Communication Cabinet Minutes - October 01, 2020

• Pallas has started using space on giant plexiglass to post ads on the sides.  

• Marcie has been working on graphic communication and various social media for virtual programming and library signage since they’ve reopened. 

• Tim has been working on updated curbside hours. Updating our google listings FAQ. 

• Anthony said that this month we will have the annual United Way employee campaign, working with Kim and the Leadership Team on the goal for the year. We’re working with Communication plan. Marketing will have a new Manager, and Security will have a new manager.  

• Megan attended the Staff Association meeting last Thursday and she discussed the Comm. Cabinet. There’s a scavenger hunt happening with a $20 gift card prize. 

• Larry said OU wants to establish something between us and their library school. Something to help them design their curriculum, it’s a recent development. He wants to continute to foster communication every way that he can. 

• Kim emailed to say she’s working on a Communication Plan for SIT & STAY. Sent info about new Experience PASS with OKCMOA. Sent information about United Way. Not a communication plan, expect something more later. Will share Brand Guide as well. 

• Victoria is working on Best Practices for using other organizational logos in MAC material. Working with new Manager about that. The new person will be part of our communications cabinet as well. 

• Paula is working on a communications/marketing plan for a class, so she’s incorporating our health literacy programs into it. We finished an ODL grant, but got additional volunteer input to continue Silver Sneakers/SAIL for adults. Our biggest push in the Community Libraries right now is a Movie Binge Bag promo with movies and popcorn and candy. People are loving it already! 

• Kellie has been working on communication in Social Media Strategy. Preparing documents with Content Marketing plan.  

Marcie is the notetaker for this meeting, Megan is the reviewer. 

Follow up from Previous Topics: 

• Cabinet Goal: Finding Communication Best Practices and corresponding training. We can talk about how to work towards that goal and how to move forward. 

• Communication Plan: Kim is working on it and will hopefully be sharing that soon. 

• Internal Communications Audit: 

  • The largest area of responses from staff meeting. Internet posting was the primary way of information being shared, then in-person/virtual meetings, and then email. In person was our most preferred medium for getting information across, so there’s a lot of room for improvement.  

  • Goal for all types was overwhelmingly “Awareness”. How can we get additional feedback from staff? 

  • How we described ideal communication is not how we’re communicating. We’re not following the way that communication is most effective. It doesn’t take into account of what’s happening outside of this group. We have an understanding how we’re communicating but we have to have some scale to make effective decisions. 

• We might make Larry’s next video more interactive, like a Zoom meeting, or some kind of town hall. He wants to hear everyone’s opinions. 

• Moving along with social media strategy plan. Looking to make “Reels”, which are mini videos that are catchy and are getting pushed to followers of the same algorithms on social media. 

• We have info going out soon about Curbside changes. Pushing big programs on social media. We need to get some of those conversions in. Bringing in marketing manager to get a content strategy plan in place.

New Topics 

• For us to reach our goal, we have to break it down into smaller chunks. Internal Communication is our biggest need. We need to think about it in two phases. Internal and External. 

• External: marketing, social media. New people will help us reach a different level. 

• Internal: needs a lot of work. 

  • Phase 1: Focus on internal communication. We’ve been doing some groundwork here with identifying best practices and audits, but we need to see how others communicate and how they want to communicate. We need to talk about a survey, set some plans, and then divided into two subcommittees to work on best practices. 

  • Survey has 28 questions. Review the questions, add comments, need it by next Thursday at 10am.  

  • Looking at what people expect, how they expect to be communicated with. Is it effective? Who do they trust getting the information from? 

  • We get somewhere between 25-50% response rate. If we can increase by 25% we’d have significant data we can extrapolate from.  

  • How can we encourage staff to fill out the survey. Can we incentivize it? Kellie’s going to start a survey communication plan to discuss at the next meeting. The topic of subcommittees is tabled until we get a better idea on the survey. Hopefully we’ll have some additional data at that point.  

• Phase II will be tabled until after Phase I is wrapped up. 

Use of Symptomatic vs. Confirmed 

• Discussion of language “Suspected or confirmed.” There weren’t a whole lot of comments with the WA recent post. Someone from the RD team said they weren’t aware of any language to use. Since we’re not posting info to the intranet, maybe we have a list of what to do when a library closes, and here’s some suggested language. 

• Some organizations have developed a dashboard so you can see all of the information in one place. We should set up an established set of procedures so we know to update the website banner, share on social media, etc. Marketing is working on social media graphic templates to have a stockpile on hand. Tim will meet with Marcie and Victoria to draft something. We can include the email and social media graphic into the Grab & Go communication document.  

• Kellie will send out an update about the survey next week.