NZ Book Council ad one of the best

May advertising awards and chocolate fish* rain down upon the clever people at Colenso BBDO for creating an ad for the New Zealand Book Council that manages to avoid the multitude of cliches available to do with books and reading, and just does something creative and original.

*the internationally recognised token of appreciation amongst librarians

Article: Working with campus marketing classes to improve reference visibility

This article* describes how a library worked with marketing classes at Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU) to improve students’ interest in using reference services. This gave the opportunity for students to engage in a real-world problem, while meeting the academic needs of the course and providing the library with ideas as to how they could improve the visibility and usefulness of the service. Some key points from the article for me were:

• the Library only specified two questions, the students generated the bulk of the survey questions
• the survey results confirmed that the students love the library facility but fail to use its resources, specifically the reference desk to the fullest
• students tended to be technology savvy, time poor, and unwilling to ask for assistance
• students used Google as their main resource, and would ask peers and lecturers for help, but were unlikely to ask librarians
•  the words “reference” and “information” were meaningless to students

Students provided recommendations for improving reference services, which were then considered by the librarians. As a result of this project:

• a secondary sign was added to the “Information desk” sign – a large yellow “help” button
• an instant messaging (IM) service was initiated (apparently marketing students “strongly advocated” this – Meebo was eventually chosen)
• promotional materials were developed for the IM service and for the email reference service
• walk-in workshops on specific topics were suggested by students, but were not pursued as they had failed to attract student interest in the past. As an alternative the library did decide to work on relationships with student groups – a “handful” of these scheduled time on sessions to improve research skills
• the seating arrangements of the student assistant/librarian at the reference desk was reversed, with the librarian taking the front and center seat and the student assistant moving to the back

The article notes that the number of reference transactions jumped as a result of the changes, but overall “aggregate numbers continued to trend downward, though less dramatically”.

A second round of marketing class/library collaboration was undertaken with students developing marketing plans for the library. Ultimately this was considered less useful than the original collaboration as “the suggestions did not fit for the image that we wanted to portray and were not as appropriate for the real world as they seemed on paper”.  Of the suggestions that did fit, one was the adoption of a  standardised visual identifier (which eventually replaced the help button), that was used in a consistent manner across the website, on handouts etc. This identifier – the “AskeAmes” logo was created by a graphic design student.

I’m wondering now if there would be scope for something like this at the university I work at. I’d be very interested to hear if anyone else has undertaken similar collaborations.

Spotted on the M Word – Marketing Libraries blog

* Duke, L. M., & MacDonald, J. B. (2009). Working with campus marketing classes to improve reference service visibility. Marketing Library Services, 23(6). Retrieved from http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov09/Duke_MacDonald.shtml

5 marketing megatrends you can’t ignore

What’s a megatrend, you ask? It’s something big. I’m talking really big.  Think of a giant unstoppable tsunami of change transforming society as we know it. Think global warming scale — then apply it to mass human behavior. Think glaciers carving the grand canyon of consumer sentiment …

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From http://www.imediaconnection.com

Marketing journals you can access online

I’ve added a new links section for marketing journals you can access online - first to be added is the Marketing Bulletin from Massey University:

The Marketing Bulletin is a refereed academic marketing journal that provides a forum for reporting research and disseminating ideas relating to the theory and practice of marketing and marketing research. The Marketing Bulletin is listed in the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training’s (DEST) Register of Refereed Journals.

This site provides access to the full text (PDF format) of all of the articles published in the Marketing Bulletin to date. In addition to the traditional articles, a special feature of the Marketing Bulletin is our Technical Notes section, which provides access to user-oriented software and information for various marketing applications. Please feel free to browse the site and download what you like, so long as you agree to abide by our Terms of Use Policy.

New WOM Book from Peggy and Linda

New WOM Book from Peggy and Linda

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An academic library with a great Facebook site

Weill Cornell Medical College Library have a great Facebook page with plenty of useful newsy updates. They also feature a quiz to find out what sort of library user you are – and you then get suggestions for what appeals to your “type” – and more importantly suggestions for other services you might like to use. It’s a nifty way of using the quiz application we see so often on Facebook to promote library services. I like the way they allow library users to use Facebook to RSVP to workshops and classes too.

They also have some great little videos – this  one demonstrates how much a student can save by using online resources, and the link below it goes to a video promoting Google Scholar.

I LOVE their strapline ”Start with us” which I could see being combined with all manner of promotional messages “want to save time searching … start with us” etc etc.

The Google Scholar video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X83rCyF

Winning hearts and minds …

… or how a “big green budgie of love” has been a bit of a hit on youtube, Facebook and Twitter.

This post has nothing to do with libraries, but everything to do with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation capitalising on the interest generated by a Youtube clip, gaining followers on sites such as Facebook and Twitter and turning one kakapo into an online phenomenon. (With an increase in interest in the conservation of the whole species – which is no bad thing!)

Read all about it at http://blog.doc.govt.nz/2009/10/08/sirocco-the-kakapo-an-online-phenomenon/

And the video that started it all:

(Very) useful stuff about surveys

If you are involved in commissioning or putting together surveys them you can find some useful info over on Ben Healey’s blog including:

• his free guide to online surveys
• a very informative piece on why some internet surveys are a bit like your Mother
• an incredibly useful font set for creating those response boxes in paper questionnaires (an absolute lifesaver!)

I did one of Ben’s papers at Massey University last year, before he escaped out into the real world (which was very bad luck for Massey marketing students IMHO! ).

 

The Five WORST Excuses for Not Using Twitter

I found this article via http://twittown.com/twitter/five-worst-excuses-not-using-twitter 

If you’re as pro-Twitter as I am, you’ve probably heard a lot of your Twitter-hater friends give some pretty crazy excuses for why they won’t use Twitter. I myself have some particularly close friends who simply refuse to Tweet – and they’re always making excuses for why they won’t do it. Luckily I’ve invested a lot of time and energy into arguing with them – so you don’t have to. Check out these five worst excuses for not using Twitter, along with some snappy comebacks you can throw back at them:

1. “I don’t use Twitter because I don’t have anything to say.”

I hear this one from my friends all the time. They seem to feel like they need to have some kind of message, some sort of goal in mind, when they sit down to use Twitter. This couldn’t be farther from the truth – if you have a reason to open your mouth (besides eating and heavy breathing) you have a reason to use Twitter. On the off-chance that your friends are so uninteresting that they really don’t have anything to say, that’s OK too – with Twitter you can just listen. If they don’t have anything to say AND they don’t have anything that they’re remotely interested in hearing about…you might want to find more interesting friends.

 

 

 

 

2. “I don’t use Twitter because you can’t say anything meaningful in 140 characters.”

On the contrary, some of history’s most meaningful statements have been “tweetable.” Briefly reviewing some of the most famous quotations and famous sayings will show that the drastic majority of them are 140 characters or less. Why? Because pithiness and brevity go hand in hand. When my friends tell me “you can’t say anything meaningful in 140 characters” I tell them, “If it takes more than 140 characters to convey the main idea, it probably wasn’t as meaningful as you thought it was.”

 

 

 

 

3. “I don’t have time to use Twitter.”

Now that’s just silly. Most of us are fairly capable typists; sending a tweet, even a full 140-character tweet, takes us around 30 seconds (and that includes proofreading). Even if you’re jabbing at an iPhone with chubby fingers, we’re still talking about one or two minutes here. Reading Tweets takes even less time, and tweets aren’t like newspaper articles – you can stop reading them whenever you want. They’re short. If people say they don’t have time to use Twitter, what that probably means is that they don’t think Twitter is worth spending any time on – and that’s a different topic altogether.

 

 

 

 

4. “I don’t use Twitter because I’m not interested in hearing about what people are eating for breakfast.”

I’m so tired of hearing this one. Whoever started the rumor that Twitter is all about telling the world that you’re “making a sandwich” should be thrown to the zombies. Briefly reviewing the last 50 of my followers’ tweets, there is not a single one about what people are eating. Those fifty tweets cover a wide variety of topics – what books people are reading, the usage and meaning of the word “obtuse,” the best/worst action movies, Billy Mays’ recent appearance on South Park…but nothing about making a sandwich. There was one about a guy trying to do his laundry after drinking heavily, but that was about the closest it got.

 

 

 

 

5. “I don’t use Twitter because it’s a waste of time.”

Tell that to #iranelection. A significant portion of the rest of the world takes Twitter seriously – why wouldn’t you? All that saying it’s “a waste of my time” does is make you look ignorant – which you’re not, or you probably wouldn’t be my friend in the first place.

 

So there you go – the five most maddening excuses I hear for not using Twitter, and some of the responses I give people. Be forewarned: using these counter-arguments with your friends is not likely to immediately change their minds. The best way to convince a Twitter-hater that they’re in the wrong is to sit down with a good example – like #iranelection – of how Twitter has the potential to change the world, 140 characters at a time.

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The Futurist: The Dawn of the Postliterate Age

The Futurist: The Dawn of the Postliterate Age

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