Department of Communication, University of Delaware
COMM735: Social Media Management
Background
The Lorain Public Library System in Ohio is starting a new monthly book sale to replace their annual book sale. They need help promoting this new event.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
- Book sales can be a great source of income
- Patrons are often only looking for certain types of books. By breaking up our yearly book sale into twelve monthly themes, we can better target people based on their interests and increase our overall sales.
Weaknesses
- By separating the annual book sale into categories, we rely heavily on our messaging to get the news of each book sale to the right audience.
Opportunities
- Ask readers to share their thoughts about books they’re reading.
- We need to accurately target book sales to target markets.
Threats
- Lack of funding for the campaign.
Goal
- Our first goal is to double our book sale income from last year’s annual sale. Since we’re switching to a monthly sale, we’re calculating a 200% increase, divided over 12 months, which will give us 17%. So, from this content, we’re expecting to have 17% of the sales generated at last year’s total book sale.
- Our second goal is to increase yearly program attendance by 50% from last year’s annual book sale. Since we’re switching to a monthly sale, we’re calculating a 150% increase, divided over 12 months, which will give us 12.5%. So, for July’s book sale, we’re expecting to have 12.5% of the attendance from last year’s annual book sale.
Strategies
We can use social media to:
- Reach new audiences to increase book sake attendance.
- Promote the book sale on social media.
- Create excitement for the book sale in our online library community.
Tactics for Strategy:
- Reach new audiences to increase book sale attendance.
- Instagram Influencer Collaboration
- Target Audience: Lorain County residents age 16-35
- Influencer collaboration with Alex Dávila https://www.instagram.com/iamlexidavila
- 3rd grade teacher
- 6,500 followers on Instagram
- well-polished portrait & fashion photography
- most recent posts average around 375 likes and 20 comments
- Target the Millennials and Gen Z demographic that is very active on Instagram and are avid readers.
- Content: It’s important for Alex’s support to be genuine, so I think the best way to work with her is to have her post her signature style of photos using the library as a backdrop, while mentioning the book sale. I think it would be good to also have her attend the promoted program.
- Hashtag(s): #lorainpubliclibrarysystem #booksale
- Promote the book sale on social media.
- Platform: Facebook
- Target Audience: Lorain County residents age 18-49
- Caption: Check out our collection of children’s books at our July book sale! We’ll have everything from baby books through high school level. Stop by at the North Ridgeville Branch from Friday July 8 to Sunday, July 10 from 11 am to 5pm. Click Here to download flier.
- Hashtag(s): #lorainpubliclibrarysystem #booksale
- Create excitement for the book sale in our online library community.
- Platform: Facebook
- Target Audience: Lorain County Library patrons age 18-49
- Caption: To celebrate our children’s book sale, we’re wondering – what is YOUR favorite children’s book?
- Hashtag(s): #lorainpubliclibrarysystem #booksale
- By engaging our audience, we can get greater reach on this post, as well as leverage the community’s excitement for reading and talking about their favorite books. We can also use the feedback we get on this post to serve as inspiration for future posts. If “The Monster At The End Of This Book” emerges as a favorite, maybe we can utilize that information and create a post about that book in the future.
Timeline
We will be working on our social media campaigns from May 15 – July 31.
Budget
For the social media account creation and content, there is no expenditure outside of existing staff costs.
Measurement (KPIs)
Our first goal is to double our book sale income from last year’s annual sale. Since we’re switching to a monthly sale, we’re calculating a 200% increase, divided over 12 months, which will give us 17%. So, from this content, we’re expecting to have 17% of the sales generated at last year’s total book sale.
To calculate that, first, we’ll pull data from last year’s numbers to see what the annual book sale generated. Then, we’ll track our monthly book sale revenue. If we have 17% of last year’s annual revenue at each monthly sale, we will have generated a total of 204% of last year’s annual book sale income.
We’ll track these numbers throughout the campaign, and evaluate them at the end of the campaign.
Our second goal is to increase yearly program attendance by 50% of last year’s annual book sale. Since we’re switching to a monthly sale, we’re calculating a 150% increase, divided over 12 months, which will give us 12.5%. So, for July’s book sale, we’re expecting to have 12.5% of the attendance from last year’s annual book sale.
To calculate that, first, we’ll pull data from last year’s numbers to see what the attendance was from last year’s annual book sale. Then, we’ll track our monthly book sale attendance. If we have 12.5% of last year’s annual attendance at each monthly sale, we will have generated a 150% increase in our yearly book sale attendance.
We’ll track these numbers throughout the campaign, and evaluate them at the end of the campaign.