Slam the Boards! A Model for Marketing Through Action

May 21, 20132 p.m. (ET)

Presenter: Bill Pardue

UPCOMING RUSA PRESIDENT’S PROGRAM!!Save the date for RUSA’s President’s Program in Chicago

Title: The Myth and the Reality of the Evolving Patron: The RUSA President’s ProgramWhen: 4-5:30p.m. on Saturday, June 29, 2013Where: Chicago IL, ALA Annual ConferenceDescription: Lee Rainie, co-author of the new book “Networked: The New Social Operating System”, will share the latest data about how Americans are interacting with information technology and electronic books.

On Sunday, June 30, from 10:30-11:30a.m., join Rainie and library leaders Emily Ford, DavidLankes and Marie Radford to discuss how the Pew study data will influence your

library’s future. Join the conversation surrounding this topic on Twitter by using the hashtag #rusapres13.

Slam the Boards! A Model for Marketing Through Action

Bill PardueArlington Heights Memorial Library

bpardue@ahml.info / @billahmlsponsored by

RSS/MARS Virtual Reference Services Committee

Tweeting?

• #slamtheboards• #ala2013

What is “Slam The Boards?”

• Librarians engaging in social Q&A• Grass-roots participation• No “central figure”• No stats (maybe…someday)• Get beyond the library!• Promote libraries• Share with colleagues

What’s the point?

• User venues:– Yahoo Answers– Cha Cha– Facebook Questions– Twitter– WikiAnswers– Etc., etc., etc….– Serious competitors to the

reference desk!

What are they asking?

Meanwhile, back at the library…

(Chirping)

Traditional Reference Stats are Declining…

http://ahml.info/renovation

New Roles are Emerging

• Makerspaces• Meeting places• Tech training: classes/appointments

But people still have questions:

• “37% of Americans ages 16 and older would ‘very likely’ use an ‘ask a librarian’ type of service, and another 36% say they would be ‘somewhat likely’ to do so. (Library Services in the Digital Age, Pew Internet and American Life Center)

• “The death of ready reference has been exaggerated.” (Marie Radford & Lynne Connaway, Seeking Synchronicity: Revelations and Recommendations for Virtual Reference, OCLC Research)

• Users aren’t aware we do reference!

How do we respond?

• Hope it goes away?• Argue about it? (With

whom?)• Presume that we’re just

not part of it?

• Actively engage!• Get proactive!

Share with your peers

• http://answerboards.wetpaint.com• Facebook: “Slam the Boards”• Twitter: #slamtheboards hashtag

Bad reasons not to do it…

• We’re all too busy! • They’re not our

patrons! • Almost no one sees it!

Make “Slamming” local

• Hyper-local sites• Newspaper comment threads• Patch.com• Monitor twitter• Google alert for local Y!A

questions

Rapid Response to Current Events

Slamming’s not always virtual

• Local meetings: Chamber, rotary, committees, etc.• Chime in—offer assistance!• Be “on” even when you’re out of the building--a “Library

Ambassador.”

• Out of the box: Library Dude! http://bit.ly/qwssAZ

Slamming isn’t always answers

• “Chiming in,” asking questions of your community (esp. in FB or Twitter)

• Offering assistance• Promoting: Making the library known• Helping the user get value from our skills, any

way we can!

Attitude Change

• Don’t wait for questions to come to us.

• Don’t assume that users know what we do.

• Cast the net wide, take a proactive approach

• Trumpet what we do and who we are.

• We might even need to “butt in” a bit (carefully!).

So, you wanna slam?

• You’ll all get an email reminder! (Slam spam?)• Look over some social Q&A sites– Yahoo Answers: the big favorite– Quora: More highly curated.– WikiAnswers: Harder to attribute, answers modified– AnswerBag: I’ve played a little…similar to Y!A.– ChaCha: SMS, you get paid (can it promote us?)– Learn how to navigate, post answers, the culture, etc.

How will you find questions?• Recommended questions (Yahoo)• Browse through categories• Saved searches/RSS for selected terms

(“articles,” “books,” etc.). • Google alerts for search terms• Be patient… “real” questions are out there!

Answering

• Well-considered/sourced.• Relate to library service, if you can.• Geolocate the asker? Promote their library!• ID as a library advocate. (signature file, etc.)• Respect the site.

Points, etc.

• Best answers are nice.• Don’t get hung up on it!• Feel free to vote for your

yourself!

Making a connection

• Asker can rate and respond

• Other readers cangive thumbs up/down

Does slamming market libraries?

• Maaaayyyyybeeee…..• Raises awareness one-to-one.• Can direct specific users to library

resources.• Leaves a findable artifact in well-

indexed location.• Publicize it as a way to show

community engagement/outreach!

Testimonial• As a virtual library service we needed to show our physical customers and also

those who never thought libraries could offer them anything that we [library staff] are experts at information provision. We also needed to highlight the brand “library” in all the media digital customers are using--and a large part of this is social media. You can never assume your customers will find you – you must find them, wherever they are and prove that libraries should be seen as the place to provide them with well-resourced answers. –Joanne Johns, Enquire UK

LIS Education

• Loriene Roy, “Engaging LIS Students in Reference Work Through Online Answer Boards,” The Reference Librarian 51 (2) (April-June 2010): 97-107.

• Also Univ. of Maryland, Univ. of Washington

LIS Education (cont’d)

Your next steps

• Slam on June 10!• ALA Session on June 29, 2:30-3:30 p.m.

(Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Clark 22A-C)http://ala13.ala.org/node/10999

• Share with the group:– Successes– Frustrations– Insights/concerns

Questions?

• I’m always happy to talk, promote, etc.• bpardue@ahml.info• @billahml