I was impressed with the wealth of ideas on the main Little Free Libary site itself (and I notice they’ve totally revamped it on the day I had my grand opening), but have been even more impressed with some of the ideas and posts on the LFL Stewards’ Group on Facebook.

Fortunately I’m in a relatively well-walked neighborhood in a crowded suburb just north of downtown Los Angeles, but I’ve already noticed a small handful of people looking for advice on how to help increase traffic to their libraries. Towards that end, I’ll describe below some things that have already been working for me.

Nextdoor.com

Nextdoor.com is a social media network site for neighborhoods and the people within them – like a mini Facebook for your neighbors. Leading up to, during, and after our grand opening, it was probably the number one driver of traffic for our library in the first two weeks.

Grand Opening

We had what seems to have been the de rigueur grand opening which has helped us out a lot. During the event I met more neighbors in one afternoon than I’ve met in almost five years of living in the neighborhood. It certainly helped to use Nextdoor as mentioned above, but we also had a “soft opening” for the week and a half prior to the grand opening and placed a flier with details about the grand opening on the side.

Taking the time to explain the concept to neighbors in more depth has helped to increase the flow of books through the library since the opening.

Don’t do just one grand opening. It might be worthwhile to do an annual (or even quarterly) open house to invite the neighbors over for cookies and lemonade.

Social Media

As a volunteer, I had the opportunity to build and run social media for the Johns Hopkins University for their first five years in the space, so I’ve had lots of experience both working and consulting in the area. I also have some reasonable web development background, so the first thing I did was to build a website for the library which I’ve tacked onto a subdomain of my own personal site. [http://lfl8424.boffosocko.com]

Then I built up the typical social media presence including: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, and Instagram. I did this so that regardless of what type of platform patrons prefer to use, there will be something for everyone (despite the fact that it might have the effect of spreading out the user base.) I’ll be the first to admit that maintaining a website and 5 or more social media platforms is a LOT! So to help mitigate the workload, I’ve used some back-end “tricks” and mechanics on my website so that it acts as the primary hub for all of them. This way, I can post photos, updates, status updates, or other content directly to the blog and it automatically syndicates the content to all of my social media platforms automatically.

This automatic syndication is just the tip of the iceberg though. Since I’ve seen social media sites come and go (they shut down or get bought out frequently), usually with little or no notice, I know the importance of owning all of my own data. The other half of this is attempting to own all the comments, likes, and other interactions that go along with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other posts. So I’ve also got an infrastructure such that any comments or likes on my syndicated cross-posts to social media get “sucked” back into the library’s main site in the comments section on the associated post. This gives me the benefit of the network effect of the social media platforms without some of the negatives, and also makes the blog for the library look much more “lived in” and used.

I am still working out one or two kinks in the system and streamlining the workflow, but I’m nearly done. I am also spending a bit of time trying to optimize the system and its set up time and minimize the cost, so that others can take advantage of what is all open source software. If others are interested in what I’ve done and doing something similar, I’m happy to help. I am also spending a bit of time trying to optimize the system and its set up time and minimize the cost, so that others can take advantage of what is all open source software.

Local media coverage

Almost every community has their own media coverage whether it’s a major newspaper, a community newspaper, smaller papers distributed at grocery stores (a Penny Saver Press perhaps), or even community blogs or web outlets similar to Patch.com.

Local Libraries

Be sure your local library and librarians know you’re in the neighborhood. They can provide a valuable word of mouth service as well as potentially a source of books (libraries often have donated books or extras that they can’t use or shelve.) It’s likely that they also have a newsletter or bulletin board in which you might place notices. Does the library have a Twitter account or Facebook page? Maybe they’d consider tweeting or retweeting your content. (Nice neighbors do the same in return for them too.)

Neighborhood Associations, Community Groups, Bulletin Boards

Be sure to look around your neighborhood and local community for other ideas. Churches, grocery stores, coffee shops, and other local merchants often have bulletin boards or host notices for nearby events and functions. Have you stopped by the nearby elementary, middle, and high schools to let the administrators know – they may have ideas to help you reach younger readers. Do you have a local neighborhood association (with a website) that can give you newsletter or notice space? Are there any local community organizations with social media presences – retweeting content for each other can be mutually beneficial.

Bookplates and Bookmarks

It’s a longer term idea, particularly as books get passed around within your community, but putting book plates into your books with a name, physical address, and web address can help to be a reminder and garner new visitors. Similarly bookmarks with a nice picture and information about your library can be helpful.

If anyone else has useful promotional ideas to help other libraries get off the ground and increase their patronage, please feel free to share them in the comments below.