboot. They are: reason to exist a team to make it happen telling people about it! Let’s look at each of those ideas.
• #11: First, you need a compelling reason for your library to be on Facebook. I’d say all those reasons like “my boss told me to” or “because it’s the shiny new toy” aren’t that compelling. Luckily, this is as easy as setting some goals for the FB Page.
• #12: So sit down with a small team of staff, and create some simple starter goals for your Facebook Page. Here are some ideas for starter goals: who will we connect with - people in your service area? other libraries? certain student groups or age ranges? why will we connect with them - Why do we want to connect with them? So they know what’s happening next week at the library? Better their lives? Make them smile? Get them to visit the building? Something else? what will we share - Once we know why we want to connect with them, what types of content will we share with them to help meet those “why will we connect” goals? what type of content - mainly text? Mainly visual? A mix? More on this later. Answer these types of questions, and you will have goals.
• #13: You also need a team to make those goals happen! Here’s what some libraries do for Facebook teams:
• #14: Because Facebook is just a broadcast medium, right? A place to put up virtual billboards? Um, no.
• #15: Because FB is on the web, so it’s a technology thing. Um, no.
• #16: Ah - here we go. Just librarians, because we rule the world! And we know stuff! And the media thinks we’re geeky cool right now! Actually, if you have the luxury of creating a team, I have a better way...
• #17: Why not mix it up a bit? Have a team of marketing, public services, and technology staff. That’s what my library does. It makes us more well-rounded when it comes to content and responses. And I’ll insert here - if you’re a smaller library, you might BE the team. That’s ok, too. You guys could probably teach us larger library folks a thing or two about getting things done, I’d guess.
• #18: need the Boss too someone to: answer the hard questions irritating people who decides who to friend - people and orgs probably set up multiple admins..
• #19: Now that you have a reason, and you have your team set up, you need to tell people you have a Facebook Page. This part is easy ...
• #20: Make sure to put something on your website, pointing to social media accounts. Here’s what Salt Lake City Public Library did.
• #21: And my library. This is in the footer of every page. We feature a couple of social media tools, and have buttons for all the major tools we’re on.
• #22: explain it a little bit - wordpress widget This is cool: everytime someone Likes something, that shows up on her FB wall - she shares that Like with all her friends. Thus enabling more potential clickthroughs. Also - a way to get your website content into FB without reposting it - patrons move it there everytime they click Like. It’s a bridge between you and FB.
• #23: Also ... don’t ignore your physical building! Here’s the poster on the front door of our library.
• #24: I love this one - they list out the address, and include a QR code for direct access to the page. You can also add it to flyers, in the newsletter. Announce it at meetings, make a little paper tent and place those on tables in the library. Many ways to help customers find you!
• #25: So that was rebooting. Now, let’s talk about the 3 M’s. Three more things to talk about here. They are...
• #26: management, measurement, and market ... ment! really marketing.
• #27: First, let’s look at management: Here, I mean the day-to-day “making it run” stuff. Figuring out a plan for answering questions from staff, checking stats, making sure people post. Here are some things to think about with management:
• #28: Back to the team for a sec. If you can, it really helps to have more than one person do this. Facebook doesn’t take a ton of time, but it does take planning and time to do well. So the more the merrier!
• #29: One way to figure out that planning stuff is to schedule regular meetings to talk through those issues. We also have an email distribution group for our Facebook Page.
• #30: And we have Multiple Admins for our Facebook Page. We use two types: Managers - can do everything - they can view insights, create ads, respond to and delete comments, create posts, edit the page and add apps, and manage admin roles. Content Creator - they can do everything except manage admin roles. Having multiple admins lets you cover every day with no sweat - it makes it easy for everyone (1 day a week instead of 5) Fun for staff, too.
• #31: We also use the scheduled posts view - that’s where you can see all the scheduled but-not-yet posted posts. Now on the Main Page (used to be called Activity Log) This helps us schedule our posts, and not run over each other’s cool content.
• #32: We also use the scheduled posts view - that’s where you can see all the scheduled but-not-yet posted posts. Now on the Main Page (used to be called Activity Log) This helps us schedule our posts, and not run over each other’s cool content.
• #33: provide some goals and guidelines for posting, then let em go! guidelines - when to post, language to use, etc goals = what’s the goal?
• #34: narrow the content: We have three narrow areas of content on our Facebook Page: reader’s advisory - so books, authors, movies, etc. current and local events - what’s happening in the news, local and national normal library stuff - the stuff about library news, events, author talks, markety stuff. And that’s all. No other content allowed for now!
• #35: This depends on your fans: - for example, restaurants are successful at 7am-noon - when people make lunch plans - user engagement in general is highest at 9-10pm For public libraries, think parents just put the kids to bed, and are winding down - so evening is good. Academic libraries - depends on your primary audience, right? freshmen - maybe 8-10pm. Faculty? Maybe 9:30 am. [Click]
• #36: Don’t forget this - people check FB during the work day too. So make sure to distract them! The point - don’t rely on me or some infographic to tell you the best time to post. Experiment with different times of the day and different days of the week and see what gets the most engagement.
• #37: How many posts per day? Same thing. Ask your customers how many they want from you - or if what you're doing now is enough. Sneaky pro tips - post more, then see if your UnLike rate goes up. If it does, back off (more on that in a bit).
• #38: Whatever you do, make sure to post regularly - at least once a day to stay top of mind for fans (and in the Timeline) - be consistent with whatever you do - same time/times of day So that’s Management. Now on to...
• #39: Measurement - what you can measure. what you should measure. Set real goals, then try to measure success of that.
• #40: Facebook Pages has insights, and they are pretty awesome. You can get a LOT of info out of this stuff! I’ll walk through the major sections, then give you some ideas for how to use FB Insights. This is the Overview page. Give a nice visual daily/monthly graph of engagement and reach.
• #41: Below that is the coolest part of FB Insights - the stats on individual posts! You can narrow by post type, if you want to. This shows, for each post: type and targeting - what type of post, and if it was public or pointed at a smaller group Reach - how many people saw the post Engagement - people who have “done something” - liked, shared, commented on. Why is this cool? At a glance, you can see what posts engaged users, and what posts flopped. Then do a little process review, and make them all better. For example - That “have you ever wondered” post - fail. Why? It was too long.
• #42: Likes is another useful tab. This shows gender and age of your users. I can tell that a majority of my library’s Facebook followers are female, age 25-44. One other really cool pro tip - see that Export Data button? Do that, and you get ...
• #43: a spreadsheet with every stat and a lot more! This is my customized version, showing some useful stats to know: Daily number of people who have interacted with us daily likes and unlikes. etc.
• #44: why track those numbers? These are ways to see if you are reaching your goals. Which means it doesn’t make sense really to track ANYTHING ... until AFTER you have those goals figured out.
• #45: Not via Facebook, but there are other things you might want to track. For example, conversions. Here’s what that might look like. This is our Summerfest page on our website. We want people to go there and sign up!
• #46: So in Google Analytics, I can check referrals for our summerfest page, and see that people are reaching our page from Facebook. Why is that?
• #47: Because of this - we posted some FB posts about Summerfest, and included a link to sign up.
• #48: Also work towards the Bigger goals - get more people to the library, get more people reading my library’s big goal - kids ready to read by kindergarten. Some of that means connecting with parents. - FB can create a buzz around those larger library goals - and are measurable through interactions. - Events - just ask. How did you hear about this? Via Facebook - ROI again!
• #49: Market-ment - now to my silly made-up word. OK. Let’s be real here for a sec. You WANT to do some marketing in Facebook. Why?
• #50: of Americans age 13 and up are on Facebook. That’s over half of your customers. A lot more if you narrow down the age ranges. That you can advertise to. For free.
• #51: Post fun, entertaining stuff! And stuff about the library. Quick - which one of these two posts caught your eye and made you smile? The funny baby, right? Look at the numbers: Funny baby - 5006 people saw this post, 46 shares, 81 likes event for summerfest - 967 people saw this post, 2 shares, 11 likes (not bad at all) What should you do with this knowledge?
• #52: Post a mix of fun stuff and “library” stuff. Why? When people see the fun stuff, they are more likely to see the "real" stuff Facebook users LOVE the fun stuff. Example - what are you reading tonight? People interact with that. When they do that, that tells Facebook “yo - this dude loves content from the library’s FB Page. So let’s make that FB Page appear a bit more often in his timeline.” Then - that gives you the opportunity to share more - your “real” stuff. Events, new services, etc. so make sure to mix it up! It helps. But - let’s talk about that Facebook drop in reach now.
• #53: Facebook’s algorithm for news feeds recently changed. This change affected a lot of organizations and companies because they experienced a huge drop in engagement rates - in some cases, 40% or more. Many Facebook Pages that primarily published viral content (think Buzzfeed) now have a significantly diminished Facebook reach. However, some companies and organizations are not experiencing this drop in reach, and are still growing (that’d be my library). What’s going on? Here’s what Facebook is doing: simply adjusting their news feed for their customers. Your news feed shows about 300 posts, not everything. So Facebook’s algorythm is designed to show people what is most relevant to them. The drop in reach? Simply means that those pages were focused on the wrong things. Focus on posting useful content. Being authentic, sometimes fun or funny. Be visual. Basically follow the guidelines in this presentation, and you’ll be ok. IF it’s a big deal on your Facebook Page, then you’re posting wrong. useful content = engagement
• #54: Here’s what Amy Porterfield says (check out her blog!): When it comes to Facebook engagement, there are just four things Facebook is monitoring. You ready for this? Facebook is looking to see if your fans either: 1) LIKE your post 2) COMMENT on your post 3) SHARE your post, or 4) CLICK a link in your post (if you include one of course). THAT IS IT. If Facebook users are not doing one of these four actions, Facebook thinks your audience is not at all interested in your content. If Facebook thinks your fans are not interested in your posts, they won’t push your posts out into the news feed and your reach declines. Now do you see how REACH and ENGAGEMENT go hand in hand?
• #55: OK. We have covered the Reboot, and the Three M’s. Management, Measurement, and market ... ment. Now on to the last part of this presentation - Getting Engaged! Lots of points to make here. They include:
• #56: The easiest way to turn fans into engaged fans, meaning that they interact with your posts (like, share, comment, click links, etc) is to create compelling, interesting content.
• #57: So make sure to be relevant to your FB fans. Who are they? Most likely, they are already library lovers - so you don’t have to convince them! - insider info is cool. Think new books, new videos! New services! - expert tips - shortcuts, alerts for that new paranormal romance author, etc. - don't pretend that your Fans are all new library users Don’t be pushy though!
• #58: be there for customers, like we are at the service desk: - answer questions - just talk Also share fun stuff!
• #59: share the news of your library: - what's happening - what's going to happen - stuff you like to read - staff picks.
• #60: Above all, make sure to tell the library’s story. Mention milestones. Show what’s happening. Ask if people were there, and could they share their experience? That’s a sneaky way to include your customers in the story. My daughter...
• #61: Pro Tips for posting nirvana: There are a variety of ways to think about How to post. Here are some ideas on improving your posts - experiment and see what works for your library!
• #62: When you do post, Think short - posts between 100-250 characters, or less than 3 lines of text - these see 60% more likes, comments, and shares than longer posts
• #63: Also, always include a visual element in your posts. Why?
• #64: posts including pics and videos generate 100% more engagement than a text-only post use simple images, bold visuals, clear focal point, saturated colors Goal - “ooh, that's pretty” - click
• #65: post videos in Facebook, either with FB videos or via Youtube. This also counts as visual content.
• #66: Don’t sound like a brochure, or like your marketing manager edited what you really wanted to say! Do that, and you will get ignored fast. This is tricky, because FB posts should be treated as conversations. You don’t edit conversations! But the medium is the same one - our keyboards and computers - that we use to write white papers. So that’s a hard switch to make for some of us. Here are two ideas to help you sound human in a text box:
• #67: #1: Type like you talk. Make sure your posts are conversational. If that isn’t easy to do (most of us were trained in school to write formally). So - write something down, then say it out loud. If it doesn’t sound like something you’d actually say to a friend, rewrite it!
• #68: And #2 - write “business casual.” Instead of marketing-speak, pretend you’re writing to a co-worker, or to a familiar customer. You’re still “at work,” so don’t do this -
• #69: No weekend, game day casual language! You get the difference, right?
• #70: Obviously, to pull this off, you need audience participation - make sure to encourage interaction. There are some great ways to do this:
• #71: ask questions to spark conversations and activity. An easy way to do this is to make a fill in the blank post - these generate about 90% more engagement than the average text post people will respond with Likes and comments
• #72: call to action - have one in everything you do what is it? It’s simple - it’s just providing the next step. After you read this, do this... - ask people to do stuff - ask them to Like a post, share it, comment, answer a question - Call to action should be in the first 90 characters of the post
• #73: Important - make sure your FB Page is set up for participation! Look at your privacy settings for your page, and play with your permissions. Make the wall the default landing page, and allow fans to write on the wall too. - fans can post photos - fans can post videos - fans can post links
• #74: OK - we now know what’s needed. You might need to reboot that page. You should re-examine the three M’s - management, measurement, and marketing And you have some tips for getting and improving engagement. What happens when you follow these tips and tricks?
• #75: You will be able to use Facebook as a tool to help meet real live library goals. Set those Facebook Page goals high, and see if you can help kick those system-wide library goals out of the ballpark!
• #76: If you’re interested in more info like this, please check out my book called Face2Face. More info at my blog at davidleeking.com Thank you! Questions?