Marketing Critique

Marketing, Outreach, and Branding

What Library are we profiling?

I decided to critique a library that I use the most, the San Diego State Library (SDSU), also known as the Infodome. The SDSU site boasts five Social Network Links on their main page; Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogger, and Flickr. In this essay, I will discuss how they market, outreach, and brand themselves through these sites. We will also look at some other ways that SDSU markets to the “cyber-patron”.

What are we critiquing?

In each of these sites, I will be looking how the SDSU Library markets, outreaches to their patrons, and brands themselves. The key areas of interest are:

· Marketing – When we speak of marketing, we are looking for the way a library plans and executes their goods and services to their community. Is there a clear schema in place?

· Outreach – What does the library do to connect to their patrons? Are they actively trying to aid and find patrons? What tools do they use to achieve this task?

· Branding – When we refer to branding, we speak of how a company makes their presence known on the internet. What does a library do to get recognized? Are they successful?

The Social Networks

Facebook

SDSU’s Facebook page is a prototypical fan page setup. Tabs are clearly marked at the top page. Most Libraries I found keep the side bar menu to the left. Considering the user reads in an “F” (That is horizontally long first, horizontally short second, then vertically), it’s wiser to keep your focal points in plain view. The menu contains a wall, information, photos, notes, events, and boxes. The only tab that is irrelevant is the boxes tab. It combines notes and events, giving it no real purpose.

SDSU has all but abandoned the Facebook page except for the wall. The last event posted was March of 2010. The last note was December of 2009. SDSU’s marketing plan is funneled into the “wall”. All the current information they post can be found here. This includes links to their blogs and other resources. They clearly decided it was easier for users to connect with one page rather than sifting through tabs.

MySpace

The MySpace page gives information on how to contact the library and what collections they have. Unfortunately SDSU’s Myspace appears dead. The last blog of any information was May 2010. The last comment was in 2008. There is nothing here that tells me that MySpace is part of any marketing plan in SDSU. The effort for outreaching in MySpace slowly dwindled out.

Twitter

SDSU’s twitter account appears to be running alive and well. The tweets appear daily, to once every three days. Some tweets include #SDSU, exhibit links, and their own blog links. It appears that the bulk of their outreach and branding exists in twitter. Where the information sits on a board in Facebook, this information is streamed.

Blogger

SDSU’s blogs are also alive. They have four blog spots; main library blog, a techs and services blog, a news and notables blog, and a SDSU tech blog. Techs and services blog only seems to update when a new technology comes out. Main Library and News and Notables are the most frequent bloggers of the site. News and notables updates users on exhibits and circulation. The main library blog is more random. It has updates on lectures, readings, and it even has recipes. Whether they update, frequently or seldom, it appears that SDSU likes to market their services through Blogging.

Flickr

Much like the blog accounts, Flickr has more than one account; main photostream, and digital projects. The Flickr project appears to have stopped at the end of October, 2010, and began in November of 2009. In this time, the Library posted many albums and pictures, but abruptly stopped. It’s hard to tell if the account is dead, as pictures are usually posted in bunches, and then the account lies stagnant for a couple months. The digital project Flickr was done in September of 2010. The gallery has a vast amount of Chicano Chicana Artwork. I assume this was an exhibit they featured in September.

Other Marketing and Outreach tools

Google

The Library has an application that connects through your iGoogle page. This gives users the opportunity to browse the selections from their search engine site. This can be a very handy outreach tool considering many companies are pushing towards a “search optimization”. This refers to getting your pages to highly rank on search results. This application bypasses the need to use Google directly, but allows you to use it indirectly, thus giving the user less links and sites to access information.

Mobile Applications

SDSU has an application that lets you access their archives via smart-phone.

How SDSU Library markets

Judging from what I gathered from the sites I visited, I deduced the following from SDSU:

1. That their blogs where used to post information about exhibits and resources.

2. Facebook Wall and Twitter were used to reach patrons and point to their blogs and resources.

3. SDSU Library brands their identity through using steps one and two, and offering applications for use on other sites and devices.

4. Other sites were used, but where poorly maintained, hence rendered useless. This can hurt Social Branding efforts because it could give the appearance of not caring.

What would I change?

First I would consolidate my networks. Social dashboards such as Hootsuite work well for this problem. This way you send the same message to all networks, thus connecting them together.

Second, I would keep photostreams in one place and provide links to albums. There are different areas other than Flickr that you find pictures and albums. This can cause confusion on where to post what. If we keep it in Flickr, we can organize the process better.

Third, I would move the Social Network Icons, on the front of the Library Page, from the bottom left to the top left. This gives the icons more prominence. Where they are now seem hidden.

Summary

Example of a Social network project following my ideas:

1. Take pictures of the exhibit and upload them to Flickr.

2. Blog about the exhibit and what it details. In addition add a link and pictures from the Flickr account

3. Through Hootsuite, send a message that connects through MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter that has points to the blog.

In summary, I think SDSU is not aggressive about their Social marketing, but they maintain a presence. Offering applications for phones and Google are great techniques to get your name out there, but you have to market it. Put an effort forth to let people know about these services. Updating users on exhibits and readings isn’t the only thing you can blog about. Also try invoking conversations with patrons. Try blogging about issues relevant to the city or your school. This can lead to dialogue and grabbing the interests of patrons.