The Facebook account that I chose to do my second social media evaluation project on is the New York Public Library’s Mulberry Street Library, which is located at 10 Jersey St, New York, NY 10012.
https://www.facebook.com/MulberryStreetNYPL
This Facebook page has been around since March 15th, 2010 and seems to have a good community following. Let us start off first on the positives of this page. They are frequently posting every other day. One of the pieces of information that they are posting are upcoming events going on at their library. For example, this past Saturday, November 4th, 2023, they posted about some events going on for children to take part in, where they listed the events with the day and times included, they specified what age group the program is dedicated to that day, and an adorable child friendly design representing the events happening that day. Another positive in regards to their posts is that they seem to be socially aware and try to stay up to date in what is going on in the world. Some examples of them posting about their recent and upcoming bookclubs. This past Saturday, November 4th, 2023, they had a book club for a book called Nightwood by Djuna Barnes’ that discusses LGBT+ literature that is a historical piece. Another positive for this page is how they include all their information regarding their library on their intro page. They have the address, the phone number for the library, their website to links to the library’s page, and their hours on what days and times they are open at.
It seems like a fairly good Facebook page for this library, but there most certainly can be some improvements for this page to get more popular and get more of a following for people to come and see the library. Although 1.1k followers is a good amount of followers to have, the fact that their account has been around for 13 years, I feel that they could improve on making their account more popular so they can receive more of a following. Firstly, they do a good job at showing their events that are going on at the library, but I think if they included more of incentives to bring people into their events to stand out more than other libraries, I think that would be a great place to start. If they included maybe snacks or food to bring people to the book clubs, that could be a good idea. Another thing is that I noticed that they do not receive any likes or comments on their posts, sometimes it is very limited interactions like only 1 like on a post. What I think they can do to attract more of a following is that they can do several things. One thing is that they can do videos showing more of the library and new additions they have in the library. They only post pictures but they never seem to change it up. So it would be interesting to show more of the library. Another thing they can do is show archival pictures. The location of the library is crucial because it is seemed to be known for taking the place of a chocolate factory in the Cast Iron District in the SoHo neighborhood a part of Manhattan, but that part of the intro got cut off. Maybe it will be a good idea to limit the intro or maybe make a separate post about the chocolate factory history. SoHo is a very popular neighborhood in Manhattan and they can use that history to their advantage. Speaking of location, another thing that they can use to their advantage, they can do collaborations. Since SoHo is a very popular neighborhood in Manhattan, there are plenty of libraries, book stores, and other types of stores in the area surrounding them. They can do collaborations on other social media accounts whether it is with another library or even a book store, but they can even collaborate with stores or food places to make events. I think that would definitely attract people to their library more. Another thing they can do is maybe do polls to see what else the customers would want to see or maybe allowing customers contribute more to picking out books for the clubs or what their children’s programs can improve on.
If I ran this account, I would make a few changes. I would increase the postings to at least once a day instead of every other day to show a profiling for the librarians that work there, a day in a life in Manhattan and what it is like working and/or living in Manhattan, and to show more of the library, more stock coming in for new books, and historical and archival footage or photos to post on the Facebook account. Another thing that I need would be a good idea is try to get popular and independent authors to have book signings and discussions about their books, whether older books or newer books, and do a Facebook live event, save it, and post it on the Facebook wall. Finally, another thing I would try to do is collaborate with popular public libraries in Manhattan or other boroughs on events, such as a banned book event for example, and post about it on the Facebook wall. I think these changes, as well as the programs and events they already do, would be a great way have them to have more of a following on their Facebook page.
