”It’s all about keeping up”- a study about marketing of public libraries through social media

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine how public libraries use socialmedia for marketing purposes, and what librarians think about this. My focus of this thesislies on what librarians think about marketing of libraries through social media and if theythink that marketing through social media can create a better relationship between the libraryand its users. The questions I wanted to answer were:‐ Libraries using social media, for what purpose do they use them? ‐ Do the libraries choose to use social media to market their organization? Why? ‐ What attitudes exist among librarians about marketing through social media?The theoretical framework for this thesis is Evert Gummessons model off Relationshipmarketing and the process of Internet marketing, which both are based on relationalperspective. The methodology used for this study was structured interviews. Four interviewswere conducted with five librarians that have partial responsibility of their respective librariessocial media.The result of this study shows that all libraries use social media, but to varying degrees. Theyalso use them for different purposes. The librarians choose to market through social mediabecause it is a way to reach more people and the only way for users to influence the content.The study shows that librarians generally have positive attitudes towards marketing throughsocial media. Negative attitudes are experienced in the beginning of working with socialmedia when the staff is not sure how the tools work. Librarians believe that social media cancreate good relations with its library users.Program: Bibliotekari