David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Free Analytics Tools from Simply Measured

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Do you know about the free social media analytics tools from Simply Measured? They are worth checking out.

They have 7 tools that you can use for free. You do hvae to do a couple of silly things to get to the reports: fill out a form so you’re on their mailing list, and do a tweet/Facebook post that you’re using them.

Here’s what they offer:

  1. Twitter Follower Analysis
  2. Instagram User Analysis
  3. Facebook Fan Page Analysis
  4. Facebook Insights Analysis
  5. Facebook Competitive Analysis
  6. Facebook Content Analysis
  7. Twitter Customer Service Analysis

I didn’t play with the Facebook Competitive Analysis report – we don’t really have a competitor in Topeka 🙂 I did test drive the others.

Here’s a couple of highlights from some of the reports:

  • Twitter Follower Analysis – shows how active your audience is (about half of my library’s audience has tweeted fairly recently). Also provides a list of our most influential followers, which is handy to know!
  • Instagram Report – shows that more people interact with our videos instead of our photos. Also gives a list of our most active commenters. Good to know, so we can interact with them more.
  • Sorta odd – our top day/time for Instagram engagement (according to this report) is Monday morning at 8am! That’s when 24% of our comments happen. OK – probably not so odd, because we post pics and videos from our Monday morning farmer’s market that happens in the library parking lot. And people comment on those photos and videos. Still useful to know!
  • Facebook Fan Report – shows our top users by the number of comments. Again – that’s a really nice thing to know. You want to interact with your power users in a social media channel, because they are most likely your local influencers within that social media tool. Make them happy, and they will share – thus increasing your reach in your community.
  • Facebook Insights Report – shows that in 2 weeks, we reached almost 100,000 people (i.e., how many people saw something on Facebook from or about us). Name another free tool that reaches that many people.

So – just some highlights from a couple of free social media reporting tools. Play with them and see what you think!

image from Pexels

Check out the New Pew Report on Libraries

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The newest Pew Research report on libraries is out. As usual, it’s filled with some great, useful statistics and insights about how Americans are using their public libraries.

Here are some highlights that stood out to me:

  • 80% of Americans think public libraries should definitely offer programs that teach digital skills.
  • 57% think we should have more comfortable spaces for reading, working and relaxing.
  • 50% think libraries should buy 3D printers and other digital tools.
  • Moving some print books and shelves out of public spaces to free up space for tech centers, reading rooms, meeting rooms, etc … 24% said definitely yes, and 40% said “maybe.” – So that’s 64% of people that think we should at least consider our options. To me, that means if we make an educated, informed decision … it will be ok!
  • “There is also a growing sense that libraries can help people decide what information they can trust: 37% of Americans feel that public libraries contribute “a lot” in this regard, a 13-point increase from a survey conducted at a similar point in 2015.” – Sounds like there’s still a lot of work to be done here!
  • There was a four-point drop … in the number who visited library websites in the previous 12 months – falling from 31% who said they’d done so in 2015 to 27% in 2016. – Not at my library (use of our website is up).
  • 7% of those 16 and older say they have connected to a library’s Wi-Fi system when the library building itself was closed.
  • 44% of those 16 and older say their public libraries loan out e-books, while 10% say this is not true of their communities’ libraries. Researchers at the University of Maryland report that 90% of libraries have e-book lending programs. – We haven’t yet figured out how to promote our non-print-book stuff.
  • Use of mobile apps to access library resources is not too common among Americans: 8% said they had used public library mobile apps in the past year, compared with 12% who said they had done this in 2015. – Interesting. I’m still convinced that a mobile-friendly website is the better way to go. And it’s backed up by some research.

Make sure to read the report, and think about how your library matches up. If you don’t like something you see here … how are you going to change it? Schedule that planning meeting and figure it out!

My Presentations from Internet Librarian 2015

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I just got back from a whirlwind 4 days of Internet Librarian 2015. As usual, it was a really useful conference for me – lots of solid tips, learning, and networking with cool techie librarians.

Here are the slide deck versions of my presentations:

Tech Trends for Libraries in 2016

Aligning Digital & Print Content: Editorial Content Calendars

Analytics for Social Media

Writing for the Web

I also lead a panel discussion on Innovation in Libraries. It went really well … but no slides for that one.

Easy Analytics for Instagram

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I recently discovered a cool tool for tracking Instagram analytics. It’s called StatShot.

Signing up for StatShot is easy – just connect your Instagram account to it, and you’re done. It’s a freemium tool based on the number of Instgram followers you have. It’s free for up to 5000 followers. After that, it’s $5 a month for up to 10,000 followers, etc. If only we had that problem!

What does StatShot do? Here’s what they say: “StatShot was created with one goal in mind: to deliver simple and clear Instagram stats to individuals and brands who want to better understand their audience growth.”

They do this by sending regular emails with your Instagram stats. You can choose to get daily, weekly, or monthly emails. I set up the library and my personal Instagram accounts with daily emails.

What’s that get me? Every morning, I receive these stats:

  • Followers
  • Potential Reach
  • Engagement
  • Likes
  • Comments
  • Following
  • Media Posted
  • Track #hashtag’s usage

Each of those stats provides yesterday’s numbers, compares it to the day before, and then shows an up/down percentage for each statistic.

It’s pretty basic, but then again, it’s simple and it’s free (until we hit 5000 followers).

Try it out and let me know what you think!

What’s the Most Visited Part of your Library?

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Do you adequately staff the busiest parts of your library? For example, if you have a busy reference desk, you probably make sure there are staff to meet demand.

If your circulation desk gets busy in the afternoons, you probably put another person there to help.

But what if your digital branch is the busiest part of your library? What then?

Here’s what I mean. Take a peek at some annual stats from my library:

  • Door count: 797,478 people
  • Meeting room use: 137,882 people
  • Library program attendance: 76,043 attendees
  • Art Gallery visitors: 25,231 visitors
  • Reference questions: 271,315 questions asked

How about website visits? We had 1,113,146 total visits to the website in 2014. The only larger number is is our circulation count (2,300,865 items).

The busiest part of my library is our digital branch – our website. More visits than meeting room attendance. More visits than library classes and events. More visits than our art gallery.

More visits than our physical building.

I’ll guess your library is similar. So how do we staff for this? I know, I know. Website visits are different than a person visiting the building. Building visitors will most likely stay longer, will need furniture to use, will step on carpet that needs cleaning, and will use computers that need to be maintained. While a digital branch visit might only last for two minutes.

Still – do you see a potential disparity here?

So I’ll ask my question again: Do you adequately staff the busiest parts of your library?

Image by Mervyn Chua