CHECK ALL THAT APPLY

I don't do social media
I only have personal account(s)
I do social media for work or some other organization
I manage more than one account professionally

CHECK ALL THAT APPLY

I am comfortable with
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest
Periscope
Snapchat
LinkedIn
Tumblr

This slide is a trick question because there are so many definitions of "Stakeholder."



It helps to compare stakeholders to other kinds of relationships
Disinteresteds: you might need them but they don't think they need you
Audience people who attend a program
Stakeholders people who have an interest in its success
Collaborators people who help make it happen
Strategic Allies people who MIH with impt skills
Partners people who share in the risk of failure and benefit from success

REMOVED
When most people think about Stakeholders they think about influential people, local philanthropists, people you need to reach because they're powerful.

It doesn't help that social media has opened up the possibility of considering a broader range of community members as stakeholders.

A STAKEHOLDER IS

A person or group with an interest in a project's outcome.

Internal or external, they have something to gain or lose.

It helps to compare stakeholders to other kinds of relationships
Disinteresteds: you might need them but they don't think they need you
Audience people who attend a program
Stakeholders people who have an interest in its success
Collaborators people who help make it happen
Strategic Allies people who MIH with impt skills
Partners people who share in the risk of failure and benefit from success

It helps to compare stakeholders to other kinds of relationships
Disinteresteds: you might need them but they don't think they need you
Audience people who attend a program
Stakeholders people who have an interest in its success
Collaborators people who help make it happen
Strategic Allies people who contribute skills or expertise to MIH
Partners people who share in the risk of failure and benefit from success

It helps to compare stakeholders to other kinds of relationships
Disinteresteds: you might need them but they don't think they need you
Audience people who attend a program
Stakeholders people who have an interest in its success
Collaborators people who help make it happen
Strategic Allies people who contribute skills or expertise to MIH
Partners people who share in the risk of failure and benefit from success

I chose these comparisons because I want to suggest a continuum of involvement with your community.

AUDIENCE: people who participate in a program

STAKEHOLDERS: people who have an interest in its success. When they are aligned with the project and develop "ownership" they may turn into...

ADVOCATES & REFERRERS: people who stand up when the project is threatened or who help you connect to people who will contribute skills or funding

COLLABORATORS: people who help make it happen

STRATEGIC ALLIES: people who contribute crucial skills or expertise to make the project successful

PARTNERS: people who share in the risk of failure and/or benefit from success

WHO ARE YOUR STAKEHOLDERS...

[invite to contribute to list]
teachers, parents, youth, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, readers, music lovers, job seekers, employers, schools, churches, child care centers, nursing homes, health clinics, homeless shelters, government bureaus,

...AND HOW DO YOU REACH THEM? WHAT DO YOU SAY?

Increasingly libraries, nonprofits, and businesses are turning to social media to build awareness and support, but with mixed results.

The rest of this hour I'll tell stories of real, influential engagement, and we'll reverse-engineer them to see what worked and why.

[As an aside, this is the first time I'm giving this talk so I'm using events I'm familiar with. If you have a story that illustrates effective engagement in today's media environment I would love to hear from you.]

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DEFINITION OF STAKEHOLDER BUT ALSO IDEA OF CONTINUUM OF ENGAGEMENT

Here's a true story: we launched our seed library without traditional marketing. We had to. Our marketing staff had just left. There was no press release, no spiffy poster, no phone calls to selected media. But we had Justine. Justine Hernandez.

And Justine didn't just want to start the seed library so people could feed themselves better. She wanted to create community in southern Arizona that focused on food justice, food security, and local empowerment. She wasn't even a gardener.

Justine visited community gardens, took a seed-harvesting class on her own time, and visited farmer's markets. Everywhere she went she found support.

Then she took her idea to the library's Executive Team. She told them why it was a good idea for the library, shared how she had built the groundwork, and told them of her bigger dream of building real community at the library centered on food justice, sustainability, and locally-grown produce. They said yes, and -- by the way, shouldn't we catalog the seeds?

About 2 months before the grand opening Justine asked me to start a Facebook page for the Seed Library. On the FB page she posted about the delight she was experiencing as she spoke to people and visited gardens. She also organized pop-up "hootenanys" and "pachangas" where she set up a table in the lobby of Main Library and asked people to help sort the donated seeds into smaller packets. She used Facebook to publicize the events.


Come January and the grand opening we had 20 vendors, all local gardening groups WHO HAD NEVER DONE AN EVENT TOGETHER, and 2000 people came to our downtown library to check it all out.

3 years later, the Facebook page continues to be popular because her team's vision and passion are strong, their writing is a delight, the photographs are awesome, and the page is about community and gardening. You'll never see content cut and pasted from the online calendar, or all the polished marketing messages. But it is still strategic and it is still powerful, and it is a beloved new role the library is playing in the community.

REMOVED

YOU CAN DO THIS.

Implications: your ideal social media person is a good writer, a good storyteller, is a good photographer, is down where stuff is happening, knows the community, and most importantly knows the WHY. Honestly, if they have the why they'll learn all the other stuff.

Let's reverse-engineer why Justine's seed library initiative created new strategic partners for the library.

1) She had a specific audience in mind: 20-60yo people who want to grow their own food or eat local food

2) She networked in person with the groups and individuals who are already reaching this demographic: farmer's markets, community gardens, nonprofits working for seed sustainability.

3) She approached them with what the LIBRARY could offer.

4) They helped spread the word, helped with prep work and wanted to be represented at the Grand Opening.

5) Justine and her team continue to mix face-to-face contact with social media networking. They tag our partners, share their good news, and occasionally go over and photograph their events for news items.

The recipe? A target group, a project that resonated, lots of listening and learning, strong support from admin,

Your advocates can come from unexpected places

This is a true story. Our library system was threatened 2 years ago by legislation from the state that would have removed local control of the tax levy set aside for our libraries.

Understand that employees of Pima County cannot directly advocate for or criticize legislation that affects us.

I noticed something interesting. On Facebook gardening groups people who loved our seed library program organized themselves even more effectively that we could have. They started with lists of state senator contact information, then worked on talking points together, and then they shared what they ended up mailing to their legislators.

They had a visceral reason to fight for their library, and they knew what they wanted to say because the seed program built community online and off.

THE JOB CONNECTORS MEETUP

Whether online or in-person, you build strategic relationships by creating value for the people you want to attract.

I think a great example of this is what my colleague Michelle Simon did when she became JobHelp Coordinator. Developing the local workforce is one of the most important things we do, but it was frustrating because there was little communication between all the service providers. Michelle also found that too many agencies didn't know what the library offered, or how great we are to work with. The funny thing was, the other agencies and assistance nonprofits she spoke to said the same thing.

So Michelle formed the Job Connector's Meetup as a win-win for everyone. They meet, network, and share what they can offer. At a recent Meetup, a panel of HR directors from local businesses gave candid information about what they look for in resumes, how they process them, and the mistakes they see over and over.

THE JOB CONNECTORS MEETUP

OK, let's look at what happened

1) Michelle targeted a narrow, specific group as one whe wanted stronger relationships with.

2) She was alert to problems/opportunities within the target group, and offered a creative win-win solution.

3) She didn't tell them: hey we're great you should work with us, she showed them.

4) Now Michelle has a steady stream of jobseeker referrals and library staff can make better referrals when we're not the right fit.

5) She turned offices in silos into a network of strategic alliances.

COVERED SO FAR

LESSONS FROM THE SEED LIBRARY
--social media works, but it works better when mixed with focused in-person networking

--bold programs that delight and inspire can build new stakeholders

--library staff who can express real vision and passion for a project are one of our most important assets

--social media works really well when a project is bold and surprising.

Don't have a big, bold project but still need to connect?
--know your why
--narrow the pool of stakeholders you want to reach
--find your Justines, mentor them and empower them
--Mix communication online with in-person contact

WHAT WORKED ABOUT THE JOB CONNECTORS MEETUP
--Understand who you're targeting and listen to what's needed.

--She took the lead and helped everyone look good.

Don't have a big, bold project but still need to connect?
--know your why
--narrow the pool of stakeholders you want to reach
--take the lead in bringing stakeholders and strategic partners together
--offer real value

INSERT POLL

Who are your strategic partners? Who sends people to you? do your marekting for you

Think of THEM as a target audience.

WHO? Some ideas for potential strategic partners
*mommybloggers
*Fandoms
*STEM advocates
*other job help counselors
*teachers
*other literacy counselors
*other government departments Parks & Rec
*Entrepreneurs
*Your local media

Then take ONE group and think about what you can do:

Who are your strategic partners? Who sends people to you? Who SHOULD they be? Who do you want to work with?

Take ONE group and brainstorm on how you can help
*empathy mapping might help
*Ask for pain points, not just needs; this is where real motivation lies

Prepare for success
*Take a look at website and social media. Do you make it easy for people to refer people to you?
*Brainstorm ways you're already helping them

Indirect ideas:
*as library, write reviews about them on Yelp, FB, Google+
*be a matchmaker
*ask how can I promote your event?
*Share their posts
*Tag them in posts, especially with real thank yous; make sure YOUR tagging is turned on
*Set up alerts for mentions and RESPOND

F2F ideas:
*Have a meetup, a mixer where they can network
*Set up workshops and events aimed at potential partnerships
*When meet, DON'T sell; ask them "tell me about your business so I can see where I can help you."
*Example: Michelle's Job Connector's Meetup

Ok, let's go back to this slide. Perhaps youi have the idea that you will create a FB page and be able to have conversations with the generous car dealer, news media, and people on the school board.

Unless you have an ad budget and can target your posts and ads, don't count on this. Why?

1) Influential people usually have others running their social media
2) In general social media isn't tolerant of traditional, direct marketing. Posting a promotional message on a business's page is considered spammy and intrusive.

But there's great news anyway. Social media opens up who you can tell the story of your library to people and groups that you probably don't know are out there. And it's mostly about storytelling, and we DO have that down.

*DO you have an ad budget? Lucky you.

On social media, these are your partners, your allies, your potential collaborators,

The people we're reaching with (free) social media are still stakeholders. They're the retired professors who start foundations. They're mommy bloggers looking for quality free programming to share. They're local press always looking for something to pitch to their editor. But most of all it's the people in the neighborhoods you serve.

And these are your stakeholders.

You'll probably recognize this photo from the Ferguson Library.

What's important here is NOT the channels they used to get the word out that school would be held at the library. What is important was that they knew their community's needs and took bold action.

Think about how responsive action is the key here, to reaching the library's stakeholders at all levels. And think about how the action, not the medium is what changed the perception of what the library can be for the community.

COVERED SO FAR

WHAT WORKED ABOUT THE JOB CONNECTORS MEETUP
--Understand who you're targeting and listen to what's needed.

--She took the lead and helped everyone look good.

Don't have a big, bold project but still need to connect?
--know your why
--narrow the pool of stakeholders you want to reach
--take the lead in bringing stakeholders and strategic partners together
--offer real value

Know your "why."

What are your biggest challenges? What are your biggest fears?

And conversely, what is your library's secret power? What makes it unique?

Your "why" may come from strategic planning, a budget crisis, community strife.

But if you know your why and you won't lose your way on social media.

The library social media accounts that I've seen really take off have all had these things: 1) a writer with vision 2) who knows their community well 3) and mixes online community with in person community.

Perhaps there's a #4: they don't see social media as an extension of traditional marketing.

Luckily we know a lot about storytelling.

KNOW YOUR WHY
My why? I agree with John Palfrey, tho for different reasons. He's said that we need to build a new nostalgia. I interpret this as: we need to head in directions that resonate deeply with our communities, as deeply as what they've loved us for in the past.

When people are asked 10 years from now what they remember about the library, what will they say?

I hope they say "I learned to love reading there" and "My parents let me read what ever I wanted" and "What a solace it is to escape into a book." But ALSO: "I learned to make my business dreams real and successful at the library" and "I learned to publish my own stories at the library" and "I borrowed a guitar and recorded my first music at the library."

What are you doing now that people will be nostalgic about in 2025? My goal is to help build a Dumbledore's Army of people who know the delights of a 21st century library and share that news with others.

TELL THE DEEPER STORY
Take a moment and think about the stories you're not telling. What good news is your library sitting on?

If you're like my library, you're delivering books to the homebound, doing literacy programs in the prison, having afterschool programs for refugee kids, and putting on baby brain development classes for teen moms.

With traditional campaigns none of these programs were talked about tho, because we didn't need attendance.

Social media gives us the power to tell the deeper story of the library in our own voice, speaking directly to people who are interested.

You can do this. You have your why, you have your voice, you have your stories, NOW you're ready to think about a social media platform.

Each platform reaches a different demographic, and offers different tools for telling stories.

Where are your customers? Can you ask them?
dot

It could be as easy as setting up an easel in a high traffic area, give visitors dots, and ask

Maybe you have a marketing budget for social media. We don't.

However, we still consider Facebook to be our primary platform. Why? Recent changes have meant that our meatier news is seen more widely than before, plus they've made events posts more powerful.

Source: http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/9-major-social-networks-age/

Maybe you have a marketing budget for social media. We don't.

However, we still consider Facebook to be our primary platform. Why? Recent changes have meant that our meatier news is seen more widely than before, plus they've made events posts more powerful.

add slide for add breakdown

Twitter screenshot

Pinterest screenshot

how to reach those informal stakeholders

Instagram #putyourfaceinabook #bookfaceFriday

COVERED SO FAR

WHAT WORKED ABOUT THE JOB CONNECTORS MEETUP
--Understand who you're targeting and listen to what's needed.

--She took the lead and helped everyone look good.

Don't have a big, bold project but still need to connect?
--know your why
--narrow the pool of stakeholders you want to reach
--take the lead in bringing stakeholders and strategic partners together
--offer real value