Marketing Critique: Multnomah County Library

The Multnomah County Library system in Portland, Oregon, which consists of 19 libraries, has a vast web presence that includes pages on Facebook and MySpace, a Twitter feed, and a readers’ blog.  They market themselves quite well on the web by using each of the primary social networking tools available. Instead of focusing on one or two of the sites, they have a well developed presence on each of them through which they are surely reaching many users.

The main Facebook page has 11,487 people who ‘like’ them. They post at least once a day and sometimes as much as two or three times. Their posts include photos, information about events, links to newspaper articles that would be of interest to users, and book or author suggestions. The info tab includes the main phone number and a link to the official social software policy; also included on a separate tab is an RSS aggregator to the blog. Many of their posts get comments, and when a user directs a comment to them, the library is quick to give an answer to the specific question asked. Users feel free to post photos to the library page, and the whole feel is very warm and quite like a community linking each of the individual branches.

The MySpace page seems a bit lacking with only 258 friends. Granted, MySpace is aimed at a younger audience, so fewer people would be likely to ‘friend’ an entity such as a library on MySpace. The last login to their MySpace page was over a week ago, the last blog post was in April 2010, and the last status update was in December 2009. There is great room for the Multnomah library to improve in the MySpace arena, though there are a number of helpful things present on the page, such as a link to contact information for reference questions, a link to subscribe to the e-newsletter, and general contact information. If the library were to devote more time to the MySpace page by reaching out and marketing events, conversing with friends, and updating photos, the page could be revived. In fact, the same things that are being posted on the Facebook page could easily transfer to the MySpace page for those users who prefer the latter venue.

The Multnomah County library’s Twitter feed is being followed by 1,892 people, which is an about average figure for an organization on Twitter. The feed is updated regularly throughout the day; today, for example, there have been five updates. Three of those five tweets were event notifications, one was a link to an article posted by the local newspaper, and one was a reply to a user that advertising their “ask MCL” service. The library is using a good mixture of ways to promote their brand through short tweets on Twitter, and they’re using it often. They dialogue with fellow tweeters consistently and answer questions. Their tweets are often retweeted, and despite the number of followers being on the small side compared to Facebook, they are doing a great job keeping up with their brand on Twitter.

The library has a blog that is unique but underdeveloped. I discovered the link by searching the website for ‘blog.’ As a follower of the library on Twitter and Facebook, I had not heard of the blog before I looked for it. The blog is called “An Embarrassment of Riches,” and it consists of short writings about materials the library has as written by library staff and guest bloggers. Blogs were posted six times in the month of September. There is a link to staff bios, and it appears that any person can blog whenever he or she feels so inclined. Most blogs have no comments, but a few have up to two comments per post. I think the idea of the Multnomah County blog is a solid and beneficial one, but the layout of the blog caused me great confusion. I found myself searching extensively for some sort of explanation for how the blog was organized and only found it when I scrolled down through the first page and into the second; once there, I found a short ‘about’ link that gave me little information about how the blog was run. Underneath the ‘about’ section is a link to a short ‘guidelines and disclaimer’ section that I think is a great addition to the page as it helps readers to know what is expected of the bloggers and commenters. It also links to the full Multnomah County Library’s social software policy statement.

The social software policy statement is brief but informative. It states that the library’s use of social software is “intended to create a welcoming and inviting online space where library users will find useful and entertaining information and can interact with library staff and other library users” (Social Software Policy, 2008). They have also smartly listed the things that will be removed if found in comments, including spam, threats, and images.

Overall, the Multnomah County Library has developed a strong online presence, but there is room for improvement. If I were hired as a social media marketing consultant, there are two things I would suggest they improve. The first area is in their MySpace presence, which is seldom updated and has few connections to friends. Perhaps they feel they do not have time to keep up with both Facebook and MySpace, the former being the one of the two that is done remarkably well, but I believe there would be nothing wrong with duplicating information from one site to the other. Users might overlap, but for the most part, I have found that people either prefer one site or the other, so most would not be irritated by the information being repeated twice. The second area for improvement is in the blog, which is a good idea but has not been marketed or organized well. The interface is confusing for something such as me who expects a typical blog layout. Advertising the blog posts through tweets and Facebook and MySpace status updates would go a long way in spreading the word about the great things being written there.

"Social Software Policy for Users." Multnomah County Library. 05 Sept. 2008. http://www.multcolib.org/about/pol-socsoft.html.