LIBR 246-04/13 Web 2.0 (Spring 2010)

INTRODUCTION

Given this researcher’s current employment and interest in academic law libraries, the subject of the instant marketing critique is an academic law library: the Georgetown Law Library. For years, the Georgetown Law Library has been recognized for its extensive collection of research guides and self-guided tutorials available on its Web site. The researcher was therefore interested to examine whether similar success had been achieved by the library in connection with its use of social media. Part I of this critique begins by identifying the various uses of social media by the Georgetown Law Library. Part II of this critique evaluates the identified uses of social media by the Georgetown Law Library in light of the following four questions:

1. What is the library doing to market themselves online?
2. What are they doing right in their marketing efforts? Where are they falling short?
3. What do you think of their branding efforts? Have they built a strong and consistent brand online?
4. If the library hired you as a social media marketing consultant, what would you suggest to them?

PART I

As a starting point, the researcher visited the home page of the Georgetown Law Library to identify possible uses of social media by the library. This review identified two RSS Feeds on the right hand side of the page: one for “Due Process: Georgetown Law Library Blog” and another for “Law Library Feedback Blog.” There were no other references to social media noted on the home page or in its navigation menu.

Blogs

The Due Process: Georgetown Law Library Blog looks to be a fairly active blog, with approximately 5-10 posts made per month by various authors. The subjects covered mostly relate to standard library matters, such as new additions to the Law Library’s collection, the publication of new research guides, and mentions of articles of interest to members of the Law Library’s community. The blog is not without its entertaining features, however. The blog features a regular post titled “Law at the Movies Film Series,” which relates to law-themed movie screenings at the law school that are followed by panel discussions hosted by law school faculty and law librarians. The blog archives its posts by subject, and each subject has its own RSS Feed, to which users can subscribe in order to learn about future postings on a desired subject (the subjects with the most frequent posts include “Current Awareness” and “Research”). Users can subscribe to the blog as well, by providing their email address in a dialog box found about halfway down the main page of the blog. Just below the subscription box, users may also find links to blog posts by law faculty, as well as a tag box that visualizes subjects featured in the blog. In looking through the various posts on the blog, it does not appear that the blog receives many comments on its posts. A click on a random “Comment” link revealed that comments on the blog are moderated, and thus comments are not posted until accepted by the blog administrators. Lastly, a review of the pages of the blog for references to other uses of social media by the Law Library revealed only one other reference—to the Law Library Feedback Blog.

The Law Library Feedback Blog is, as its name suggests, a blog that is used to post questions from students and the corresponding answers by librarians. Students are not entitled to post directly to the blog; rather, they are required to complete and submit an Online Suggestion Form that is linked in the upper right hand corner of the blog’s home page. Most feedback items appear to relate to questions involving the operation of the library, and each post seems to be viewed regularly by students, given the number of views noted under most posts. There are no other references to social media sites used by the Law Library on this blog, with the exception of the aforementioned Due Process blog.

Other uses of social media

Although none of the aforementioned sites explicitly mention or link to other uses of social media such as Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, the researcher elected to confirm the existence (or lack thereof) of such uses via queries of Google. Said queries revealed a number of other social media uses by the Georgetown Law Library: a Twitter page, a Facebook page, and a Netvibes page.

Twitter

The Georgetown Law Library Twitter page has been active since May 2009 and currently has 211 followers. A quick scan of the list of followers suggests that many are organizations or fellow librarians—it is unclear whether this is attributable to the fact that law students generally don’t follow their libraries on Twitter, or to the lack of marketing of the existence of the Twitter page on the other media outlets for the library (may well be a combination of both; also, the name of the page—“GtownLawLib”—is unfortunate, and may make it difficult for people to find the page with Twitter’s quirky people search). Many of the tweets appear to be routed from the Law Library’s blogs via Twitterfeed, and there doesn’t appear to be much interaction between the librarians who tweet on the page and their followers. To make this page more interesting to its followers, the Law Library would be well-advised to be a bit more varied in the types of tweets made and to engage its followers a bit more. The Twitter page references its main Web site, but does not cross-reference its other media, such as its Facebook or Netvibes pages.

Facebook

The Georgetown Law Library Facebook page is a basic organization Facebook page that appears to have been somewhat active since its creation in July 2008. It currently has about 237 fans. The posts feature photographs of the Law Library (interestingly, the library posted photos of chairs under consideration in 2008, which was kind since it could allow students to voice their opinions), announcements for both local and national events, references to posts made on the Law Library’s blogs, and other general library announcements. The Law Library does not make significant use of some of the more advanced features available on Facebook. While the library includes boxes for WorldCat and CiteMe under its Boxes tab, it does not make use of other marketing applications available, such as those that could link to its vast array of research guides. The Facebook page references its main Web site, but does not cross-reference its other media, such as its Twitter or Netvibes pages.

The Netvibes page warrants little conversation, as it merely is a compilation of the aforementioned resources. The page has one friend and no followers. Its current design lends the appearance that the use was, or is, an experiment of sorts. The site is potentially helpful, though, in that it displays current postings to blogs and links to sources all in one convenient location. As with the other uses of media, the Netvibes page does not cross-reference its other social media uses aside from the library’s blogs, which are embedded in the Netvibes page.

PART II

What is the library doing to market themselves online? 

As noted above, the Georgetown Law Library is making a number of good uses of social media, but is doing a horrible job of promoting them, aside from its blogs. The home page of the Law Library’s Web site made no mention of its Twitter, Facebook, and Netvibes pages, and those pages similarly fail to cross-promote the library’s various uses of social media. As a result, students or community members who are interested in following or becoming a fan of these sites would be forced to search for said sites proactively. This is, of course, a lost opportunity since recent studies have shown that students are not likely to proactively seek out libraries or librarians to bring into their social media circles (Connell, 2009).

What are they doing right in their marketing efforts? Where are they falling short?

The Georgetown Law Library does a fairly decent job of marketing their blogs and providing RSS Feeds to their popular subjects, as evinced by the prominent display of such tools on the main page of the library’s Web site. Moreover, the tweets and posts made on Twitter and Facebook frequently mention the Law Library’s blogs and provide links to the same. These are excellent ways to drive traffic to the blogs.
 The Law Library falls short, however, in cross-promoting its other social media. This researcher could find no reference to Facebook or Twitter on the main Web site, and no references to Facebook on Twitter on those respective pages. One of the benefits of utilizing these various methods of communications lies in appealing to the tastes of our users, engaging different audiences, and being helpful where our users are, as Farkas has noted (Connell, 2009, p. 34). Failure of a library to actively—and continuously—market its products not only makes it difficult for users to find the library, but also makes it difficult to get a sense of what’s working and what’s not working relative to specific uses of media.

What do you think of their branding efforts? Have they built a strong and consistent brand online?

All of the social media uses described herein do a good job of branding, in that each of the sites is consistent in its use of the library’s color scheme and logo. In terms of building a “strong brand,” while most users likely would recognize a site featuring the color scheme and logo as affiliated with the Georgetown Law Library, it cannot be concluded definitely that the library has successfully built a “strong brand” in light of its failure to cross-promote its own media. Each site should link to the next in order to increase traffic to the sites and to make the sites more accessible.

If the library hired you as a social media marketing consultant, what would you suggest to them?

If this researcher were retained by Georgetown Law Library as a social media marketing consultant, the first suggestion would be what has been mentioned repeatedly here: the library must cross-promote its media in order to increase traffic to the sites, to engage different audiences, and to make the sites more accessible. The second suggestion would be for the library to interact more with its community members, and one way to do that could be to lift the comment moderation on the library’s blogs (policies could be announced regarding the manner in which comments are made). The third suggestion would be to make more posts across the sites that require interaction from followers—get the users involved in the discourse about the library, and thereby (hopefully) get them personally invested in its success.

Reference:

Connell, R. S. (2009). Academic libraries, Facebook and MySpace, and student outreach: A survey of student opinion. Libraries and the Academy, 9(1), 25-36. doi:10.1353/pla.0.0036