Bite‐sized Marketing: Realistic Solutions for the Overworked Librarian

Citation

Parry, F. (2010), "Bite‐sized Marketing: Realistic Solutions for the Overworked Librarian", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 329-330. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378831011047767

Some librarians may be forgiven for thinking that marketing is a dark art best left to the professionals as wonderfully portrayed in the television programme, Mad Men. The authors of this book do their best to dispel this notion. This is not a book about grand schemes cooked up by marketing agencies but about librarians taking control of everyday tools around them to promote their services.

Some of these tools may involve librarians thinking “outside the box” and not relying on traditional ways of communication. The first chapter, for instance, suggests ways in which word‐of‐mouth marketing can be used to convince sceptics and non‐users to find what they need from the library. The authors claim that many people pay more attention to what their friends, family and peers think on social or informal networks. Authority figures such as librarians are not authoritative any more. Librarians therefore need to cultivate “influencers” who can help spread the word while setting up “official” mechanisms – perhaps on social network sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube etc. ‐ to allow plenty of interaction, assess feedback and create a market for advertising library services. Another “low tech” idea is to take up storytelling – that is, creating story banks of situations where the library can call on instances where it has made a measurable difference to a person's life. The storytelling idea is similar to the use of testimonies but differs in that it follows the basic novel structure of beginning, middle and a successful end.

Other chapters deal with issues such as successful design, public relations and even one on advocacy where, for instance, should your library be on the verge of closure you can devise a marketing strategy to avert it. The most effective chapter is on using Web 2.0 tools, which goes into some detail on their most effective use and development by library staff. This is most useful for complete beginners and is full of handy tips and advice so that the library can have a coherent strategy for the use of such tools as blogs, videos, podcasts, etc. Some suggestions are better than others. Recommending librarians to add their electronic resources to Wikipedia because “that is where the audience looks” is a little odd, especially when you consider that the author subsequently recognises that this is time consuming and opens the library's work up to possibly unwanted external reader page revisions. The chapter on branding is also very short and could have done with a little more detail. But on the whole the advice is sound, down to earth and certainly within the reach and capabilities of most libraries. The final chapter rounds things off nicely with some tips for marketing best practice such as usability testing, evaluation, awareness of marketing strategies elsewhere and good communication internally involving and informing all staff.

The motto is “give it a try”, which could apply to this book. You may not agree with all the suggestions but you may well come away with some cracking ideas.