My library has been doing a few different things with our Twitter account the last couple of years, and have finally settled on a Twitter strategy to try for the next 6 months or so.

Who’s connecting with us? Our Twitter followers tend more towards marketers, advertisers, start-up business types, the “activist/we get stuff done” types in town, the 20-40 year old business up-and-comers, and a lot of media types (broadcast, newspaper, and some radio journalists). And a bunch of young geeks.

We are focusing on this type of content:

• What’s interesting (to the library) right now and why?
• Library “breaking news”
• No big sell – share what the library finds interesting
• Be yourself, be casual, but at the same time remember you represent the library
• Friend our customers and local businesses
• In general, try for friendly and helpful, but not pushy.

Posting schedule: We post multiple times a day, every day. We have seven staff members assigned, one on each day. I’m the floater/substitute for when people are sick, on vacation, etc. And I monitor activity, answer the harder questions, and make sure we’re on-target.

How will we know if we succeed? I will measure growth and engagement via the new-fangled Twitter analytics!

That’s our plan. What’s your organization’s Twitter strategy?

Pic by Jeff Turner

Way back in 2011, Twitter announced they were starting to offer Analytics for some Twitter accounts. Finally – almost two years later, they are offering analytics to everyone!

Here’s how you access those analytics:

• Get into your Twitter account (the web version)
• Click the Settings icon (looks like a gear)
• Click Twitter Ads (and sign in again. If you haven’t signed up for Twitter Ads, you’ll need to do that first. No cost associated with signing up, so do it for the analytics)
• Once you’re logged into Twitter Ads, click Analytics (in the black bar at the top of the page)
• You’re in!

What types of analytics do you get? 

Right now, there are two choices – Timeline Activity and Followers:

Timeline Activity

The Timeline Activity view provides most of the analytics. At the top of the page is a handy graph showing Mentions, Follows, and Unfollows for the last month. Hover over the graph, and you can see a per-day breakdown of those numbers.

Below the graph are Recent Tweets. This shows individual tweets, going back all the way to your first tweet (I think – I scrolled back about a year)!

For each tweet, you can see these analytics:

• # of Faves
• # of Retweets
• # of Replies
• If there’s a link included in the tweet, you can see how many clicks that tweet received.

For example, I now know my tweet about Twitter analytics (as of last night) was favorited 7 times, retweeted 3 times, and the link included with the tweet was clicked 45 times.

You can also choose which tweets you want to see – All, Best, or Good.

• Best shows the top 15% of tweets with some level of engagement, going back to August 27 (so, about 10 months).
• Good shows the top two-thirds of tweets with some level of engagement, in that same timeframe.
• All shows all tweets in that same timeframe.

This page also includes a CSV download, which provides a list of all tweets with numbers for Faves, Retweets, and Replies.

Followers:

Followers is the second option, and includes some pretty cool stats about your followers. At the top of the page, there’s a graph showing your per-day follower count from day one of your Twitter account. Below that, you are given some interesting topical, location, and gender info, including:

Interests:

Most unique interests – shows the top five most unique interests of your followers. I’m assuming this comes from some data-mining of follower’s Twitter accounts. For my Twitter account, my followers most unique interests are:

• 39% Biographies and memoirs
• 11% job search
• 9% Education news and general info
• 7% freelance writing
• 2% geneology (yes, that’s how they spelled it. Oops)

Top Interests:

The top ten interests of my followers, which include:

• 72% politics and current events
• 58% book news and general info
• 56% business and news
• Etc. Hover over any of the numbers in this section, and you can see a total number for that percentage.

Location:

This shows the top countries and states of my followers (USA, Kansas, New York, Illinois, Ohio, and Massachussets). Also a lot of people from Australia and Canada.

Top Cities:

In my case, they include: Topeka, Wichita, Sydney AU, Melbourne AU, and Perth AU. Alright – you Australians are awesome!

Gender:

45% male, 55% female.

And finally, a Your Followers also Follow list. My followers, unsurprisingly, also follow these Twitter accounts:

• 36% @ALALibrary
• 33% @ALA_TechSource
• 33% @amlibraries
• 30% @jessamyn
• 25% @buffyjhamilton
• 23% @OCLC
• 22% @AtYourLibrary
• 17% @yalsa (I find this one a bit odd, but whatever. Cool!)
• 15% @ALA_JobLIST
• 13% @ALA_Booklist

So that’s that! Twitter – thanks for the analytics! There’s some really good stuff here!

I attended a session on Tumblr and libraries, mainly because I have to admit – I don’t get Tumblr. I use it personally as a blog, but it is HUGE as more of a discovery tool for content, especially visual content. And a bunch of librarians also use it as a discussion/sharing tool (check out http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/tumblarian).

Looks like some libraries are using Tumblr very successfully!

The panel included:

• Molly McArdle, library journal (moderator)
• Rachel Fershleiser, Tumblr
• Angela Montefinise, NYPL
• Erin Shea, Darien Library
• Kate Tkacik, Bank of Montreal Library

Some library-related Tumblr sites:

• New York Public Library
• Darien Library
• Library Journal

Random things I heard during the presentation:

• NYPL has over 100,000 followers on their tumblr account
• NYPL posts light and fun stuff – they are trying to humanize the organization via Tumblr
• They also use Tumblr posts as press releases, sending out the link instead of a traditional press release. Cool.
• Easy to share stuff with followers via the reblog button
• 108 million blogs on tumblr
• Use hashtags – you can follow those – i.e., #tumblarian – librarian tag on tumblr
• Tumblr skews very young. 20% teens
• Gifs – show your emotion about how you feel about something
• ROI – tumblr numbers don’t count non-tumblr users that look at a page. Only tumblr users views count…

Image by AJ Cann

Before I give you my two cents on this particular session, here are links to two articles that describe the session pretty well:

• BEA Panel Suggests Publishers Still Clueless about Library E-Books and Piracy
• BEA 2013: Is E-book Lending Good for Authors?

Panelists included:

• Ginger Clark, Moderator – Literary Agent, Curtis Brown LTD
• Jack Perry, Owner, 38enso Inc.
• Maureen Sullivan, President, American Library Association (ALA)
• Paul Aiken, Executive Director, Authors Guild
• Steve Potash, President and CEO, Overdrive
• Carolyn Reidy, president and CEO of Simon & Schuster

I have to admit – I didn’t really take notes for this session (but probably should have). Mostly, I just sat, listening in amazement as someone on the publisher side of things would say something silly, and then Mareen and Steve would correct that person. Then during Q&A time, the moderator would blow off questions by answering them herself, then quickly moving on to another question. It was that kind of session.

The thing that got to me the most was this: Carolyn Reidy, CEO of a huge publishing house, sounded like someone who was attempting to talk knowledgeably about ebooks in libraries … but hadn’t ever actually used a library card to download an ebook (which was kinda funny, since she was sitting right next to Steve Potash of Overdrive).

At one point, Carolyn basically said the danger of ebooks in libraries is that a customer can sit at home and download every book they ever wanted … huh? She and Paul Aiken seemed to think that’s how the library ebook check-out process works.

That’s simply wrong, of course. Steve and Maureen corrected them. As did a few people in the audience.

Carolyn also said that her publishing house was doing the ebook pilot project because … no research has ever been done about ebooks in libraries. Again, huh? Someone please introduce Carolyn to Pew Internet and their major research project on … um … ebooks in libraries. And of course, Steve mentioned that he has 10 years of data (Overdrive’s been in the ebook business for at least that long).

I heard a similar thing at last year’s Book Expo conference, too. Executives at more than one major publishing house think libraries give ebooks away to anyone who wants them, willy-nilly, and we let them keep the ebooks forever.

And … these people aren’t stupid – they are running large, successful publishing houses.

So – here’s my question. Where is the disconnect, and how can we fix this?

Argh.

ebook photo by shiftstigma

Patrick Brown, Director, Author Marketing at Goodreads gave a talk on Goodreads. Good stuff!

First, some info about Goodreads:

• 18 million members. Doubled in size in 2012.
• Acquired by Amazon in march. Still working things out.
• What isn’t changing. Goodreads is for all readers, no matter how you read.
• Working on new features. Discovery, discussion, and author program.
• 250 books added to the to read shelves every minute.

And now for some tips for authors using the Goodreads Author profile (here’s a link to my Goodreads author profile):

Build your platform.

• Metadata – make sure the book record is complete!
• 75,000 authors. I’m one of those. That’s actually a pretty small number compared to the number of member accounts

Get people talking about your book.

Your goal is to get reviews, especially early in the life of your book.

• Reviews help new readers discover your book:
• They help readers decide to read your book.
• Goodreads work harder for you. Reviews are shared via Facebook and twitter

Giveaways help kick start book discovery. They help with this…

• Who knew?  You can actually do book giveaways via Goodreads.
• They encourage people to add it to their to read shelves
• They receive an email on the publication date

Some tips for giveaways:

• Start early. 3-5 months before publication
• Give it time. Run giveaway at least one month
• Offer more books. More books = more reviews. Not everyone reviews the book
• Do it again. Run multiple reviews for each title

Mobilize your existing fan base.

• Talk about the giveaway in other places – twitter, etc.

Building anticipation and awareness.

• A cover reveal – dole out information on the content over the months… To build buzz.

Bring it all together.
If you have a new book coming out, do these things on Goodreads:

• 5 months before publication – first giveaway.
• Second giveaway – ends at publication. Looking for awareness this time. Lots of people add the book on publication day.
• Personal selection email – a paid advertising thing.
• Sent to fans of the author’s backlist.
• Then a sponsored poll – another ad unit. You vote.
• Then a homepage roadblock – another ad unit. A hey, this book is out now ad. On the publication date. A awareness unit
• Exclusive interviews. God reads interviews some people. top authors, popular stuff. Goes in their newsletters.

Trends and takeaways.

• Social context. People add the book after they see their friends add it
• Goodreads effort pays off. People will add the book to their lists…
• The rise of mobile. Enormous mobile growth. 1/5th of goodreads users use the mobile app.

5 habits of highly successful publishers on goodreads

1. Start early
2. Involve your authors
3. Pay attention to your stats
4. Use content to build anticipation
5. Keep the momentum up

Goodreads.com/author/how_to – helpful stuff for authors on using goodreads

pic by Jurgen Appelo

Wow – the Book Expo America conference was busy and exhausting! I’m finally getting a chance to share some notes from some of the sessions I attended.

The first one comes from the final keynote at the BEA Bloggers conference (I was on the advisory board for this). Randi Zuckerberg talked – yes, Mark the Facebook guy’s sister. She has some interesting things to say about content:

10 trends shaping how content is consumed today:

1. You are more than what you write. People want to know the person behind the writing. Your passions. Show the messy, human side of your life.

2. Brands as media companies. We are all media companies. Example – Red Bull can function like an NBC, because they can post articles, journalist-style interviews, videos, etc.

3. Enhanced media. Starting to see that people will pay for what they love, even premium content online. Ed tech as example. I’ll also add Youtube’s recent threat to charge for premium content.

4. More signal, less noise. When we curate content, that’s a really useful thing for our readers. Those “what did you miss this week” lists from some blogs are a good example.

5. Images speak louder than words. Instagram, Pinterest, etc. let customers post pics. Or find your photo on Facebook, and tag it.

6. Think of yourself as an entrepreneur. She’s starting to see things like small startups within large companies. “Evangelist” jobs, etc.

7. The @ reply is the new autograph. Talking to fans makes them feel special – like when an author or “known person” replies to you via Twitter. Facebook chats, too.

8. Gameification of everything. Apply game mechanics to everything. She used the Gym Shamed app as an example – if you don’t go to the gym, it blasts out how lazy you were to all your friends. Or a scale that tweets your weight. There’s apparently a clock that donates your money to charity every time you hit snooze.

9. Video for everything. Newsrooms use Vine to show personality, or behind the scenes glimpses. Live stream from the fashion model out to an audience.

10. Etiquette and digital detox. How do I manage my professional digital reputation? How much screen time is too much for my kid? Not really tech tuff, but more modern living. Step away from the computer type stuff.

Interesting talk!

My library is thinking about recharging stations for mobile devices. So I’m looking into outlets with USB slots, special stands, etc.

How come? Because customers want to recharge. If you walk around our library, you’ll notice we have a lot of lamps by comfy chairs. Guess what? Those lamps, for the most part, will be unplugged. Because people are recharging their devices. So – we’ll probably be doing something to address that.

But.

That also made me think – why shouldn’t the library be the community’s recharging station? For more than just mobile devices? What would we need to become the community’s recharging station?

Here are some ideas:

• Lots of outlets
• Lots of USB plugins
• Comfortable chairs that can be moved around
• Electric car charging stations
• Lots of windows in the building
• Offer video games for more than just teens
• Make the library a fun place instead of a quiet place
• Offer classes related to recharging/de-stressing
• Be positive. At the desk, in signage, in instructions.
• Focus on do, not on don’t. Yes rather than no.
• Help customers make things
• If someone’s sleeping in the library … maybe don’t kick them out.
• Offer exercise classes. You have the books and the videos … why not the actual class?

And of course, have lots of good books

Thoughts? Comments? Do you think of your library as the community’s recharging station? If so, why? If not, why? I’d love to hear from you!

Pics by Emergency Brake and Viktor Hertz

No real content here – just a test! Apparently, the email version of my feed has been acting up. So, I’m testing it out, making sure everything is working!

Can you do me a favor? If you read my blog via email, can a couple of you visit this blog post and leave a comment, letting me know everything’s working ok? I’d appreciate it!

I also appreciate all you readers! You guys are truly awesome. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog!

I’m headed to BEA next week (I’m on the conference advisory board for the BEA Bloggers part of the conference), and will have a good three days of listening to publishers talk about ebooks (and hopefully libraries).

So I thought it would be a good idea to see where we stand right now with ebooks, the Big Six, and some of our current ebook vendors.

Here’s a list of the major ebook vendors, and what they offer in relation to the Big Six publishers:

3M, Baker & Taylor Axis 360:

• Hachette
• Simon & Schuster (but only if you’re a large NYC-area library – they’re still in pilot project mode)
• Macmillan
• Penguin
• HarperCollins
• Random House
• … and No Kindle formats.

OverDrive:

• Hachette
• Macmillan
• HarperCollins
• Random House
• doesn’t have Penguin or Simon & Schuster
• … OverDrive has Kindle versions of some titles (and that’s probably why they don’t have Penguin).

What does each publisher offer?

• Hachette: Full catalog, released simultaneously with print, ebooks will cost 300% more than the print book. Unlimited number of checkouts, one copy per user model.
• Simon & Schuster: started a 1-year pilot project on April 30 with New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Library. Full catalog, a one year purchase/lease, unlimited checkouts, one copy per user model.
• Macmillan: 1,200 backlist ebooks from its Minotaur Books imprint. Two year, 52-lends lease model. Ebooks cost $25. I’d say they’re still in pilot project mode too.
• Random House: Our ebook friends, for a price – entire catalogue available for “perpetual access” at a higher price to libraries (upwards of 300% over the print book cost).
• Penguin: all titles available, one-year licenses. Except if you’re OverDrive.
• HarperCollins: 26 checkouts per title lease model.

So – at this point, we have all Big Six publishers willing and able to sell [at least some] ebooks to [at least some] libraries. With wildly varying models and price points:

• Checkout models include: unlimited use, 26 checkouts per book, or 52 checkouts per book.
• Time limits include: No year limits, one year limits, and two year limits per book
• Title availability includes: All titles available, some titles available, hardly any title available.
• Pricing: an even $25, a variety of more normal pricing. And two publishers who markup ebooks by 300%. If this was gasoline, we’d call it price gouging.

Pic by pazca

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on responsive design lately (because my library is headed towards that), and that made me think. When designing websites, we tend to design for devices. That’s what responsive design is all about – it’s coding in such a way that your website “responds” appropriately to different screen sizes (i.e., desktops, tablets, smartphones). We design for things: for a desktop; for a screen; for a browser; for a tablet or smartphone.

Nothing wrong with that – a modern website has to work on all those devices, right?

But I also think we need to shift our focus a bit, to where it really counts. And that focus is not on the screen.

We need to design for people.

What’s that change?

We still need to do all the usual stuff – i.e., use great css, work on making our websites responsive, think about screensizes, readability, contrasting colors, etc.

But let’s also focus on people:

• Put content first.
• Ask customers what content they want … and then create that content!
• Answer the why, what, and who questions.
• Provide next steps and calls to action on ALL content.
• Make asking questions and getting responses easy and seamless.
• This works for our physical and our digital branches.
• What else? Add to my list in the comments…

Simply put – put people first.

pic by Nicola Albertini