Oftentimes, we fall into the habit of writing on autopilot. We use the same language, acronyms, jargon, and naming conventions in all of our pieces without first considering who we are trying to reach with each message. This webinar will cover how to shift the focus of your marketing back to your target audience to ensure you’re communicating more effectively. Every brand also has its own voice and personality–even your library! We’ll discuss how to identify that voice as well as tips for applying it to your writing and marketing materials.
Date Recorded: 2/15/2025
Format: Archived YouTube Video
Presenter: Trente Arens, Marketing Manager / Naperville Public Library (Naperville, Illinois)
This session will include a demonstration of Canva, the web-based graphic design and publishing tool. Learn tips and tricks that will help you do more with Canva and help you create graphics that capture the attention of your audience. Questions submitted before the webinar will help guide the presentation.
Join Julius Jefferson, ALA President, in a conversation about advocating for libraries from the local to the national level. He will explain the difference between grasstops and grassroots advocacy.
Find out how to make a simple library webpage. Devon Henderson, Communications Specialist at the Huntington City-Township Public Library, will give you step-by-step instructions.
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr … how many social media accounts does one library need, anyway? And how can you make the most of them with limited time and money? We’ll give you basic social media best practices for libraries, then delve into the specifics of Facebook so you can learn how to make the right posts at the right time to reach further than ever.
Every library collects statistics throughout the year, but are you doing more with them than just clicking submit on your annual report? In this webinar, we will discuss how to effectively present your annual statistics to your boards, Friends groups, patrons, and other key stakeholders. What should you put on an annual report? How should it look? What’s the best way to format your data? We’ll try to tackle it all!
How do you serve people in your community who are unable get in to your library? How do you find those people? What kind of programs or services could be offered to them? These questions plague libraries everywhere. Learn how we identified our target patron groups, partnered with community agencies to identify patrons, young and not so young, who would benefit from outreach programming, and how we used materials and staff on hand to add outreach to our service repertoire.
Dr. Curtis Rogers, Communications Director for the South Carolina State Library, will share his experience with SCSL’s podcast, 
Could your library’s signage do with a makeover? This session will look critically at many type of library signs and review positive and negative aspects of library signage. We will also address how to conduct a signage audit and the importance of library branding. Attendees will learn practical approaches and inexpensive and free ways to improve the library’s image and to develop library brand recognition. Also addressed will be issues of customer service and how not to use signage to solve library problems.