Engaging Customers and Reaching New Users Through Social Media
This May, writer Malcolm Gladwell spoke to over 500 library customers at the Bram & Bluma Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library. Through social media, he reached another 60,000. This is a recent example of how the library uses social media to offer new opportunities for participation.
During the interview, Gladwell said that Apple founder Steve Jobs will be forgotten in 50 years and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, will be remembered, because of his philanthropic works.
Like other Appel Salon events, Gladwell’s interview was filmed. After the video was posted on our YouTube channel, US blog Business Insider saw the video and posted about Gladwell’s remarks. Their post sparked wide media coverage, including CNN and Time in the US and spread as far as Australia. Our video went viral, generating 60,000 views to date and comments from viewers around the world.
Communicating and Responding In A Fast-Paced World
Toronto Public Library has been actively using social media for nearly five years. It is an effective and cost-efficient way to tap into an existing and potentially large audience – users and non-users. For instance, our Facebook page (above) was launched in 2008, shortly after a report cited that Toronto has the world’s most active Facebook users.
Social media provides a wonderful opportunity to have a two-way dialogue with our customers. They are great at telling us what they like and don’t like – and we aim to be responsive. Our supporters are also helpful in using social media to help spread the word about our collections, programs and services.
Social media let us keep in touch with customers in real time. Last Fall, our website went down for three days. Using our Facebook and Twitter channels and Web Team Blog, the library gave real-time updates, which helped reduce customers’ confusion. It did not solve the problem or end the frustration, but it helped us keep in touch with our customers and demonstrated that we were trying to fix the problem.
We also try to have fun. For instance, during our Keep Toronto Reading Festival in 2010-2012, Torontonians were encouraged to submit short book review videos on YouTube.
A Quick Overview: The Library on Social Media
- Facebook – We enjoy communicating with nearly 15,000 Facebook fans on a daily basis. Library staff have even hosted special recommended reading days on Facebook during our Keep Toronto Reading Festival.
- Twitter – Twitter has been particularly helpful in getting the word out to our 12,000 followers and beyond. For instance, this 2010 Yonge Street Media article about our Human Library program has “travelled” around the world through Twitter – resulting in media interest from as far as Europe. Even Oprah.com wrote about our program thanks to the power of Twitter.
We also live tweet some events. When Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer visited the Appel Salon in 2011, UK fan Joanna followed our tweets. She even tweeted a question, which we asked Colfer on her behalf. “Thank you (TPL) for letting Eoin Colfer know that I exist,” she tweeted afterwards.
We also have a few sub accounts, including our Book Buzz online book club, our teen services, and local branches, such as Bloor/Gladstone.
- Blogs – Over 150 staff across our 98 branches contribute to our blogs, which cover everything from arts and culture, to business and personal finance, career and job search help, book picks for young readers, and information for newcomers. Our blogs complement the expert service offered by our staff. TPL blog readership continues to grow.
- YouTube – All of our Appel Salon programs are recorded and posted on our YouTube channel. Customers can also find other types of videos including Ready for Reading storytimes and user education video help tutorials.
- Flickr – An abundance of images and scans from our Special Collections can be found on our Flickr page – everything from War of 1812 images to pictures of the Bloor Viaduct construction in 1915-1917.
Future Opportunities: Requesting Your Feedback
New channels are adopted as they emerge. Recently, we launched a Pinterest page (above). This site allows users to “pin” favourite content onto “boards.” We’re new to Pinterest, but we see a dynamic opportunity to promote our circulating collections and Special Collections to our growing network.
Most importantly, we see many opportunities to improve our service delivery. In the half decade that TPL has actively participated in social media, we’ve seen a growing group of customers who reach out directly to us online as a first point of contact. The library seeks to be as responsive as possible to this increasing demand.
Join the Conversation!
The library is developing a new Strategic Plan to help us achieve our draft vision:
Toronto Public Library will be recognized as the world’s leading public library, helping make Torontonians smarter, successful and resilient, through excellent and responsive service.
Your feedback is invaluable and will help us develop this plan for residents of Toronto.
Please have your say by commenting on the following:
- Which of the library’s online communications channels do you use?
- How would you rate the library’s social media activities – and why?
- Is there an area of service delivery within the library’s online communications that we are currently not providing?
- How can we make our social media activities better?
6 thoughts on “Engaging Customers and Reaching New Users Through Social Media”
4. Please include the ability for users to ‘pin’ book images directly from the TPL site onto Pinterest. We’d prefer to promote TPL on our Pinterest boards rather than commercial sites such as Amazon or Goodreads.
Social media provides a wonderful opportunity to have a two-way dialogue with our customers. They are great at telling us what they like and don’t like – and we aim to be responsive.
Except, true to public-relations form, TPL is not “responsive” to what customers “don’t like.” You’re happy to respond to formulaic compliments, but you pretend criticism doesn’t exist. You can’t even be honest about it in this blog post.
Plus you play favourites with whom you link to. Cathy Raine breaks a nail and you hit the Twitters about it.
So yes, you’re out there and there’s a lot of content and so on, and I enjoy reading it, but TPL management’s deep-seated fear of anything remotely critical or “negative” is nonetheless evident. Libraries are supposed to be a locus of free inquiry and debate.
And since I’m writing this the day after David Rakoff had the bad taste to die, whenever any luminary passes away TPL misses the opportunity to apply a curatorial eye to the library’s holdings by that luminary. (Good job with Gore Vidal, but you missed Chris Marker.)
Hi Joe, thanks for participating in the Strat Plan blog.
If you have a chance to fill out our Strategic Plan survey, it would be great to have your feedback specific to the goals we are attempting achieve over the coming years. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TPL_2012-2015_Strategic_Plan
Hi SHT and thanks for your feedback. You’ll be glad to know that we already do have a ‘Pin It’ feature on our site, which allows you to pin library items – e.g. books – directly from the TPL site to your Pinterest boards.
To do so:
1. Click on the library item record.
2. On the right sidebar, click on the ‘Share’ button.
3. On the pop up window, click on ‘Pinterest’.
Thanks for helping spread the word about our collections!
1) I’ve used all, but Twitter the most.
2) Quite active and quality.
3) Don’t think so
4) I know we can currently share items, but it would be nice to be able to do this with the blog postings to. I don’t always want to comment on a blog post, but would love to tweet it to my followers or pin it to Pinterest, share it on Facebook, etc.
Hi Erin and thanks for taking the time to share your feedback and suggestions. We currently don’t have a Share functionality on the blogs, so I’ll be sure to forward your suggestion. In the meantime, you can still share it on social media by copying and pasting the URL to your post/tweet. It’s old fashioned, I know, but it works.
If you have a few extra minutes, please fill out our Strategic Plan survey. We’d appreciate your feedback on the Plan’s proposed themes and the goals we’re attempting to achieve over the coming years: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TPL_2012-2015_Strategic_Plan