Bloomsburg Public Library Internship Week 7

Week seven of my internship at the Bloomsburg Public Library in the Marketing department was actually quite exciting because it was the week that Raise The Region took place. While I had heard of it during my first week at the library, I didn't actually what it even was until two weeks ago.

Raise The Region is a 30-hour online fundraising event done once a year. This year it started on March 11th at 6:00:00 PM and ended on March 12th at 11:59:59 PM. This annual event is organized by the First Community Foundation Partnership with the Blaise Alexander Family Dealerships as the main sponsor. It's not just a donation drive, it's a competition. Nonprofits across the region are trying to raise as much money as possible and there are leaderboards dividing them into categories like large, medium, and small organizations. The top three in each category by the end won extra money from Blaise Alexander Family Dealership. Additionally, organizations had the opportunity to win prizes awarded based on random things like who got the largest donation within specific time frames or even completely random drawings. There are even a few incentives for donators, like the "Minute Matches" which is when donations of $50 or more are matched but only if they were made within three specific sixty second windows or until allocated matching funds ran out.

For an event like this, promotion is incredibly important for getting donations. First, we decorated our organization page on the website. You could win a prize for best webpage and while I thought ours was really good (I had nothing to do with it), we didn't win that one. As far as actual promotion goes, the first thing I had to do was create a 8x11 version with ALL the stats on the website banners. This was incredibly hard and frustrating as it felt impossible to make a visually pleasing graphic that featured so many words and logos. This took forever and I barely got it done in time to print out and put in a canvas before the event started. Ultimately, I ended up with a very simple design where after putting each statistic into three different categories, I used three small pictures relevant to those categories and then put white strips next to them with the actual statistic information. This really made me appreciate marketing teams and graphic designers who can make things with lots of information still be visually appealing. Then, I helped with coming up with captions for four different posts; one went out right away to tell people the event started and then the other three were scheduled to tell people about the minute matches an hour before they happened.

We must've done a good job of marketing this fundraiser because we passed our initial goal of $15,000 before the event was even over so we changed it to $18,000 for the remainder of the time. We ended up getting $17,140 for the library which was just short of the new goal but exciting none the less. Unfortunately, we didn't win any of the random prized and placed 7th on the medium organization leaderboard. 

Later that week, my focus shifted from fundraising to engagement. I was asked to research memes and social media strategies that other libraries were using to connect with their audiences so we could get some ideas to beef up engagement on our own posts. This was probably one of the most fun assignments I've had so far because I am chronically online so I really understood the assignment. I compiled all my ideas in a Google Doc for my supervisor and the library director, including both ideas and links to examples. I organized ideas into three categories to make the doc less overwhelming; still images, games for engagement farming, and video content. 

For still images, I started by directing them to resources like KnowYourMeme to track popular memes and ImgFlip to find blank templates of popular memes that they could add their own text too. I suggested using those and then also suggested posting screencaps of relatable library text-based content like tweets and Tumblr posts since those are easy to share and tend to perform well as well as screencaps of scenes that mention/take place in a library in popular media (shows that have such scenes include BTVS and Arthur). On one of the library instagram accounts, I saw a photo of a librarian sitting at a reception desk with a sign that said something like "Please Don't Talk To Me About Heated Rivalry, I Will Go On For Hours Instead of Working" so I thought we could make posts like that with our library staffs favorite books. 

Beyond regular images, I suggested engagement bait games like "Would You Rather?" and "This or That?" which could be tailored to book genres or fictional settings. nother idea was aesthetic-based content, like “Which section of the library matches your vibe?” I have noticed these kind of posts get a lot of attention and engagement, and I think it's because they invite people to see themselves in the content and share their results.

For video content, I looked into trends on TikTok and Instagram Reels, including using popular sounds or creating short skits involving different sections of the library. One idea I liked was the “___ and their ✨problems✨” format, where each section of the library could be humorously personified like I have seen vet and doggy daycares do with their animals. 

Overall, this week showed me how much strategy goes into both fundraising and audience engagement. On one hand, I saw the structured, high-energy environment of a major donation event. On the other, I explored the creative, fast-moving world of social media trends. Both are ultimately about the same thing: connecting with people and keeping them invested.