Marketing with Web 2.0

A freewheeling discussion, brought to you by ML2SIG

Some guiding principles

• Identify your audience

• Don’t underestimate word of mouth

• Follow the blogs in your field; participate occasionally

• Be authentic

• Know the etiquette

Marketing experiments at MLibrary

• Announcing the Millionth Digitized Book

• Launching Paul Courant’s blog

• Playing with Flickr: Pre-Shelf Life of Library Materials and Banned Books Week photosets

• Selling “Owning the Olympics”

Announcing the Millionth Digitized Book

• Sent a press release to traditional news outlets• Threw a party• Put a link on the Library Gateway• Several UM librarians blogged about it• Offered several different online entry points

– Central website with all the supporting materials– Photoset on Flickr– Statistics slideshow in Slideshare

http://www.lib.umich.edu/news/millionth.html

Launching Au Courant

• Started with a hot topic (Google Book Search)

• Sent personalized messages to a few widely-read bloggers who write about GBS

• Put a note in the Library Newsletter, encouraged MLibrarians to tell their friends

Flickr Photosets: Pre-Shelf Life and Banned Books Week

• Announcement in the Library Newsletter

• Images on the flat screens in Hatcher

• Links on the Library Gateway

• MLibrarians blogged

• A note to Jessamyn West @ librarian.net

Selling “Owning the Olympics”

• NetVibes page

• Messages to news bloggers

• Homepage at digitalculture.org

• Press release about launch of free, online, Open Access version

• A blog for the editor and contributors of the book

Resources

• Library Success Wiki: http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Marketing

• Seth Godin’s marketing blog: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog

• South by Southwest podcasts: http://2008.sxsw.com/coverage/podcasts/

• PR 2.0: http://www.briansolis.com

Questions for Discussion

• How do I choose a marketing plan for my event/website/project?

• Which is better: a targeted campaign or a broad one?

• How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?