Marketing via social media:a case study

Lili LuoSchool of Library and Information Science, San Jose State University, San Jose,

California, USA, and

Yuan Wang and Lifeng HanUniversity Library, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a study about a successful, award-winning onlinevideo marketing project at an academic library in China, hoping to shed light on how to mosteffectively employ social media in libraries’ marketing campaigns.

Design/methodology/approach – The study examined the different aspects of the library’s onlinevideo marketing project, including project preparation, video production, distribution and promotion,and evaluation of students’ perception of this project via survey questionnaires. Factors thatcontributed to its success were also analyzed.

Findings – Four factors that contributed to the success of the library’s video marketing project wereidentified: base video content on the real campus life, reflecting what students experience in theireveryday activities; convey content in a humorous, light-hearted, and refreshing style; employ socialmedia to share content and engage the target audience; and partner with students.

Practical implications – The paper helps interested librarians develop a more groundedunderstanding of how video sharing sites can be effectively and efficiently used as a marketingplatform and how to successfully create their own video marketing campaigns.

Originality/value – One significant weakness in library marketing literature is the lack of empiricalstudies analyzing the details of creating an online video marketing campaign. This paper helps fill thatvoid, and contributes to the growth of the knowledge about library marketing using innovativetechnologies.

Keywords Online video marketing, Library marketing, Video sharing site, Social media, Marketing,China

Paper type Case study

1. IntroductionLibraries have a well-established tradition of going where users are. Since social mediahas introduced substantial and pervasive changes to communication betweenorganizations, communities, and individuals in recent years, libraries are increasinglyembracing it to strengthen their connections with the user community. Defined as “agroup of internet-based applications that allow the creation and exchange ofuser-generated content” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, p. 61), social media technologiestake on many different forms such as blogs, microblogs, wikis, social networking sites,social bookmarking sites, photo and video sharing sites. According to the Pew Internetand American Life project, in 2011, 65 percent of adult internet users used a socialnetworking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, and 71 percent of onlineAmericans used video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo (Moore, 2011).

Given the popularity of social media, libraries have been actively establishingpresence on its various outlets. A survey conducted by EBSCO among European

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm

Marketing viasocial media

455

Received 18 December 2012Revised 11 February 2013

19 February 2013Accepted 23 March 2013

Library Hi TechVol. 31 No. 3, 2013

pp. 455-466q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0737-8831DOI 10.1108/LHT-12-2012-0141

libraries suggested that primary goals of libraries’ social media involvement aremaximizing library exposure, modernizing the library image and e-reputation, promotespecific content offers, build discussion groups and collaborative work, reach newaudience of potential users and publish library news and press releases (Harnesk andSalmon, 2010). Another survey targeting American Libraries reported similar findings,where more than half of the respondents indicated that their libraries use social mediato promote general library services, market specific adult/youth/children programsand services, provide quick updates and attract new users (Rogers, 2009).

It is clear from both survey studies that marketing is a key function of social media.American Marketing Association defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions,and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings thathave value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (AMA, 2004). In arapidly expanding digital environment, marketing has become increasingly importantin promoting libraries and their services to users (Cole et al., 2010). Fulfilling the role ofthe library requires librarians to learn and apply marketing skills, understand user andstakeholder needs, create awareness, stimulate interest, build loyalty and demonstratevalue; and technologies such as social media can be used to support marketing, toincrease visibility, to raise levels of information literacy and to deliver personalizedservices that anticipate the current and future needs of users (Kenneway, 2007).

In this paper, we present a case study accurately describing the successful use of apopular video sharing site for library marketing. At Tsinghua University Library inChina, we produced a low-cost series of five short and entertaining videos titled “Fallingin Love with the Library” to promote library resources and services and to improvebrand awareness. The videos were posted on Youku (www.youku.com), China’sequivalent of YouTube, and achieved a staggering level of popularity. This online videomarketing project won the 10th IFLA International Marketing Award. The paper seeksto share our successful experience with the world of academic libraries, hoping to shedlight on how to most effectively employ social media in libraries’ marketing campaigns.

2. Literature reviewThe importance of library marketing is well documented in the literature. Cole et al.(2010) pithily summarized that marketing is imperative for libraries to be proactive andto meet users’ needs. As the information environment becomes more competitive andcluttered, marketing can make a difference by helping connect libraries with theirusers. Kenneway (2007, p. 92) observed that marketing is now more of a critical issuefor librarians than it has been in the past because “it is not good enough just to be goodat what you do anymore”, and librarians have to be adept at communicating this andwhat that means for their users.

The advent of social media has offered more opportunities for library marketing.Blakeman and Brown (2010) identified several benefits of using social media formarketing, branding and awareness, such as acquiring new customers, gatheringfeedback from customers or community, raising awareness of community efforts andconnections, building community network, and fund raising.

There are a variety of social media technologies with the potential of being amarketing platform; however, the library literature seems to focus primarily on socialnetworking sites, Facebook in particular. Numerous articles discussed academiclibraries’ presence on Facebook and its value in supporting marketing and outreach.

LHT31,3

456

While it is indisputable that social networking sites like Facebook constitute an effectivemarketing ground, another social media technology, video sharing sites, are also worthpursuing. PC Magazine (2012) defines a video sharing site to be “a website that allowspeople to upload and share their video clips with the public at large or with invitedguests”. A prominent example is YouTube. The business literature is abundant withevidence of successful online video marketing via YouTube and other video sharing sites(Miller, 2009; Jarboe, 2012). However, the use of video production and sharing in libraries’marketing endeavors is not abundantly documented in the library literature. Only a fewrelevant articles have been located in literature searches, most of which were opinionpieces about the promise and potential of library marketing via video sharing sites.

As early as 2007, Webb (2007) discussed the possibilities of using YouTube inacademic libraries. Although he did not specifically use the word “marketing”, it wasapparent that his suggested uses of YouTube served marketing purposes. Forexample, he recommended that libraries film its various services, load them toYouTube, and then make the link available on its website. Another recommendationwas to use it as a method of introducing resources available on campus, such ascreating visual helper for incoming freshmen-orientation sessions.

Little (2011, p. 70) provided a more in-depth analysis of how academic libraries canembrace video sharing sites like YouTube. In addition to supporting video instruction toboth distance and traditional students at their points of need and sharing digital andspecial collections, YouTube was a way to “experiment and to advertise services,resources, locations, which can be especially useful for incoming students or new facultywho can watch such videos weeks before they arrive on campus”. Little presented a fewexamples to illustrate his point – the University of Florida libraries offered a collection ofshort orientation videos on its YouTube Channel; Dartmouth College library produced avideo overview of the library narrated by students, faculty and librarians, whichemphasized the library’s vast collections, librarians’ professional assistance and thelibrary’s role as a space for interaction, intellectual exploration, and socialization; andBrigham Young University’s promotional video titled “Study Like a Scholar, Scholar”went viral and got profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education and some other majornews outlets. Little concluded his piece with a reworked quote from Gil Scott-Heron tohighlight the importance of engaging video sharing in library operation – “therevolution will not be televised, but it will be streamed online” (Little, 2011, p. 72).

To illustrate libraries’ attempts at creating, developing or maintaining arecognizable brand for their user communities, Ivie et al. (2011) compiled amediagraphy of marketing and promotion of library services using social media,including YouTube. A list of library marketing videos as well as their YouTube linkswas provided. Exemplar videos included in the list were: Harper College Library’svideo tour of the library on a book cart with a funny host who pointed out useful placesand items in a college library; New York Public Library’s YouTube broadcast titled“Shout it out for your library”, which was a compilation of celebrities describing whythe library is important; and Pueblo City-County Library’s promotional videopresenting a tour of Teen Central, where young students set up books to fall downdomino-style through the area as the tour progressed.

In an effort to understand the ways that libraries are using YouTube for outreachpurposes, Colburn and Haines (2012) identified and analyzed library promotionalvideos on YouTube, and derived a set of evidence-based best practices for the use of

Marketing viasocial media

457

online video as a promotional tool by libraries. A key finding was that it was importantto frequently and strategically feature online video content in Web sites, local orcampus communication vehicles, and social media environments, in order to increaseviewership by the intended audience.

Only one article resulted from the literature searches was about individual libraries’experience of using video sharing sites for library marketing. Martin (2012) described asuccessful streaming video communication effort developed at the California StateUniversity, Northridge Oviatt Library to reach out to campus faculty. The videos wereaccessible on YouTube and the library’s website, aiming at promoting new andexisting library resources and services. Two library staff members, a librarian and aCinema and Television Arts student joined forces to produce the videos with supportfrom other campus departments. Positive feedback from the campus community wasreceived about the videos.

Indisputably, the literature has well acknowledged the value of video sharing sitesas a marketing platform, and libraries have started employing such sites like YouTubefor marketing. However, one significant weakness in the literature is the lack ofempirical studies documenting the details of creating a video marketing campaign.While viewing the end results, that is, library promotional videos on YouTube, can behelpful for librarians to get a sense of how video marketing works, it would be morebeneficial for them to understand the most important things of the video productionand distribution process. To that end, we conducted a detailed analysis on Tsinghualibrary’s successful online video marketing experience. We hope that the examinationof the award winning project will lead to a more grounded understanding of marketingand promotion of academic libraries via online videos.

3. Falling in love with the library: a case study3.1 Tshinghua University Library – a little backgroundTsinghua University is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China.The University Library serves 16 schools and 56 departments across campus, and theuser community consists of over 39,000 students and 3,000 faculty members. Currently,the library’s print collection contains 4.19 million items, and the electronic collectionincludes 500 databases, 65,000 full text e-journals and 4 million e-books.

The university library system consists of a main library, seven branch libraries andreference rooms in a number of colleges and departments. Plate 1 presents a panoramicview of the main library’s building cluster.

Plate 1.A panoramic view of themain university library

LHT31,3

458

3.2 Social media pervasiveness in China’s college lifeIn China, college students are the core user group of social media. By the end of 2011,the population of social media users reached 244 million, and 67.9 percent of them werebetween the age of 10 and 29. More than half of China’s college students spent anaverage of 3 hours on the internet, and a third of that time was on social media. Themost common activity (49.2 percent) on social media was content sharing, and 50.3percent of the users had shared videos (China Internet Network Information Center,2012). At Tsinghua University, social media such as video sharing sites are widelyused by students. In addition to personal use, video sharing sites are extensively usedfor campus events. Students make and share their own videos for new studentorientations, award presentation ceremonies, student festivals, graduation ceremonies,and events on Student Government Election Day.

3.3 Librarians partnering with students in library marketingThe popularity of video sharing via social media drew the attention of librarians.Impressed by the pervasive use of video sharing sites in students’ campus life, wedecided to create a library marketing campaign to take advantage of it. The idea of anonline video marketing project was hence born. This marketing project aimed atimproving library brand awareness, promoting library resources, facilities andservices, and encouraging the optimal use of the library in a popular and effective way.The project sought to engage online video marketing via social media to achieve thisaim. The outcome of the project was set to be a series of videos (named “Falling in Lovewith the Library”) that would promote the library and evoke a feeling of love for thelibrary via an entertaining and romantic story. The videos would be posted to thepopular video sharing site Youku and promoted in multiple channels.

The project was funded by Tsinghua University’s Students Research Training(SRT) Program. The program offers small grants to academic projects that allowstudents to have practical experience in a professional field. Each project iscredit-based and supervised by faculty members. Students earn credits based on theirperformance on the project.

We recruited four students to participate in the library’s online video marketingproject, and they each specialized in a particular area of video production, such as filmmaking, script writing, camera work, and post-production editing. Of the librarians,three served as faculty supervisors on this project. However, throughout the process ofthis project, librarians and students worked as a team and formed a collaborativerelationship. Librarians were responsible for project planning and management, teammember training, providing sets for filming, and determining the messages the videossought to impart; students took charge of the detailed work of producing the videos.The team worked together on creating the script, auditioning the cast, and distributingand promoting the videos via social media.

3.4 Process of productionAt the beginning of the project, the team compiled an operational plan, outlining theproject schedule and workflow. Team members held regular face-to-face meetingsevery two weeks and occasional meetings whenever necessary to ensure the smoothaccomplishment of every milestone. Table I presents the schedule of the entire project.

Marketing viasocial media

459

An online group was built on Fetion (a popular Chinese instant messaging software)for team members to easily communicate with each other. The most challenging part ofthe process was script writing, which required creativity, open-mindedness, and asense of humor that can be appreciated by today’s youths. The script was afoundational component of this project as it dictated what messages were to beconveyed by the videos, what kind of a story was to carry these messages, and how thestory would be told. The team went through numerous brainstorming sessions tofinalize the script.

The following technologies were used in the video production:. Cameras: Canon EOS 550D, Canon EOS 7D, Canon EOS 5D MarkII.. Editing software: Adobe Premiere CS4, Sony Vegas Pro10.0, Magic Bullet Mojo.

3.5 End product – a five-episode video seriesThe end product of this marketing project was a five-episode video series titled“Falling in Love with the Library”. Each episode was four to five minutes in length.The entire series featured a love story between two college students, and each episodehad a focus that highlighted a particular aspect of using the library. Table II providesthe summary of each episode and the messages conveyed in that episode. Throughoutthe video series, the romantic love story unfolds in a light-hearted and humorous way.Many details of the story were based on real college life so that students could resonatewith it and therefore feel a connection with the library.

3.6 PromotionThe video series[1] was posted to Youku, a popular video sharing site in China. It wasthen announced and promoted in multiple channels, including the library website,poster displays, post cards and book marks, word-of-mouth advertisement, RenRen(www.renren.com, the equivalent of Facebook in China), and the library’s Weibo page(www.weibo.com, Weibo is China’s equivalent of Twitter). Colburn and Haines (2012)found that the key to viewership increase is to promote the videos via as many venuesas possible, including web sites, local or campus communication vehicles, and othersocial media platforms, and our strategic and frequent promotional efforts echoed thisfinding (see Figure 1).

Since the release of the video series on October 24, 2011, it received about 160,000visits within 20 days, averaging 8,000 visits per day. It even triggered the creativityamong the audience and one of them produced a series of video commentaries toexpress his feelings about “Falling in Love with the Library”. Meanwhile, the library’s

Project schedule Milestone

January, 2011 Project funded by SRTMarch, 2011 Team recruitmentApril, 2011 Information literacy training for team members and project planningMay, 2011 ScriptwritingJune, 2011 Video shootingJuly to September, 2011 Video editing and programmingOctober, 2011 Product releaseNovember, 2011 Promotion and evaluation

Table I.Project schedule

LHT31,3

460

Weibo page received over 1,000 comments (mostly enthusiastic) about the video seriesand witnessed a substantial increase in the number of followers – within 20 days of thevideo release, the library’s Weibo account had over 1,200 new followers.

Because of the project’s success on social media, a number of news media tooknotice of it. In addition to the wide coverage on campus TV and newspapers, theproject drew attention from one of the nation’s major news portals, Phoenix New

Episode synopsis Library highlight

Episode 1. A college girl Yifu needs a librarybook, but it has been checked out by a boynamed Kaifeng. Yifu accidentally runs intoKaifeng in the library and waits patiently forKaifeng to return the book by the due date. ButKaifeng still has not returned it two weeks pastthe due date. So Yifu walks up to him, points outthe book is long overdue, grabs it from him, andreturns it

The library provides email or SMS alerts aboutcirculation services. Students can set it up easilyto receive notifications about approaching duedates, available holds or other circulation-relatedinformation

Episode 2. Although Yifu rather forcefullyreturns Kaifeng’s book, Kaifeng is drawn to thisbeautiful girl. He has been saving the seat next tohim for Yifu since they met, hoping she would sitby him and study together with him

Seat-saving is a common phenomenon atTsinghua University Library, as well as otheruniversity libraries in China. Because the librarystudy space is limited, students tend to “save”seats for their friends by putting books on thedesk to indicate the seat has been claimed. Thisseat-saving behavior is discouraged as itprohibits the most efficient use of library space

Episode 3. Yifu and Kaifeng meet again inlibrary study cubicles. They get to know eachother better and finally fall in love with eachother. One day Yifu notices that Kaifeng alwayshides a library book for his personal use; so shetakes the initiative again to put it back on theshelf. She sends a humorous SMS to Kaifeng,telling him not to “hijack” a library bookanymore

Students hiding library books for their personaluse is a common problem at the library. Itinterferes with the proper shelving andcirculation of library collections. Therefore,book-hiding is discouraged in order for studentsto effectively and efficiently use libraryresourcesEach library study cubicle has a “graffiti wall”where students can release their creativity anddistress a little

Episode 4. One day Yifu asks Kaifeng on a datein one of the library buildings, but Kaifengmisunderstands the building name and goes to adifferent building by mistake. Because of thismistake, Kaifeng is 20 minutes late for their date,and Yifu is upset. Kaifeng then tries to apologizeby texting her book titles from the IntegratedLibrary System (ILS) that indicate “I’m sorry” or“I love you”

The ILS of the library allows users to text abibliographic record to their mobile phones,which makes it convenient for them to locate thebooks they are looking forThere is a new library building on campus,which is often confused with one of the oldbuildings because they have similar nicknames.It is important to clarify students’ confusionabout these two buildings

Episode 5. Yifu and Kaifeng are graduating soon.The romantic moments they have shared in thelibrary are flashing by. Kaifeng leaves a messagein a book in the library reference room, tellingYifu that she’s the love of his life

Library is a place where romantic stories happenand beautiful memories are made Table II.

A break-down of theepisodes of “Falling in

Love with the Library”

Marketing viasocial media

461

Media. It published a feature story about the project, which was then cited bynumerous other websites and portals. China Library Weekly, a key professionalpublication (China’s equivalent of Library Journal) in the library community, alsopublished a two-page report detailing the process and outcome of this project.

3.7 EvaluationTo more formally measure this project’s impact, we conducted a survey study amongTsinghua University students one month after the video release. The onlinequestionnaire was linked from the library website, and the print copies weredistributed to high-traffic study areas across campus. A total of 212 valid responseswere collected.

The survey focused on examining students’ awareness and perception of “Falling inLove with the Library”. More than 50 percent of the respondents had seen at least oneepisode of the series, and close to 28 percent had heard of it. Regarding the helpfulnessof the series, 42.7 percent agreed that they had learned more about library services andpolicies, and 72.6 percent felt that they had connected with the library at an emotionallevel and truly fell in love with the library.

Respondents were also asked about their perception of the different aspects of thevideo series, and Table III presents a detailed view of their feedback, which waspositive overall as the average rating for each item was higher than 4 on a five pointLikert scale (5 being excellent and 1 being poor).

About 97 percent of the respondents agreed that the video format of this marketingeffort was a good idea to engage library users. They particularly appreciated twothings about the videos: the story was heartening as they had similar experiences in

Figure 1.Posters of “Falling in Lovewith the Library”

LHT31,3

462

the library, yet in the meantime they discovered new things about the library; and thestyle of the videos was humorous and refreshing, which changed the serious, rigid andold-fashioned image of the library in their minds. Some respondents even proposedideas for Season 2 of “Falling in Love with the Library”.

Regarding the venue where respondents learned about the video series, social media,poster displays and word-of-mouth advertisement were the top three. However, amongthose who learned about it through social media, 90 percent had watched the series,while only 53 percent of those who learned about it through poster displays had. Onepossible explanation is that it was more convenient for social media users to follow thelink to view the video online than it was for those who learned about it via other physicalvenues. This evidence shows that for an online video marketing effort to take effect, the“online” element should be emphasized in the distribution and promotion of the videos.

Both the statistics and survey results suggest that the video marketing projectaccomplished its objectives and could be considered successful. The title and slogan ofthe project, “Falling in Love with the Library” has been widely accepted as the brandidentity of the library and hence used in library workshops and brochures forfreshmen. Even the University’s Admission Office posted the video series on theirWebpage to showcase the library and attract prospective students. The project teamwas also invited to present at professional conferences to share the successfulexperience. Lessons learned from the project are discussed in the next section, and wehope that interested libraries will find it beneficial in their own marketing practice.

4. ConclusionsDigital technology such as social media offers great opportunities for librarymarketing. Kenneway (2007) opined that digital as a medium for marketing is likely todominate over the course of the next decade because of two reasons: digital isbecoming the predominant channel for accessing content; and the digital environmentsupports highly targeted and measurable campaigns (Kenneway, 2007). Thus, it isimportant for libraries to recognize the potential of digital technology in marketing andunderstand how to use it to achieve marketing goals. Libraries’ understanding oftechnology has two layers of meaning: first, understanding the technicality of atechnology, such as its functions, features and characteristics; secondly, understandinghow people use it for communication and social purposes. For example, whenexploring the video sharing site YouTube as a marketing platform, libraries need tonot only figure out how to create an account, upload and share a video, but also becomefamiliar with the behavior, culture and etiquette of the user community. In other words,it is not sufficient to just “go where users are” – we need to make our presence relevantand useful.

5 Excellent 4 3 2 1 Poor

Overall quality 57.3 34.7 7.2 0.8 0Story 56.4 23.4 12.9 5.7 1.6Acting 51.6 33.1 11.3 3.2 0.8Background music 62.9 28.2 5.6 3.2 0Messages conveyed 66.1 21.8 10.5 0.8 0.8Length 64.5 25.8 8.1 0 1.6

Table III.Respondents’ feedback

about different aspects ofthe videos series (%)

Marketing viasocial media

463

We have identified four factors that contributed to the success of Tsinghua UniversityLibrary’s video marketing project “Falling in Love with the Library”.

(1) Content. The story featured in the video series is based on the real campus life,reflecting what students experience in their everyday activities. There are manyyoung couples at Tsinghua University, and they often come to the library tostudy together. The acts and dialogues in the videos have deep roots in thecampus romantic culture. For example, in the second episode of the series,Kaifeng tries to win the heart of Yifu by saving a seat for her in the librarystudy space, and couples saving seats for each other is quite commonplace inreality. When students see things they can resonate with, they are more prone tofeel a sense of connection and the messages conveyed by the videos are morelikely to make an impression. Creating the content is a critical step in amarketing campaign – choosing what story to tell and what messages todeliver hinges upon a solid understanding of how to reach to the targetaudience.

(2) Style. The style of the videos is humorous, light-hearted, and refreshing, whichis the exact opposite of the serious and rigid stereotype of library image. Theyoung generation tends to associate libraries with authority and formalness andthey are willing to use the library only for “imposed” information needs such asschool- and library-related questions (Harrington, 1985; Farmer, 1997; Pattee,2008). At Tsinghua University Library, we try to position ourselves as a placewhere students can not only effectively and efficiently access a wealth ofinformation resources and services for their intellectual development, but alsocomfortably immerse themselves in the sea of knowledge so they can grow as aperson. It is therefore necessary for students to view library as a friendly andcomfortable place that supports their academic pursuit as well as personalgrowth. Meanwhile, some of the highlights in the video series were about usingthe library optimally by avoiding certain behavior (e.g. hiding library books),and the humorous and light-hearted style is helpful to deliver the messages inan easy and even hilarious way, instead of sounding like preaching.

(3) Venue. The staggering popularity of social media among college studentsmakes it an ideal venue to release and distribute the video series. The popularvideo sharing site Youku is frequented by students for various kinds of videocontent and is thus chosen to host “Falling in Love with the Library”. Links tothe videos on Youku can then be promoted through multiple channels,including other social media platforms like the social networking site RenRenand the microblogging tool Weibo. Both RenRen and Weibo have proved to beeffective venues to share content and engage the target audience.

(4) Partnership with students. Most important of all, the project thrives on aninnovative partnership between librarians and students. One of the roadblocksfor libraries to engage in video marketing is the lack of video productionexpertise. Little suggested that academic libraries first find out if theirinstitution partners with any video sharing site because participating in aninstitutional video initiative usually means that librarians can rely on technicaland production support from campus media/information technology or publicaffairs departments in planning, producing and promoting videos (Little, 2011).

LHT31,3

464

However, not all libraries have such support at the institutional level. AtTsinghua University Library, our alternative is to partner with students whoare passionate and knowledgeable about video making. Such a partnership isbeneficial in three ways: students contribute great ideas to the content of thevideos because they are familiar with campus life and they understand how toconnect with other college students; students bring technical expertise to theproject and they handle the production details, and it is not necessary forlibrarians to go through the steep learning curve of video making; and thepartnership also constitutes an opportunity for students’ self-growth, helpingthem improve their knowledge about the library and about video production,and enhance their teamwork capability. Overall, this is a win-win situation forboth the students and the library, and in Martin’s (2012) article, she alsodiscussed the importance of partnering with students and collaborating withother campus departments in video production. Therefore, we think it is asustainable model that can be replicated at other academic libraries.

In conclusion, Tsinghua University Library’s video series “Falling in Love with theLibrary” has proved to be a successful case of library marketing via social media. It is aclear manifestation of going where users are and making the library’s presencerelevant and meaningful there. We hope this detailed analysis of the case can helpinterested academic librarians develop a more grounded understanding of how videosharing sites can be effectively and efficiently used as a marketing platform andsuccessfully create their own video marketing campaigns.

Note

1. Video series available at: www.youku.com/playlist_show/id_16568360.html; Series withEnglish subtitles available at: www.youku.com/playlist_show/id_16919888.html

References

American Marketing Association (AMA) (2004), Definition of Marketing, available at: www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/DefinitionofMarketing.aspx (accessed 5 October2012).

Blakeman, K. and Brown, S. (2010), “Social media: essential for research, marketing andbranding”, Bulletin of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, Vol. 37No. 1, pp. 47-50.

China Internet Network Information Center (2012), The 2011 Report of Social Media Use inChina, available at: www.cnnic.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/sqbg/201209/P020120903424883977032.pdf (accessed 5 November 2012).

Colburn, S. and Haines, L. (2012), “Measuring libraries’ use of youtube as a promotional tool:an exploratory study and proposed best practices”, Journal of Web Librarianship, Vol. 6No. 1, pp. 5-31.

Cole, K., Graves, T. and Cipkowski, P. (2010), “Marketing the library in a digital world”,The Serials Librarian, Vol. 58, pp. 182-187.

Farmer, L. (1997), “Providing reference services for young adults: school and public librarianpartnerships”, The Reference Librarian, Vol. 28 No. 59, pp. 153-162.

Marketing viasocial media

465

Harnesk, J. and Salmon, M. (2010), Social Media in Libraries, available at: www.slideshare.net/jhoussiere/social-media-usage-in-libraries-in-europe-survey-teaser (accessed 21 September2012).

Harrington, J. (1985), “Reference service in the children’s department: a case study”, PublicLibrary Quarterly, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 65-75.

Ivie, T., McKay, B., May, F., Mitchell, J., Mortimer, H. and Walker, L. (2011), “Marketing andpromotion of library services using Web2.0: an annotated mediagraphy”, The IdahoLibrarian, Vol. 61 No. 1, pp. 1-4.

Jarboe, G. (2012), YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day, John Wiley & Sons,Indianapolis, IN.

Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M. (2010), “Users of the world, unite! The challenges andopportunities of social media”, Business Horizons, Vol. 53 No. 1, pp. 59-68.

Kenneway, M. (2007), “Marketing the library: using technology to increase visibility”, Impact andReader Engagement, Serials, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 92-97.

Little, G. (2011), “The revolution will be streamed online: academic libraries and video”,The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 70-72.

Martin, C.M. (2012), “One-minute video: marketing your library to faculty”, Reference ServicesReview, Vol. 40 No. 4.

Miller, M. (2009), YouTube for Business: Online Video Marketing for Any Business, PearsonEducation, Oxford.

Moore, K. (2011), 71% of Online Adults Now Use Video-sharing Sites, available at: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Video-sharing-sites.aspx (accessed 11 April 2012).

Pattee, A. (2008), “What do you know?”, Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association forLibrary Service to Children, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 30-39.

PC Magazine (2012), “Definition of video sharing site”, available at: www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,1237,t¼videoþsharingþsite&i¼57378,00.asp (accessed 9 October2012).

Rogers, C.R. (2009), “Social media, libraries, and Web 2.0: how American libraries are using newtools for public relations and to attract new users”, available at: www.slideshare.net/crr29061/social-media-libraries-and-web-20-how-american-libraries-are-using-new-tools-for-public-relations-and-to-attract-new-users-second-survey-november-2009 (accessed5 October 2012).

Webb, P.L. (2007), “YouTube and libraries: it could be a beautiful relationship”, College& Research Libraries News, Vol. 68 No. 6, pp. 354-355.

About the authorsLili Luo is an Assistant Professor at the School of Library and Information Science, San JoseState University, San Jose, California. Lili Luo is the corresponding author and can be contactedat: lili.luo@sjsu.edu

Yuan Wan is Deputy Director of the Reference Department at Tsinghua University Library,Beijing, China.

Lifeng Han is Deputy Director of the Reference Department at Tsinghua University Library,Beijing, China.

LHT31,3

466

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.comOr visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints