Setting Yourself Up for
Social Media Success
Julie Theado, Social Media
Columbus Metropolitan Library
@columbuslibrary
April 30, 2016
Why social media
•  Build relationships with customers and media
•  Reputation brand management
•  Create consistent message
•  Immediate results
•  Find what interests your customers
Why we did it
•  Social media is one area of our overall plan.
It’s part of the bigger picture and works together
with other communications tools
•  Our social media focus is based on CML’s
strategic plan
Strategic Plan
We are driven by our strategic plan, with customer-focused strategies
to meet our customers’ rapidly evolving needs.
Our Purpose
To
INSPIRE reading
SHARE resources, and
CONNECT people.
Our social media strategy
•  2010: Sharing our value message. Levy year
•  2011: Focusing on our collection and eReaders
•  2012: Reader’s advisory, exceeding customers
expectations, measurement and new website
•  2013: Reading, engaging customers, Robin Reads
•  2014: Young Minds, content calendar, images
•  2015/2016: New buildings, young minds, engaging and
responding to customers
Basic social media strategy
•  What are you trying to accomplish?
•  Social media policy
•  Listen
•  Engage if/when it makes sense
•  Adjust – if it’s not working – stop
•  Start by using a few tools really well – Facebook
and Twitter
•  Consistent brand – one Facebook page
•  Monitor and measure
Rules of engagement
•  70-20-10
•  It’s about customers
•  Always monitor and respond
•  Know when to stop responding
•  Not every comment deserves a response
•  Keep your emotions in check
Creating your online personality
•  Don’t differ from your brand – tie back to strategic
plan
•  Share information that’s interesting to customers –
not self-serving
•  Friendly, human interactions – yet professional
•  Like other community pages or businesses.
Respond on their pages
What we do in social media
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  Bloggers
•  YouTube
•  Pinterest
•  Instagram
•  Google+
•  Periscope
Facebook
•  Develop content
calendar
•  Facebook Chats
•  Historic Photo
Fridays
•  What are you
reading Monday
•  Fill in the blanks
•  #TBT
Facebook
•  Relevant/timely
•  225,500+ reach
•  383 Likes
•  8 Comments
•  2,700+ Shares
•  Not our image
CML Reads
Twitter
•  Part of
conversation
•  CMLReads
•  Positioning as
industry leader
•  Know audience.
FB and Twitter
followers aren’t
always the same
Blogger relations
Pinterest
Instagram
•  Photos and
short videos
•  In the moment
posts
•  Use hashtags
•  Follow other
businesses and
engage
Results
40,000
25000
30,000
20000
20,000
15000
10,000
10000
0
5000
0
January-09
January-10
2011
2013
2014
2015
Today
Twi.erFollowers
FacebookLikes
What’s next
•  New buildings and social media
•  Always evolve – Periscope and Facebook Live
•  Continue engagement with customers and community
•  More measurement and analytics
Lessons learned
•  We’re still learning. Try new things
•  Audiences are different – what works for
Facebook, doesn’t work for all
•  Tailor messages to audience not platform
•  Quick, friendly and relevant works
Measurement – Free Tools
•  Tweetreach.com
•  Socialmention.com
•  Search.twitter.com
•  Klout.com
•  Tweetbeep.com (Google alerts for Twitter)
QUESTIONS?
Julie Theado, Social Media
Columbus Metropolitan Library
@columbuslibrary
jtheado@columbuslibrary.org
614.849.1047