Using a blog and social media promotion as a collaborative community building marketing tool for library resources

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to explain the process of how Booth Library developed an online Wordpress blog in order to market physical and electronic resources in the library’s collection.  This report looks at specific tools that are used to maintain the blog and sample topics that the blog covers.

Design

WordPress software was installed on library servers, making the blog a cohesive part of the library’s website. A PHP script called “List It!” was developed in order to produce book lists with cover images from a list of scanned library barcodes.  After the book lists are inserted into blog posts, social media tools such as YOURLS and Hootsuite are used to schedule tweets and Facebook posts.

Findings

Since its launch in September 2014, Ref News has received 6,180 total views and 3,835 unique views for 88 posts. On average, users are spending 2 minutes and 44 seconds on a page or group of pages. Less measurable benefits include greatly expanded website content, booklists that can be reused and repurposed, and a sense of ownership and increased morale for those who help curate book displays and write blog posts. 

Value

This report shows how a free WordPress blog can be used as a versatile, collaborative tool to market library resources and connect with users.