When used effectively, a website can be a great tool for engaging your local community. Be it blogging, online forms, or user-generated content like comments and reading lists, you have many powerful tools at your disposal. Every single day, our partner libraries are creating new and innovative ways of using these tools to build awareness about their libraries and, in turn, drive patron growth.
In this post, we’ll walk through some great initiatives from two of our partner libraries, Kent District Library (KDL) and Canton Public Library (CPL). This year, KDL and CPL tapped into everyone’s love of pets to create fun contests that sparked creativity, humor, and joy in their communities.
Their ‘furry’ campaigns generated considerable reach on social media and, in turn, brought KDL and CPL top of their patrons’ minds.
KDL wanted to see if it could mobilize its community for support but wanted to give something back that was both useful and physically tangible. With some research, the KDL team saw that consumers still buy print calendars, especially ones that reflect niche or specific interests. So, building on that idea, the team at KDL narrowed in on the fact that people love their pets. This led to a contest inviting the community to submit photos of their pets and, in turn, with the winners getting featured on a custom calendar. It was a great strategy in that it forged a personal connection to the project and incentivized participation.
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Next, KDL announced the contest and its terms/rules through a blog post, which it then amplified using social media. Once the entries came in, KDL set up a gallery on its website for people to both view and vote for their favorite pet photos. When voting was complete and the results tallied, KDL designed the calendar.
In addition to featuring each of the winning pet photos, KDL also gave each month a theme, a literary quote, and key dates for upcoming library programs, such as its short-story competition. The idea was to deliver as much tangible value in the calendar so that people not only use it to track dates and enjoy cute companions but also stay engaged with the library by knowing about its programs.
KDL sold a total of 162 calendars and generated a revenue of $3,225. However, upon evaluating the contest, the KDL team found that the greater value was the community reach and engagement. For example, they received 67 entries, 347 votes, and a social media reach of over 20,000. Seeing those results, KDL is looking at potentially making its next calendar free.
When designing campaigns, the key is to connect with your audience authentically and personably; KDL fed into something its patrons genuinely love and enjoy. Not only that, but the calendar allowed the community to leave their mark by having their pets featured in the calendar. It helped incentivize participation and, as importantly, get patrons to engage with the library and each other on social media. Those conversations helped KDL drive more reach and awareness online.
Last year, CPL set up its Cutest Pet Contest to celebrate National Pet Day, which takes place every year on April 11. The idea came from a cross-functional committee comprised of library admins, communications specialists, program librarians, services librarians, and content creators. Initially, the CPL team thought of putting up one social media post inviting people to share photos of their pets on National Pet Day, but in time, the initiative expanded into a contest. Given its success in 2022, CPL ran it again in 2023.
To properly prepare for the contest, CPL began planning for it a few months ahead in December and, in turn, announced it in March. CPL promoted the contest with a social media post, inviting people to comment on the post with their pets’ photos. CPL got 54 entries! 35 dogs, 15 cats, and 4 other pets (e.g., lizards, hamsters, etc.). This was a big jump compared to the 31 entries CPL got in 2022.
Once the entries came in, CPL built a place on its website for people to vote. Using BiblioWeb, CPL built a spot on one of its webpages,to promote the contest. CPL also set up a dedicated page for voting. Using BiblioWeb’s prebuilt modules, CPL built a gallery with the pets’ names and photos. It then used BiblioWeb’s forms functionality to build a spot for people to cast their votes online. To drive awareness, CPL promoted the voting gallery across all its key channels, including social media, its monthly e-newsletter, and the website’s homepage via a banner.
CPL held two rounds of voting, and interestingly, it saw that the second round not only maintained the momentum but it drove more votes compared to the first. For the second round, CPL offered patrons the option to vote either online or in person. However, it found that online voters outnumbered the in-person ones, showing that online voting was both more accessible and popular.
On National Pet Day, CPL announced both the winners and runners-up. Not only did the winners share and amplify CPL’s content, but the people who didn’t win congratulated the winners. So, people in the community engaged in conversations online, but with CPL at the center of it.
The 2023 Cutest Pet Contest brought in a total of 5,679 online votes, with the first round getting 2,608 votes and the second round 3,071 votes. CPL also generated 1,398 direct link clicks from Facebook to the voting page. Seeing how CPL serves 90,000 residents, the contest yielded relatively strong results, both in terms of reach and engagement. To fuel the momentum, the CPL team also did a similar contest for Halloween!
Like KDL, CPL tapped into something its people genuinely love to build an authentic connection. So, that is always a strong starting point. In addition, a significant proportion of CPL’s reach and engagement was online, so its investment in building high-quality online assets, like its voting gallery, was a critical step. It ensured that the library gave its people an accessible and convenient way to participate in the contest.
In addition, it also offered a convenient way to pair the contest to online conversations. So, for example, if a patron wants their friends and family to vote for their pet, they can share a link to the voting gallery from their social media profiles. If that post spreads in any way, it carries a link to CPL’s website to those other people, which may open a pathway for CPL to engage new potential patrons.
One thing underpinning both KDL’s and CPL’s respective campaigns was the technology. To drive a strong online presence, public libraries need an accessible website with robust tools that will enable these types of campaigns. This digital environment needs to both resonate with your users and empower your teams to reach and engage people. When you factor in the need for an excellent user experience (UX), security, accessibility, and not least, integration with your library catalog and other engagement stacks (such as email, apps, etc.), it’s obvious that your public library website can be an incredible platform.
However, building that platform isn’t easy, especially if you go at it alone. That’s why both KDL and CPL leverage BiblioWeb, our fully integrated content management system (CMS) and webpage builder to not only set up their websites but drive their impactful campaigns and programs. While our Partner Libraries focus on creating rich experiences for their online patrons, our teams work in the background to ensure they have the tools to do it.