Author Archives: Julia Giantomasi

About Julia Giantomasi

I've had opportunities throughout my career to coordinate marketing and social media for live events and small businesses across various industries. I've enjoyed keeping up with the trends and using social media to not only promote quality services but create a sense of community. As the PR & Marketing Coordinator for the New Jersey State Library I can draw from these experiences in order to provide tips and best practices for libraries handling their own marketing and social media. I hope that I can be a resource to libraries across New Jersey as they engage with their communities.

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Look Out for These Social Media Trends in 2025

January 14, 2025Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

Happy New Year! The new year is a time to reset and create new goals. As you sit down and look at your marketing plan for the year ahead, it’s always good to become familiar with the top trends in marketing. Social media is fast-paced and ever-changing, so that’s not to say these trends can’t change. However, based on research from the year prior and what social media users are looking for, these trends serve as a guide for where to begin!

Focus on Instagram

Instagram is the most used platform across generations, so it should come as no surprise as to why brands are prioritizing this platform. Since Instagram is a platform that lends itself to visual content, the focus on this app further reinforces that images and videos are the most effective content. Your library can continue to make marketing efforts across multiple social media platforms to reach your different audiences, as long as Instagram is included. Meta owning both Facebook and Instagram makes it easier than ever to coordinate posts for both platforms and keep track of analytics.

Embrace AI

You can’t hide from AI these days and if you’ve followed along with this blog, you know that we’ve encouraged exploring AI in your library’s marketing. We’re not suggesting letting AI take over for your content! However, there are so many ways that AI can create better efficiency in your everyday tasks and free up staff members to create more meaningful content. That means automating some of the more administrative tasks like creating social media clips, captions, or scheduling posts. Using AI to revolutionize your content creation and distribution is definitely a trend for the future in social media.

Keep Sharing Video

It might be nice to hear that something that has been trending for a couple years now isn’t going anywhere! Video is still the most effective form of content that engages viewers the most. There are mixed opinions on what length of video performs best—some experts say continue to keep it under 30 seconds for scrollers with short attention spans, while others argue the general population is moving more toward consuming long-form videos. The answer to that question lies within your audience. Finding your topic or theme and honing in on that is the best way to not only find your audience, but grow that following as well. The future is unclear for TikTok, but with or without the app, keep getting creative with storytelling through video.

Social Listening

How do you know what your audience wants to see? Social listening, of course! Social listening will never go out of style because it’s the most effective way to see how your marketing efforts are being received. Keeping your finger on the pulse of what your followers want will ultimately lead to better impressions and patron loyalty.

Utilize Stories

Since you’re already focusing on Instagram this year, why not take advantage of all its features?! If you’re not familiar, the Instagram (or Facebook) stories option allows content to be visible to followers for 24 hours and then disappear after that time is up. Since this content is temporary, it creates more of an urgency for followers, and therefore they’re forced to interact with it immediately if they choose. This is a great way to connect with patrons on surveys, feedback, or even behind the scenes content. Explore your creativity with this tool and see if you can improve engagement and reach through stories.

Inclusive Marketing for Libraries

December 11, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

Public libraries are a safe space, open and accessible to all walks of life, offering a variety of services and programs to enhance the community. Your library’s social media and marketing efforts should reflect that inclusivity! Take the extra steps to ensure your content is accessible to everyone. Once you recognize the small things that you can do to make your content more accessible, it’ll become routine to your process and will make a huge difference to your audience.

Tips for Graphics

Whether you’re working with a graphic designer or creating something yourself, always try to be mindful of colors and color contrast. Don’t use bright colors and make sure there’s sufficient color contrast between text and background to improve readability for people with visual impairments. If you’re ever not sure, you can use this free tool that checks contrast.

Any graphics posted on social media or included in email marketing should always include alt-text so people using screen readers can understand what’s depicted. Essentially, the alt-text is a brief description of the image that will be read by assistive tech to provide information about the image’s purpose to the reader. That’s why the text shouldn’t just relay what the image contains, but provide context into how it relates to page content. It’s best to keep the description short and straight-forward. There’s no need to say “image of” or “picture of” because the screen reader will relay that information, but do specify if it’s a logo or illustration. It can take a little practice to get alt-text right, but this guide from Harvard can be helpful in learning what works best and what to avoid when using alt-text.

As for the content of your images, try to always show a variety of people reflecting different ethnicities, abilities, ages, and genders. Two great resources for royalty-free stock photos that offer more diversity are Unsplash and Pexels.

Tips for Writing

Using inclusive and plain language is key for the content on your website, email marketing, or social media to be accessible to all. Use gender-neutral terms, person-first language, and avoid language that could be considered offensive or discriminatory. Writing in “plain language” means that you’re writing for a general audience to understand your material, which increases the ability for people with cognitive or intellectual disabilities to access what your library has to offer. Try writing clearly in short sentences without jargon. Reference these five steps to plain language when you get stuck.

Tips for Video

All videos on your website or created for social media should include closed captioning for people with hearing impairments. Not only will this be more accessible to them, but it also helps anyone else who might be scrolling in a public place (without sound) consume your content by reading the captions. Luckily, most social media platforms will have a feature that you can toggle on to automatically generate closed captioning. If that’s not an option, check out this guide for how to easily add them.

There are many ways to make your library’s marketing more inclusive and the internet is an ever-evolving landscape. That’s why organizations like Accessible Social are extra helpful in sharing best practices and free resources for creating accessible social media content. As long as you know your audience, and are always mindful of representing different perspectives and a diverse community, you’re on the right track!

How to Fix a Creative Block in Marketing

December 3, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

To be completely transparent, I’ve been stuck lately on which topic to cover next for this marketing blog. In marketing, you always want to stay fresh, but it’s hard to be consistently creative and not get repetitive in your content. Hopefully, this frustration resonates with you and you’ll learn some new tips for getting out of a creative block and back to producing content that promotes your library’s services and connects your community!

Start Small

When you’re in a rut, everything seems overwhelming and you don’t know where to start. By starting small, with a simple goal that can be achieved, you’ll start to get back into a routine and build momentum on your accomplishments. That could mean many different things in the creative process. Maybe that means finding a trending sound on Instagram or TikTok as a starting point for a video. It could mean sitting down to write a blog and only writing one paragraph to start. Or even just setting some time aside on your calendar each day to brainstorm. Whatever project you’re feeling stuck with, breaking it down into smaller bites can always help motivate you to keep going. Plus, when you accomplish that small task, feel free to reward yourself!

Get Inspired

We all know how easy it is to start doom-scrolling social media and not come up for air. In this case, that actually could be a good thing. Hear me out—I’m not recommending your mindless consumption after a long day. I’m saying scroll with intention and critical thinking. Seeing what other people are posting and sharing can only serve as inspiration to your own marketing plan. Set a time limit for yourself to browse a couple different social media platforms and really look at what organizations are creating right now. Stumbling upon a new series, campaign, or trend that you hadn’t thought of before could get the creative juices flowing. It might even help to talk it through with a coworker or even a patron. You never know what might spark a new idea!

Embrace It

Fans of comedic TV show “The Office” might recall Michael Scott being one of the worst bosses in television history, but he was onto something when he said, “Sometimes I’ll start a sentence and I don’t know where it’s going. I just hope to find it somewhere along the way.” Be more like Michael Scott. Embrace the fact that you’re in a creative block and you’re not sure where you’re going to end up, but give it a try anyway. The worst thing that could happen is you have a really bad first draft that no one sees. But at least then you have something to work with and edit. Sometimes all it takes is getting the words out or shooting a half-baked idea for a video as a jumping point. The creative process ebbs and flows and if you trust yourself and ride the wave, you could end up with some pretty great content!

Exploring AI in Library Marketing

September 24, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

Artificial Intelligence (AI) was initially introduced to the general public about two years ago and though most people were curious about it, many were cautious. Through use and research, tools have become more refined over the years. According to Grammarly, two-thirds of marketers (66%) are already using generative AI at work, 13 percentage-points higher than the average worker. If you’re open to incorporating AI into your library’s marketing, but want to learn more about it, keep reading!

Marketing teams have incorporated AI to streamline their processes, allowing members of the team to better balance out their workload between writing, content creation, editing, scheduling, responding, and analyzing. Teams have been using AI mostly for ideation and content creation, but also find it helpful in research, editing, and comprehension. Marketers tend to use AI more for short-form content like captions or emails rather than long-form blogs or documents. Having short, snappy writing suggestions improves the quality of their work and allows them to get more done in a week. Marketers reported saving up to six hours weekly with AI.

Bar graph showing how marketing teams are using AI. 81% use it for ideation, 78% use it for content creation, 76% use it for research, 75% use it for editing or revision, and 58% use it for comprehension. — Graphic & Research provided by Grammarly.

There are many ways that AI can be used to assist with marketing, from scheduling social media to creating content or editing photos and videos, even collecting insights. The first step to exploring is finding an area you’d like to try automating and then connecting with the right tool. In previous blogs, we’ve touched upon the AI features that are now incorporated in social media platforms to offer caption suggestions. These are readily available and easy to turn to when feeling stuck writing a caption or hitting the right tone. If your library doesn’t have a large budget for marketing, AI tools can be great for creating illustrated graphics or voiceovers. Or there are tools that can enhance your photos by removing the background or adding in details that better enhance the message you’re trying to send. Here is a list of AI tools that could be a jumping point in finding the right fit for your marketing team.

As with any newer technology, there are always glitches and potentially negative effects to be aware of when using AI. To state the obvious, AI is computer-generated and therefore lacks the nuances that we can create as humans, especially in writing. Humans will always have the ability to be more creative than AI and that’s why it’s sometimes more helpful to use creation tools in tandem with your own skills. It’s important to become educated on the tools and resources that you’re using and the fair-use rights associated with content as you would when working with templates or stock assets. You can embrace AI tools while still upholding ethical standards when it comes to creative work. The New Jersey State Library and Thomas Edison State University have recently formed an AI Task Force and we look forward to integrating AI technologies into our work, while also ensuring these tools align with our strategic goals and ethical standards. We hope that you too are able to consciously explore what AI has to offer as a powerful collaborator within your marketing efforts and open up the dialogue at your organization as well.

Instagram Threads: A Year Later

August 19, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

When Instagram Threads was introduced in July 2023 as a competitor to X (formerly Twitter), we summarized what the app offered and why you might consider joining it. Getting in on the ground floor with an app can often present challenges as they haven’t figured out what works best yet. We’re here a year later to provide an update to what Threads can offer and how to best utilize it for your library’s marketing—if you haven’t already joined!

Instagram Threads has listened to user feedback since it began and updates have been made throughout the year. As far as functionality for posting, Threads is now accessible on web browsers and through scheduling tools. This allows more brands, such as libraries, to easily access on their computer or schedule posts like they do on other platforms. Although you still need an Instagram account to create Threads, the app does now allow you to delete Threads without deleting your Instagram account.

Threads has had an increase in growth rate recently and now has 200 million active users on a monthly basis. To continue to grow and create an interactive platform where people and businesses or brands can converse, they unveil new features on a regular basis. When Threads first started, hashtags were not offered and it was somewhat unclear how posts would be categorized and feeds would be organized. Now posts have “tags”, which will allow a thread to be grouped into a category much like on other platforms. The traditional hashtag symbol is slowly being introduced to test with specific users first before the rest of the platform can utilize. Unfortunately, even though you can create a tag, only one is allowed per post, so you have to narrow down to one that best embodies your post. Threads also now has a blue tag above posts that relate to a trending topic. That way, you can click that tag to read other posts that touch on similar topics. In an election year, Threads is attempting to offer a safer, more comfortable conversation that avoids divisive political discourse. They are always working to customize a users’ feed to make sure the algorithm is delivering the content each person wants to see.

As they continue to improve features and give users what they’re looking for, you might still be wondering if Threads is worthwhile and how to approach it. If X doesn’t feel like the right fit for your library’s text-based information sharing, then Threads would be a great alternative. Threads is more of a micro-blogging app, and a way to demonstrate your expertise in a niche environment. Plus, your following is somewhat built-in as it carries over from your Instagram account. Spending time creating a dialogue with followers or other brands on Threads is a great way to build community. The more you interact with your audience, the higher you’ll rank in the Threads algorithm. It’s worth spending some time testing which posts do best and learning who your audience is on Threads now that it’s here to stay!

How To Quantify Your Library’s Social Media Efforts

July 26, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

Coming up with what to post on your library’s social media platforms consistently is half the battle, the other half is figuring out what works with your audience. For anyone who wants to know where to start with analytics, we’ll list what aspects to focus on when you’re seeing how well content is performing. Through measuring performance of your posts, you’ll be able to quantify your social media efforts!

Engagement

Engagement measures the audience’s interaction with content that you share. This data will show you who is actively engaging with your posts, what types of posts generate the most interest, and how well your content is connecting to your target audience. The metrics that go into calculating engagement are likes, comments, shares, and saves. Therefore, if you see higher than average numbers on any of those metrics, you’ll know that a particular post has high engagement. Free tools like Meta Business Suite can show you the breakdown of those metrics and who is interacting, or you can pay for a service that might pull even more detailed reports.

Loyalty

Loyalty can be measured by your level of support on social media from followers. For instance, if you have a large number of people unfollowing your account, you’ll see that they’re no longer supporting your page. Time spent can also be calculated, showing you how long people typically spend on your page. Existing audience will measure the ratio of new followers reached compared to existing followers reached. This is a great statistic for finding out who of your existing audience is still interested and looking at your posts, and how new followers have been engaged.

Growth

Tracking growth over time can show the progress that your accounts have made since they were created. Unless you’ve made an investment in buying followers, most pages grow organically, which can sometimes be a slow process. Growth can be measured by direct messages and new followers. Organic growth happens by word of mouth, promoting your social media face to face in the library, using the right hashtags or location tags to get in front of people who might not be following, and interacting with other accounts. As long as your follower count is increasing even by just a little bit, that’s great for showing how many people are being drawn to your content.

Conversions

Being in a non-profit space, measuring conversions isn’t as crucial as a retail organization, but it’s still important to consider when gauging effectiveness of your content. Many of your posts might have a call to action like registering for an event or joining a group. Looking at click-through or conversion rates can show you who clicked on a link you shared and how many of those people completed the call to action after clicking. It can also help you finetune your marketing for future events to see if most registrations came from an email blast or a social post.

Reach

Reach gives you an idea of how many people saw your content and how far it went. This includes impressions, which shows how many times a post was in someone’s feed. And traffic, which shows how many people visited your website from social media. Reach measures beyond your followers. It can show you when you’ve used account and location tags or even hashtags wisely to extend past followers and put your posts in front of new people who might be interested in these topics. A post that reaches the most people might not have the highest engagement, but you can at least see that it was viewed by a significant amount of people, even if they didn’t like or comment. Each metric tracks differently, but as long as you’re aware of all five and understand what they each do, you’ll be able to understand how your social media content is performing.

How To Master Social Media Automation

July 23, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

We understand that time is of the essence and your library might not have a dedicated marketing team. That’s why social media automation could be the key to success in your marketing efforts! Social media automation is utilizing tools to manage repetitive marketing tasks on social media platforms. Keep reading to learn how to master automating your regular tasks to save time and really be able to prioritize creating engaging content.

Scheduling at Best Time

Using a tool to schedule your social media on a regular basis can simplify posting on multiple platforms. It’s also important to note that each platform typically has a different ideal time to post when your followers will be most engaged. Even if you’re cross-posting the same content, by utilizing a scheduling tool, you’re able to choose the best time per platform.

Just because you’re scheduling posts ahead of time, doesn’t mean you can rely on the tool to catch mistakes. Attention to detail is still important when scheduling. Make sure to edit each post, using hashtags only where appropriate, attaching the graphic with the correct ratio, and tagging the right user profiles. Sometimes a person’s Twitter handle is different than their page name on Facebook. Streamlining the process can be helpful, but you never want your followers to know you’re streamlining by catching mistakes. Repeating a post with errors across multiple platforms makes it super obvious! This also applies to the timing of your schedule. You should always know what posts are coming up and manually make changes when necessary.

As far as what tool to use, that’s entirely up to you! Some tools offer free versions with limited capabilities and depending on your budget there are different tiers of subscriptions. Check out this list to find out which tool would be the best fit for you.

Boost Content with AI

AI can be inspiring if used correctly. We don’t encourage using AI to steal or repurpose other creatives’ work without credit, but we do believe it can be a helpful tool in inspiring content creation. When you’re creating daily content for social media, it’s not uncommon to get stuck with what to say without being repetitive. Most scheduling tools as well as social media platforms themselves have an AI suggestion tool for creating captions. This tool will take a sentence you’ve already written and rewrite it to make it sound more enticing to followers. Working together with these AI suggestions can help craft a more original caption with vocabulary that might be a better fit for your audience. Look at AI as more of a writing assistant rather than the actual writer.

Streamline Analytics Reporting

Each social media platform has their own analytics tab and reporting. If you choose to use these tools, you’ll have to manually collect information from each channel. However, there are tools that will collect that information from each platform for you and collate it into a report. Using a tool like this, which may have a subscription fee, will allow you to customize reports and set up an automated delivery with data laid out in easy-to-read charts or graphs. Regardless of if you want to streamline this step, being aware of the data from your social media posts is an important step in creating content that engages your following.

Marketing Your Library on YouTube

July 15, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

YouTube has always been a platform for video content, but not many people stop to consider it as a marketing tool or form of social media. The fact of the matter is that more than 2 billion people use YouTube every month, which is almost 1/3 of internet users, according to SocialMediaToday. Although geared more toward organizations that are selling a product, having a presence on YouTube can only help your library reach more people. So, what kind of videos should you be making for YouTube? Here’s a few ideas of ways to engage your audience through video on YouTube.

How-To Videos

Videos that explain how to do something can really rely on the show and tell aspect of videomaking. Whether it’s a step-by-step guide on how to file a patent if your library is a Patent & Trademark Resource Center, or how to use the self-checkout machine, breaking something down step-by-step with visuals can be helpful for patrons to understand a process. Make sure your expert staff member is the one doing the walkthrough as their knowledge and comfort with the topic will translate to the camera. You can write a script to make sure you don’t miss any steps or details, make sure your audio is clear, and keep it short, between 2-5 minutes.

FAQ’s

Frequently Asked Questions is not a new concept and can be a great way to switch things up by addressing in video format. If you find that members of your community often have the same questions about your library, making a video can be a direct way to address them. Gather questions from emails, social media, and surveys and address a small group of questions that might have similar topics or even just a top 5 FAQs about your library. Having a simple video of just one staff member speaking to the camera can make it conversational and open the lines of communication with your patrons.

Patron Testimonials

This one might require some signed video release forms and willing participants, which we understand is not always feasible. However, if you have patrons that are willing to share their experiences or testimonials, there is no better promotion than someone who has had a positive experience. This can be done with different facets of your library be it participation in events, utilization of the space, or programs that you offer. Testimonials work best when they are genuine and unscripted. Since not everyone is comfortable speaking in front of a camera, asking the patron questions that will guide them in sharing their experience could help keep the video on track.

Behind the Scenes

It doesn’t get more authentic than peeking behind the curtain. Show what goes into making a particular display, planning an event, even everyday tasks through “a day in the life of a public librarian.” No matter what you show, people will be excited to see the work and passion that goes into their local public library.

Meet the Team

We’ve recently been highlighting different librarians here at the State Library on our social media and they’ve continued to be our most popular posts. It’s a great way to show your community friendly faces and explain what their role is at the library. It’s especially helpful for librarians who specialize in a specific topic or program so patrons know how they can reach out. Choosing one team member at a time to feature can turn it into a series as you work your way through the staff. You can even create video content of your staff members working well together. Don’t be afraid to inject personality by getting to know fun facts about staff that doesn’t pertain directly to their job!

If you have the time and creativity, video can be a great tool to try new things and your audience will appreciate it.

Five Tips for Managing Your Library’s Social Media

July 15, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

We understand that staff at your library may have a lot of priorities and tasks on their plate, and managing social media could seem overwhelming or not worth the effort. That’s why we’re breaking down what it takes to manage social media, hopefully making it more attainable for libraries who don’t have a dedicated marketing team or budget. Setting yourself up for success with social media means doing some planning up front, and can be easily managed by following these five tips.

Content Calendar

Creating a content calendar is a great way to map out your social media posts. Doing this type of planning allows you to see what holidays or theme days are coming up, figure out how often you’d like to post, and what types of content you’d like to create. By planning it in advance, you can do a big brainstorm for content all at once, which can better organize the branding or messaging you’d like to put out on social platforms.

Content Creation Tools

Planning captions, posts, and videos is a great place to start, and then you’ll want to get to creating! If you have staff that is particularly interested in content creating, this can be a space for them to really explore photography, videography, editing, creating graphics and copywriting. However, that can also be a daunting task for someone who is not as well-versed in content creating. That’s why utilizing the tools that are available to you can be very helpful in saving time and energy creating social media posts. From tools that can spruce up your captions or check grammar and tone, to tools that can make editing a breeze, here’s a list of the best resources to make content creation easier.

Schedule Posts

Amongst the many options for making content creation smoother, there’s also several scheduling tools. Social media scheduling tools are software platforms that help users schedule posts across multiple social accounts. Most tools have a free version, and pricing plans from there based on your needs. For a library where you’re just posting for one account on a couple of different platforms, a free scheduling tool would work. If you had budget to spend a little more money, some tools will also collect data from your posts or offer more advanced features that you might want to take advantage of. Check out this breakdown of what social scheduling tools are out there to see if one fits your needs.

Engage

If time allows, logging into social media to check engagement on your posts is a great way to stay connected with your audience. If you respond to comments in a timely manner, it shows your followers that you’re not just churning out pre-scheduled posts but that you care about their feedback. It will help you cater future content to what your audience seems to like or dislike. It also gives you the opportunity to actually emphasize the social part of social media. Scheduling some time each day or every few days just to check in is a good idea when managing social media.

Analyze

Looking at the data from your content is the best way to know what’s working and keep the ball rolling when content creating and mapping out the next month. You can always adjust your strategy based on what the analytics are showing if you keep an eye on them on a regular basis. Insights like engagement and reach can usually be found through the actual platform, like Business Suite for Facebook & Instagram. If you’re unsure of how to navigate these, analytics tools can pull reports and data from each platform for you.

How to Increase Instagram Engagement

July 15, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

Instagram engagement is a calculation that shows what percentage of your followers interact with your content. This accounts for likes, comments, saves, or shares on a particular post in relation to your overall reach. Although it’s sometimes overwhelming to always be considering social media metrics in your marketing efforts, engagement plays a big role in building your library’s Instagram community. If you keep a few of the following tactics in mind, you’ll be sure to have more engaged followers on one of the most popular social media platforms.

Story Stickers

When creating stories for your Instagram, utilizing the different stickers options will encourage viewers of your story to interact or magnify your reach to people who might not normally follow your content. Poll stickers, emoji sliders, questions or quizzes allow story viewers to reply or weigh in on the topic you’re posting about. Polls or emoji sliders are a fun way to get people to participate without having to take the time to type their own response. Once people vote, you can share the results on your story as well. Stickers like location, mention, or hashtag will magnify your story beyond your followers because stories can be found through those sticker tags. Another great way to use stickers is with the link option. If you recently posted a blog or want to share a link to your website, although Instagram doesn’t support hyperlinks in post captions, they do via stickers. Sharing a story with a link will make it easy for viewers to tap and visit that link.

Reels

Posting videos or Reels to Instagram is a huge opportunity for growth. The Reels feature has its own tab on the home feed navigation bar and makes these videos more likely to be discovered by people who don’t follow your account. Editing Reels in the Instagram app allows you to add stickers, create fun transitions, and use trending audio to make your videos stand out, which will of course increase your engagement.

Shareable Quotes

Instagram users love to share quotes that resonate with them to their stories, and the more inspirational or relatable they are, the higher chance they’ll be shared. Creating a quick graphic of your favorite book or author quote in Canva could be a great way to post new content that will drive engagement. Another current trend is repurposing a tweet or a thread into an Instagram post. You can simply screenshot the text or put it into a Canva template for a more stylized look.

Carousel Posts

Carousel posts are a great way to break a lot of information down into bite-sized posts or graphics. For example, if you have a long infographic, try sectioning it off into multiple 1080 x 1080 pixels graphics so followers can slide through it in a carousel. Carousel posts allow you to share up to 10 pictures, videos, and text graphics all in one post. These types of posts often surface in users’ feeds more than once, which increases the opportunity for likes, comments, and shares.

Hashtags

Hashtags are more about casting a wider net with your reach, but reach and engagement typically go hand in hand. The more people you reach, the more chances for higher engagement! Hashtags do require a bit of legwork, so we suggest you do a quick refresher on the How to Hashtag Like A Pro crash course first. Once you have a handle on which hashtags are most relevant to your library’s content, start incorporating 5-10 per post.

All of these ideas are specific to growing engagement specifically on Instagram. However, a good tip to keep in mind when sharing content on any social media platform is to create a persona for your library and try to stay true to that persona. Personable content really resonates the most with social media users and will activate them to engage. They can tell when you’re not being genuine with the content that you’re sharing and that’s why it’s important to always listen to your audience. Post at the times they’re engaging with your content, note when particular content performs better than anticipated, and try to have fun with social media. Share behind the scenes videos on your stories, do an “AMA” (“Ask Me Anything”) with some of your staff members, share memes if they’re relevant. All for the sake of engaging with your followers!

Avoid These Video Marketing Mistakes!

July 15, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

Creating video content can be a powerful marketing tool for your library to engage with followers on social media. However, marketing with intention and really understanding what makes videos successful should always be taken into consideration. Luckily, we’ve gathered some common mistakes that are made in video marketing so that your team can avoid them and continue to connect with your patrons through thoughtful content.

Ignoring Trends

On video-first platforms like TikTok and Instagram, participating in viral challenges or trending sounds and topics can magnify content to an even broader audience. Using social listening and being engaged with these types of trends can make a difference in your marketing approach. Not every viral moment will apply to your message, but something as simple as choosing a popular song as the background music for your video could make a huge difference in the reach of your content. Don’t ignore these trends because your content could become stale without changing things up. By embracing trends that align with your library’s values, your videos will stay fresh and show that you’re connected to what’s happening on social media.

Not Understanding Audience

At this point you must know the importance of your audience, as we emphasize it in each one of our marketing tips blogs! It can sometimes be easy to get caught up in brainstorms and curating the content that you want to put out there without stopping to think who you’re making it for. Libraries are so connected with their communities and their patrons, so it should come naturally to picture who you’re talking to with your marketing efforts. Always keep that in mind and try to understand the interests, preferences, and frustrations of your audience when creating. And as always, be aware that each platform caters to different demographics. Make sure you’re using the right ones to reach your target audience!

Dismissing Analytics

Want to know if something you’ve posted is successful? Check out the analytics! Posting without reflecting on reach, likes, comments, and shares is a good way to guarantee you won’t learn anything about your marketing efforts. Finding out if something did well or fell flat will help you realize what your audience wants. By dismissing these metrics, you’ll end up wasting precious time and resources on content that is missing the mark, and you will lose opportunities to improve and retain engagement. By regularly monitoring analytics and adjusting your approach to video marketing, you’ll see a return on the investment of your efforts.

Not Telling a Story

Avoid falling into the trap of flashy videos and graphics, and remember the purest form of connection is storytelling. Stories are a key component of communication and are most likely to leave followers with a feeling of connection and a lasting impact. Even though videos should be kept short, it can form a compelling narrative in a way that still photos or graphics cannot. Try to dig deeper when forming an idea for a video and find ways to include storytelling and relatability that will resonate with your patrons.

Incorrect Video Format

The general population is consuming everything they need or want to know through a smartphone these days. Having a video that is incorrectly formatted for mobile viewing can have a negative impact on your views. Very few people have the patience or attention span for slow-loading videos or cluttered screens due to bad formatting. If you’re taking the time to create a video, always make sure it’s in the right format for whichever platform you’ll be posting to and that it’s optimized for mobile viewing. Create attention-grabbing thumbnails to get people to press play, and include captions for those on the go who want to watch without sound. Keep this guide to social media video specs handy to refer back to before posting a video and it should be smooth sailing to avoid the pitfalls of posting incorrect formats!

Best Types of Social Media Content for 2024!

July 15, 2024Marketing Blog No Comments

Julia Giantomasi

It’s that time again where the year is winding down and we’re thinking ahead and making plans for the new year. If you’re always looking for ways to keep your social media content fresh or incorporate something new into your digital marketing plan, now’s a great time to reassess! Keep reading to see what types of social media content are most popular.

Educational

As libraries in New Jersey, educational content should come naturally to us. This type covers how-to guides, insider tips, and checklists. Sharing advice to your patrons or clarifying complex processes so they understand it better are both great ways to use your expertise on social media. This could mean giving a step-by-step tutorial on how to research a topic in a database or explaining how your library can provide wellness support. Either way, librarians are full of knowledge and sharing that knowledge via social media is always a good idea for content.

Visual

As we’ve said many times before on this blog, we live in a visual world for social media with the most engaging posts being videos or images. Eye-catching visuals are what stop followers from scrolling through to see what your post is all about. But visual doesn’t have to mean just video content or photography, it could also mean graphics, infographics with pertinent information, memes or GIFs. Have fun with exploring the different ways your message can be relayed visually. It can be humorous, personal, or just straightforward facts presented in a visually pleasing way.

Interactive

Got an audience who likes to participate? Give them content they can engage with. Post polls or surveys on relevant topics to get their feedback. Do a live stream where there’s a Q&A portion. Host a webinar where participants can interact with the speaker. You could even hold a contest with a giveaway. Find out what makes your followers excited and create content they can comment on. Not only will this involve your patrons, but increased engagement will maximize your social media reach too!

Storytelling

Another theme libraries are too familiar with! Share success stories, employee spotlights, or a look behind the scenes. Libraries often have rich histories and are pillars in a community, which gives you an opportunity to share the origin story of your library that people might not know. Using storytelling as a tool for sharing content can make what you post more personable and align with your library’s mission statement and values. You can also share your patrons’ stories (with permission of course) to show through their perspective how they appreciate and utilize your library.

Explore each of these types of social media content—mix and match themes and see what resonates most with your following to know what to hone in on when you’re planning your digital marketing strategy for the new year!