Providing consulting, training and planning services to community-serving organizations such as libraries, nonprofits, educational institutions and government agencies.
Library marketing and communications strategies for audience engagement — from social media and crisis communications to messaging that resonates. This is where we share practical tactics for reaching and connecting with your community.
More and more libraries across the U.S. are selling branded merchandise through online stores—offering everything from literary tote bags to mugs to T-shirts. But what does it actually take to launch a successful swag shop? And is it worth it? We reviewed more than a dozen examples of library-run stores, conducted a national scan of… Continue reading Should Your Library Open an Online Swag Shop? Lessons from the Field
What if marketing wasn’t just a way to promote programming, but an essential party of a library's operations? That’s the question at the heart of my brand-new white paper, Embedding Marketing into Library Operations: A Collaborative Approach. If you’ve ever felt stuck in a silo or been handed a program to “promote” after all the… Continue reading Embedding Marketing into Library Operations: A Collaborative Approach.
One of the most common questions I hear from library professionals is: "We are offering so many programs, but how do we know if they are the right programs?" I used to ask those same questions, too. Then, in the early 2010s, I had the opportunity to work alongside some brilliant and forward-thinking colleagues at… Continue reading How Strategic Thinking Transformed Library Programming—and You Can Do the Same
What if the reason more people don’t use libraries isn’t because they don’t want to, or even don't know about the services and programs, but because we’ve unintentionally made it too hard? That’s the central question I kept coming back to as I listened to the recent Freakonomics podcast series on a concept called “sludge.”… Continue reading Are Libraries Serving “Sludge?”
I listen to a lot of public radio on the weekends. This past weekend, I was listening to an episode of Hidden Brain on NPR, Relationships 2.0: The Price of Disconnection, and it got me thinking. Sociologist Allison Pugh was talking about something she calls connective labor, the emotional work we do to make others… Continue reading Connective Labor And Library Marketing