What should librarians be doing to manage their brand?

Tag: blogpostwk3

The web offers unique ways for libraries to connect with users and thus manage their image or brand.  As Aaron Tay, Senior Librarian at National University of Singapore points out in his blog Musings about librarianship, scanning Twitter, Facebook, and Google can help you provide even better service to customers.  He notes a number of occasions in which unhappy library patrons took to the interwebs to voice their displeasure.  By scanning for mentions of the library, Tay was able to resolve the situations -- even when the users weren't directing their comments to the library's Twitter page. 

Tay's experience highlights an important point: many negative comments never filter down to an organization itself.  I know that often when I'm angry about poor customer service, I'll grin and bear it as it's occurring and then rant for two weeks to all of my friends about how terrible my experience was.  Twitter and Facebook offer larger platforms for such rants.  If, by scanning, libraries can amend for or workaround people's unpleasant experiences, they can repair damage done.  And if they proactively offer great virtual services that can present an impressive brand.

Another important lesson can be learned from poor brand management.  In 5 Social Media Disasters, Sebastian Barros writes about Honda execs posting positive comments about their own products in an attempt to manipulate public perception or -- even more underhandedly -- a Belkin employee paying people for positive reviews.  The best lesson to be learned here for librarians is that the activities that fall under "management of your brand" should be drawn from the same list as your best service offerings.  Tay's scanning of Twitter leads to what librarians might just think of as follow up.  He notes that patrons haven't received the service they were hoping for and he makes adjustments.  This is already a practice we're taught is necessary for great service.  He's merely taken a best practice and applied it more broadly.

Instead of trying to color public perception through sly manipulation, librarians should be looking for ways to offer the best of their services on the web and to engage patrons in conversation.  By offering the best possible service in all places -- the library or the cyberary -- we send the best possible branding message: our brand is service.