When leveraged effectively, social media channels create new opportunities to connect with your patrons, understand their needs, and attract more people to your programs and resources.
The majority of libraries now have their own social media accounts – but in 70% of cases, librarians have to balance social media management alongside their other responsibilities.
As a result, many librarians find themselves posting sporadically with no defined purpose, voice, or content strategy.
Doing social media well takes time. With so many other tasks to complete, how can library professionals ensure they are:
- Using the right platforms?
- Posting the right content?
- Maximizing reach and engagement?
In this blog, we will share some advice on how to enhance your library social media strategy – from choosing which social media channels to engage on, to creating content and measuring success.
1.Start with your goal
First things first: why do you want to post on social media?
Every library will have different social media goals.
Do you want to:
- Share information, announcements, and resources?
- Connect with your patrons and wider community?
- Encourage new membership sign-ups from a particular demographic?
Of course, you could want to achieve a mixture of all three!
Once you understand why you are posting on social media, creating content will become much easier.
2.Choosing the right channels
Once you have clarity on your social media goals, you need to decide which channels will help you achieve them.
The channels you choose will also depend on your patrons.
Think about the people you want to attract to your library using social media. This helps you decide on your brand voice and how you communicate across channels.
Each social media channel attracts a different demographic, and is best used for a specific purpose:
Best used for: Promoting library events and resources on your dedicated page and local community groups.
Best used for: Sharing images and videos of your library and collections, alongside interactive content like polls and quizzes.
The trend #Bookstagram is where book lovers share their reviews and recommendations. There is also an entire community for book influencers, whose content will help you keep your finger on the pulse of popular reads.
TikTok
Best used for: Attracting a younger, highly-engaged audience to library services.
TikTok has become a haven for book lovers, with #BookTok causing surges in popularity for particular titles, authors, and genres – especially with teenage readers.
Many bookshops now have entire sections dedicated to #BookTok recommendations – so TikTok can provide inspiration for your shelf displays and your social media content!
3.Build a content plan
Now that you have established your social media goals, your target audience, and your chosen channels, it’s time to start creating content!
The most important thing to keep in mind when building your content plan is that it’s not about what you – the librarian – find the most interesting.
Your content needs to be designed with your patrons in mind, and what they will engage with most.
A great place to find content inspiration is in other library accounts!
Here are a few of our favourite accounts:
- Orkney Library (situated about 16km off the north coast of Scotland) saw their social media accounts go global thanks to witty posts.
- Milwaukee Public Library’s fun and engaging content has resulted in over 400,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok. They were even nominated for a Peabody Award for their use of social media!
- New York Public Library (NYPL) shares a great mix of informative and inspirational content, with lots of information on library events and initiatives alongside stories of how real patrons use their resources.
- Cincinnati Public Library is known for viral social media posts – thanks to a very game team of librarians!
You don’t need to invest a lot of money into creating social media content for your library. Many software companies have free plans available, like Canva for creating image templates and CapCut for editing videos.
What you do need to invest is time to plan, create, edit, and upload your content.
When you have so many other things to do, how will you stay on top of your social media content?
collectionHQ can help with schedule management and encourage team collaboration. You can easily divide tasks between team members, and our collection management software will send timely reminders to staff members so there is never a last-minute panic about what to post.
4.Start with key library events
Another great place to find social media content ideas for your library is in your event’s calendar!
Have a look at all the themed events you have coming up, and then brainstorm some content ideas that could support them.
Libraries Connected has a comprehensive calendar of events you could spotlight with content on your social media accounts.
It may even give you some inspiration for events you could run in your branches!
5.Content ideas for libraries
When creating your content plan, think about the purpose of every post.
HubSpot recommends four key content pillars:
Educate
Aim: Sharing knowledge and information.
For example:
- Post video guides on how to become a member or access your resources.
- Carousels introducing each librarian, with fun facts on each person.
- Create an FAQs post covering the library’s opening hours and contact information.
Entertain
Aim: Fun content that captures attention.
For example:
- Create ‘This or That’ polls where followers select which book they would rather read (this also gives you excellent data on what people want to see on your shelves!).
- Create ‘Day in the Life of a Librarian’ videos to give people a peek behind the scenes at their local branch.
Inspire
Aim: Emotion-driven content that encourages engagement.
For example:
- Share a ‘Book of the Month’ from each of your librarians.
- Share the blurb of current popular books to get people excited about reading them.
- Invite local book influencers to host an event in your library, or to promote your resources on their social media channels.
Promote
Aim: Giving your audience a clear call-to-action (CTA) to get involved with your library.
For example:
- Share information on upcoming events, such as author readings or book clubs.
- Share pictures and videos of library patrons engaging with your resources and events – with permission, of course!
6.Create content efficiently
Don’t forget that there are lots of AI tools out there to help streamline content creation!
You can train tools like ChatGPT to generate content ideas based on your brand voice, target audience, and content pillars.
ChatGPT can also create content from scratch. Just make sure you edit it before you post, to ensure it is fully accurate and sounds appropriate.
collectionHQ can also help with content creation!
Our Discover tools generate charts and reports that analyze top-performing titles and genres on a local, regional, and national level, so you can create content in line with your patrons’ demands.
7.Post consistently and measure results
Now that you have created your plan, it’s time to start posting!
Decide on how many times you want to post on social media per week.
Be realistic about how much time you – and your team – can commit to social media.
If posting every day will be too challenging to stay on top of, why try two or three posts a week?
You can also batch-create content in advance and then use a scheduling tool to save time in the long run.
To track the success of your content, you should measure key metrics, including:
- Likes
- Post Impressions
- Video Views
- Follows
- Messages
- Members
Use this data to analyze your best-performing content and continuously evolve your strategy based on what performs best.
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And there we have it! A whistlestop tour on how to enhance your library’s social media strategy.
If you follow these steps, you will be able to create social media content for the right channels, engage with your patrons, and share your wonderful library shelves and resources far and wide.
From effective content scheduling to task reminders and data to inspire content, collectionHQ is the ideal assistant to help your library social media strategy succeed.
To find out more about our collection management software, you can book a free demo here.