Marketing & Programs meeting – Thursday 27th, August 2020 – minutes
Jade Koekoe
• In general digital engagement down since March
• Twitter suffered biggest drop (out of big 3: FB, IG, Twitter)
• Instagram most successfully held audience – if libraries go with IG suggest getting a business account to make use of better analytics to make marketing decisions
• Usually online goals for best engagement are to either anger, inspire or make people laugh – libraries are a bit different (expected to educate & be a one-stop shop for information)
• It’s the ‘way’ you speak on line that makes the biggest impact
• Also ask yourself: how does your post look sitting next to the news of the day, in someone’s feed?
• Less attention these days, so don’t be afraid to post less
• Keep a running list of ideas though to come back to
• Develop ‘trust content’ which allows you to spend more meaningful moments with your local/loyal audience
• Don’t be afraid to have a say – get involved in the conversation
• Our industry cannot afford to have people believe we are irrelevant, or just about books
• Boast about any impacts you make with people in your community • Don’t assume people know what you offer (materials or services)
Q: Can you recommend a (low cost) scheduling tool for IG? A: (from Jade): Later.com Some other answers: Planoly, Hootsuite (although some thought this wasn’t so good anymore), FB creator studio.
Q: Is IG business acc. Only available on a weekly basis? Is there a way to access retrospectively? A: As IG & FB are now linked, you can access your IG analytics through FB – you can see more info than just on the IG app.
Gabrielle - Wentworth Shire
Rural library – 50% of members are over 50, more than 30% had no internet at home and the local newspaper shut down for the first time in 100 years so messaging was a huge challenge
• Had to go old school and phone a list of 4000 customers
• And received handwritten letters back
• Gave younger members a call to action to help spread library messaging
• Also used local radio
• In that time helped many customers 1 on 1 complete permit applications to get to VIC doctors
• Used a ‘grapevine’ strategy for messaging by using prominent members of the community, such as heads of local groups & societies to spread messages
• And all these old methods worked really well
Suzy – Burwood • New library opened on 24th Aug
• Pre-library closure big focus on flyers and posters for messaging but with library closure focussed on IG, FB, website and some flyers at face-to-face outreach programs (school holiday activities at shopping centre, storytimes in the park etc)
• Ran book giveaways on IG
• Curated home learning content for adults & kids on website
• Promoted digital resources and focussed on calm, factual but optimistic voice for information
• Built a sense of community (such as with #Burwoodbearhunt program, and Anzac Day at home posts)
• Started library enews (fortnightly) for first time which helped connect
• Phoned all seniors (70+) in community to check up and deliver care packages (expanded HLS service)
• Now that library is open, reduced enews to monthly
Tanya – Wollongong
How to reach customers? Solution: TV ads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSTGWmJ12fA (15sec)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUh330HPgiM (30sec)
Contacted local TV station (WIN) to get advertising package (they are very happy to work with nearly every budget)
Aim: to highlight services during closures, particularly to families with kids, and seniors
Process: Storyboard and brief creation
Realised need for decent photo library to reflect diversity of local community (and will focus on getting those going forward, by taking photos at every event and using a professional photographer)
• Ads appeared on TV June/July during a wide range of shows for target audience
• Marked increase in use of online resources for that period compared to previous years
• Also posted the ads on youtube and social media
• Wollongong also keen to explore in app advertising
• Total spend on ads was $8303 (903 for ad creation and 3700/mth ad placement) = $5.48 per 1000 views = good return on investment
• Tip: touchbase with online service providers before featuring in ads and going online (also if you are making “how to” videos for eresources
Q: Did community members featured in ads know that when they signed media consent form? A: Media form is quite broad but good idea to make that more obvious for tv ads. Also good idea to get staff to sign a media consent form if featured in tv ads?
Q: Was radio considered? A: Yes, but they compile analytics very differently (too much of a guestimate) and we wanted to definitely see what our money was doing and when
Q: Did you use any stock images? Or only library photos? A: Both, because we didn’t have a good library photo collection (now a priority).
Q: Good sources for stock photos? A: Pixabay, Pexels and Unsplash.
Q: Did you have to go through a tender process? A: No, local TV station (WIN) was best coverage for our LGA, but may have to go down that path if this becomes a regular thing.
Rhiannon – Bathurst
• Saw covid closures as opportunity to reach out to non-library using community members
• Realised online connectivity issues with rural patrons would be a challenge, so focussed on inclusive, passive programs
• When transferring programs to online, through live-streaming, made sure to do it at same time as patrons were used (physical program time)
• Learnt that school-age children were overwhelmed with programming so reduced frequency of those programs, and combined programs
• Some YA programs: Augmented reality programs, scavenger hunts, digital escape rooms, gaming activities
Q: Did you live stream on FB or Youtube? A: FB but then uploaded video to Youtube.
Q: What tech did you use? A: Just iPhone
Other comment from Patrick: We live stream edited videos via FB using OBS studio.
Marisa – Liverpool
• Most successful online program = bilingual storytime (capitalised on diversity of staff)
Q: How do you manage copyright of stories? Especially bilingual? Do your staff do the bilingual translations? A: Mostly staff do the translations, but do get permission from Mantra Lingua with appropriate credits.
• Mini makes – short craft activity (focus on readily accessible materials for customers)
• Adult programs – ‘conversion café’ (English classes) and ‘Munch, mend and make’ (which replaced an existing craft group – included short instructional videos and sometimes craft/sewing kits put together by library and sold to locals – using contactless pickup - to go with instructional videos)
• Programs to celebrate events: Science week (UNSW women in maths & science champions talk) – zoom event streamed to FB live with Q&A (so people could type questions directly in FB too – a bit tech heavy but worth it. This program also marketed to local schools.
• Foraging skills online event – gave away 20 copies of eBook
• Key takeaway: it is a period of building relationships within and without council – a time to try new things and to keep adapting but to also maintain that customer support.
Q: What does everyone use to edit videos? Some answers: Premiere elements – Movavi – iMovie – Microsoft video editor (for minor edits) and Adobe Premier Pro for more complex editing.
• More tips: Look into training from https://www.digitalstorytellers.com.au/ For staff presenting in videos – highly recommended.
• Google and youtubing is your friend for learning how to edit videos, rather than the tutorials from the software provider
• Rule of thumb with editing time: the more footage you film, the longer it takes to edit (light editing could be 40min, lots of editing including music and titles etc could take many hours)
• Also important for accessibility to caption your videos: if using auto caption be aware it is not always correct (some libraries have had complaints about errors). Youtube auto caption has other language options which is good. Hornsby have used rev.com for captioning at $1.25USD per minute which they have been happy with (although still requires minor editing). Burwood have done their own captioning but it is very time consuming.
Alex – Newcastle
• First programs online: Rock n rhyme and Story stomp (storytime) which kept equivalent physical audience numbers
• During April team reviewed all previous programs
• Local creatives were employed to help online program creation and connect community (directly invested $57,000 into local creative industry)
• Precovid had 415 programs with 13,000 total participants – Online programs were 43 but had 9,000 participants
• New service model launching Oct 1 – Hybrid, building on strengths – For members only – include open-air programs – will have embedded outcome metrics – keep supporting local creatives
• Digital inclusion is still a struggle (online programming automatically reduces diversity of participants)
• Kids/teens 92% of our audience
• Most popular program= Rock n rhyme (live on FB)
• Most popular adult program = author talk lice streamed
• Most popular youth program = music
• We learned a lot from local creatives and most popular program = street art
• Podcast has also been very successful
• Takeaway: ‘Live’ online events much better than pre-recorded (costs less too) – we upload to youtube and then share with FB
• Schedule your platforms just like your branch activities (learnt from mistake of double-booking live time)
• Know your target audience
• The digital divide is widening because of covid
• We used a ‘phone-a-friend’ model to lessen digital divide (when tech help programs stopped face to face)
Q: What social media do you use? A: FB, podcast channel, have an IG acc. but don’t really use anymore, Youtube, Soundcloud, Website and app.
Christine – Randwick
• Hadn’t done online programs before covid so focussed on empowering service/event staff to test & trial and also train customers
• Had to build a case for Zoom
• Agile & pivot are now our middle names
• Made mistakes initially but community feedback was overall very positive
• Live is better than pre-recorded but some appetite for recordings to still be accessible after live events - Time and budget doesn’t really allow for much editing though
• Launched first podcast series too in June (featuring prominent locals) – huge learning curve but doing well
• What’s next – going to do online surveys to refine programming
• Work on partnerships to give quality programs to community
• Unlikely to do any face-to-face this year
Helen – Canterbury/Bankstown
• Adult programs online – chair yoga (videos from third party, well-filmed and included closed captions) & art classes (again third party, learn to draw videos – customers only needed a pencil and paper) – very popular
• Existing programs moved online – book clubs (using ebooks & click and collect), movie clubs (using Beamafilms – watch in own time then discuss)
• Other programs: Bookwatchers club (book & film club), Classic reads (read classic on ebook) – Puzzling pieces (online jigsaws using LS photos, also find-a-words) – State record webinar (Inspire family and local history researchers) – Authors talking (started with playlists from Penguin Random House, now doing own videos) – Happy crafting (very successful short videos of wide range of crafting activities)
• Take aways: Have actually found pre-recorded videos working well.
• Format of videos sourced from third parties need to be compatible with office desktops (MP4)
• Zoom has been great
• Initally staff were using phones and ipads to film, so needed to purchase equipment
• Council’s video producer will also be doing some filming and editing for us
• Need to promote well (FB, emails, website)
• Online programs here to stay, whether we return some normal or not
Stephanie – Campbelltown
• Youth programs: started with online Easter hat parade (no prizes just fun) – popular
• Comic drawing competition with donated prize from comic artist – good engagement
• Manga & Pokemon drawing classes
• Virtual tours of interesting places (Disneyland, British Museum etc)
• Lego challenges (Finding FB a challenge because target audience not on FB)
• HSC seminar (Legal studies) in partnership with local NFP org
• Wills for everyone (another collaboration)
• Upcoming: LGBT party program for https://www.wearitpurple.org/ day
• Collaboration with local Headspace for mental health week – yoga & meditation and weekly challenges for youth
Natasha – Waverley
• Were a covid hotspot – so went into ‘guerilla programming’ mode
• Staff had no access to library and leave left a team of only 10
• Lost access to library materials so staff could only use what they had at home
• Launched FB page, enews and ‘ask us’ page on website
• Staff recorded storytimes from home and uploaded but decided wanted to make events as interactive as possible
• Team learnt lots of new skills but had initial challenges around staff that were not confident in delivering programs online, and thinking online programming might not be beneficial etc
• Started by reviewing regular programs and brainstorming what could be adapted
• Engage community groups like historical societies to support them
• Cybersafety was a concern for childrens programs online
• Everyone eventually got on board to do online programming, so did training and practice sessions with staff first
• Very important to include terms & conditions for kids programs
• Always had one staff doing ‘tech’ so presenter could concentrate on presenting
• Started with art classes, book clubs etc
• To expand programs, encourage staff to think about their own passions and think outside the box which paved way for new programs for Waverley – diverse discussion groups, cooking classes, minecraft book club – before staff had access to the library building we ran over 100 interactive online programs
Lisa – Wollongong
• Kids programming – Tiny bites (5min stories & songs) - Take & make kits for people who responded via FB – Family friendly Fridays (challenges & activities for families to do together)
• Adults – Get skilled (instruction on joining and using library online) – Local Studies in the stacks (tour of materials held such as map collection, and intro to Amplify to do oral histories (good isolation hobby)) – Author chats (monthly)
• Special event: Comic gong live pop culture trivia (first online live program, very popular)
• School holidays kept basic (take & make kit)
• One surprise was the popularity of Learn French videos made by staff member which was initially made as a ‘filler’
• Overall community feedback has been lovely
• Shortfalls: Staff time (especially when all hands were on deck for library re-opening)
• Video quality being inconsistent when staff filmed on their own equipment
• Maintaining staff diversity in videos so it wasn’t just same faces all the time
• Some programs didn’t translate well into online space (Lego club)
Some points for discussion for next meeting?
- Anyone loaning out wifi hotspots to bridge digital divide?
- What booking systems is everyone using? (Some answered Eventbrite and trybooking)
- Experience using Teams for events rather than Zoom?
- Getting started with Podcasting?
- Video creation tech tips?
- Marketing plans – do you have one and how has it changed post covid?