David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Makerbot – Bre Pettis interview at CES 2013

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Just posting something from fellow library geek Jason Griffey. Did you know he’s like the ONLY librarian who goes to CES (i.e., Consumer Electronics Show)? This show is apparently HUGE, and there’s a lot of innovation that gets announced there.

This year – actually, the last couple of years – Jason has attended CES, and reported on what he found. One thing he found was the Makerbot booth and Bre Pettis, one of Makerbot’s founders.

In this video, Jason interviews Bre about what’s new for Makerbot, and what it might mean for libraries. Jason also has an accompanying blog post talking about new stuff for Makerbot.

Bre also mentions two books we should read before starting a hackerspace:

So – watch the video, read Jason’s post, read the books mentioned above … and make sure to subscribe to Jason’s blog, if you haven’t yet done that!

update – for some reason, the video disappeared. So I added it back in. Oops!

Taking a Stab at Facebook Page ROI

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FacebookRecently, both the CEO and the Marketing Director at my library asked about the ROI of paying for Facebook Page ads. They asked because we recently ran two months worth of a Facebook ad, and wanted to know what the ad actually accomplished.

First of all, a bit of background on that ad. We created a simple ad that focused on getting more Likes on our library’s Facebook Page (Ben Bizzle at Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library helped us with that as part of his research on Facebook Page ads). The ad was shown to people with Facebook accounts who had friends that had already Liked us.

So now, back to the question – What was the ROI of our experiment? There are two ways to look at ROI in this case. There’s the simple “Did it work” ROI, and there’s the “What’s really going on here” way to look at it. Let’s look at both:

Facebook Ads ROI – the simple version:

Goal – Our goal with this ad was to gain more Facebook fans. did we achieve that at a good price?

Spent – $591 ($10 a day for approx 2 months)
Gained – 2642 fans – averaged about 40 fans a day.
ROI – $0.22 per fan. Pretty cheap!

Facebook ads ROI – the “what’s really going on” version:

Ok, so we spent spent about $600 and gained 2642 more fans. Big deal. What’s the real ROI for that? What can you do with 2642 more Facebook fans? Here’s my thinking on that:

More eyeballs – this is important because of how Facebook works. On average, about 16% of your Facebook fans see a single post. So more Facebook fans = more people seeing your post (even if the average stays the same).

If national statistics are an ok guide, about 54% of our community, age 13 and up, have a Facebook account. That means we have the potential to reach over half of our community through Facebook … for free or cheap. That’s huge, so paying $0.22 per fan to get there seems to be a small price to pay for the added benefit of being able to share the good stuff of the library with more people in our community.

Better listening tools – Also important. Consistent interaction gets us active fans willing to talk back. Having more fans gets us the potential to have more interaction and feedback, since we are engaging a larger audience.

Better advocacy channel – this one’s simple. People say good stuff about the library. In Facebook, those posts spread. Again, more people (hopefully) equals more people saying good stuff about us.

So that’s what I’m thinking anyway. Eyeballs, listening, and advocacy. More fans = more of each (or at least the potential to have more of each).

Help me out – what am I missing?

FB Hand image by birgerking

Stability Fix in Youtube

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Here’s a cool new feature I just discovered in Youtube. I posted a short, really bouncy video (bouncy because I walk sorta bouncy). The video’s nothing fancy – really just me, playing with my new iPhone 5.

Youtube noticed the bounciness of the video, and automatically offered to “fix it.” And it did an ok job, too! Now the video looks really smooth (odd, since I’m talking about how bouncy I walk in the video), and there are some weird jerks as the automatic setting either gets a bit confused or is “catching up” to me. So be warned – your mileage may vary!

Below is a screenshot of what it looks like mid-fix. You basically get a split screen to see if the video looks better, and a Yes or No button for saving the video.

Simple stuff, but sorta cool and potentially handy, too. Check it out!

Youtube Stabilization

Internet Librarian 2012, Day 1

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For the next couple of days, I’m attending Internet Librarian 2012. Great conference – why aren’t you here?

Day one is over – I don’t have extensive notes from each session, but I will share some highlights.

David Weinberger started us off today with a keynote presentation on his Library as a Platform idea. He explained what he meant by platform and how knowledge is changing because of platforms, and then talked a little about the library as a platform. It was a good, thought-provoking talk.

Next up … well, that was me. I’ll post my slides in another post.

Michelle Boule talked crowdsourcing, and mentioned how to give your crowd the means to survive:

  • give them a goal
  • let the crowd choose their weapons – let them choose the technology they want to use to meet that goal
  • celebrate their successes and failures alike

M. Ryan Hess talked about Google Analytics, and then showed CrazyEgg. I’d forgotten about this really cool tool. It makes a heatmap of clicks on your website – great tool for usability, tracking clicks, etc. I need to check this one out again!

I was able to sign some books – always fun and a bit humbling, too.

And … I saw Jason Griffey’s LibraryBox in action. Very cool project, Jason!

So – good first day. Two more days to come!

 

Facebook Page Best Practices

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FacebookLast Saturday, I gave a Facebook Page session at Podcamp Topeka 2012. Part of that presentation included current best practices for posting content to a Facebook Page. Here are those best practices in bullet points:

  • Call to action – you need to tell people to do things like comment, like, and share. Include the call to action in the first 90 characters of your post.
  • Get to the point – 250 characters or less is best. Shorter posts get 60% more interaction than longer posts.
  • Ask for short responses, fill-in-the-blank responses, etc – i.e., “Who’s your favorite author?” This type of question post gets 90% more interaction than other types of text-based posts.
  • Pin important posts, so it stays at the top of your Page longer
  • Be casual (and appropriate). A conversational tone will attract more interaction.
  • Use images. More people comment, Like, and Share posts with images.
  • Post consistently. At least five times a week to stay on top-of-mind for fans.
  • Post the same types of content on the same day of the week. Example – book review Mondays. This helps fans know what to expect from you.
  • Give fans access to exclusive information or content. Yet another way to drive interest and engagement to a Facebook Page.
  • Find your optimal time to post. This will vary by organization.

Want to know more about current Facebook best practices? Check out Best Practices for your Page and Media Strategy by Facebook.

photo by Simon Q