Last weekend, I was looking for something new to do in the area. I grabbed my phone and searched for “events in Lincoln”. The downtown Haymarket website popped up, so did EventBrite, Meetup.com, the local newspaper, and the city of Lincoln website. That made me wonder, how do people find library events? Technology has changed the landscape here.
I’ve also gotten several questions recently about advertising events on the Nebraska Libraries on the Web sites. Often times we only put our events on the library website, or on flyers posted around the library. But that limits the number of people in the community who will consistently see event marketing. Only frequent library-goers will likely know about the event. Our library events have always competed for people’s time and attention. With the ease of finding events online, that competition has increased considerably.
What Can Libraries Do?
Start p
osting your events in multiple locations. Where do you and your staff go to find local events? Ask around to find out which websites people of different age groups are currently using. If attendance is low, it may be time to start advertising like the “competitors”.
Does this Cost Money?
Many of these sites allow local businesses and organizations to post for free. Meetup.com sounds like a dating website, but it is actually a great place to advertise local events, book club meetings, and community gatherings. Meetup.com has a $15 a month fee for organizers so it may not be worth it for a few events. However, if you can share costs between other city organizations, and Meetup.com is already known to be popular in your town, it may be worth the cost sharing!
Google Your City Events
Open the common search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.) and search for events in your city. What did you find? Reach outside the library walls to let your community know what’s up and coming in your library. You can use the same advertising graphics and wording across multiple websites to save time. This can especially come in handy if you go through
Nebraska Libraries on the Web. Check that out if you’re a Nebraska library and want to start a new website or revamp your existing site.
Last weekend, I was looking for something new to do in the area. I grabbed my phone and searched for “events in Lincoln”. The downtown Haymarket website popped up, so did EventBrite, Meetup.com, the local newspaper, and the city of Lincoln website. That made me wonder, how do people find library events? Technology has changed the landscape here.
I’ve also gotten several questions recently about advertising events on the Nebraska Libraries on the Web sites. Often times we only put our events on the library website, or on flyers posted around the library. But that limits the number of people in the community who will consistently see event marketing. Only frequent library-goers will likely know about the event. Our library events have always competed for people’s time and attention. With the ease of finding events online, that competition has increased considerably.
What Can Libraries Do?
Start p
osting your events in multiple locations. Where do you and your staff go to find local events? Ask around to find out which websites people of different age groups are currently using. If attendance is low, it may be time to start advertising like the “competitors”.
Does this Cost Money?
Many of these sites allow local businesses and organizations to post for free. Meetup.com sounds like a dating website, but it is actually a great place to advertise local events, book club meetings, and community gatherings. Meetup.com has a $15 a month fee for organizers so it may not be worth it for a few events. However, if you can share costs between other city organizations, and Meetup.com is already known to be popular in your town, it may be worth the cost sharing!
Google Your City Events
Open the common search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.) and search for events in your city. What did you find? Reach outside the library walls to let your community know what’s up and coming in your library. You can use the same advertising graphics and wording across multiple websites to save time. This can especially come in handy if you go through Nebraska Libraries on the Web. Check that out if you’re a Nebraska library and want to start a new website or revamp your existing site.
