Embracing Twitter : Marketing the Public Library on Social Media

Abstract: The aim of this master's thesis is to study public libraries' marketing on the social media site Twitter. To achieve this goal, the Twitter accounts of four Swedish public libraries were studied for several months. The four libraries that were studied consist of Stockholm library, Lidingö library, Malmö library, and Gothenburg library. The marketing theory that inspired me is called the seven Ps of marketing, which is a marketing mix that is specifically developed for service industries. My main sources in the application of the theory have been the works of Ned Potter and Eileen Elliott de Sáez, which combine marketing with the field of library and information science. Netnography, a qualitative method that studies online communities, has been applied as methodology. The methods that have been used consist of online observations and e-mail interviews. It was seen that the libraries use Twitter as a marketing tool to attain more users and to strengthen their ties with the existing users. Through Twitter, libraries promote their products to users. The communication between the library and its users becomes an important factor in marketing the library on Twitter. It was observed that users play an active role in marketing the library on Twitter. Users not only shape the marketing of the library through their responses but they also contribute to the marketing of the library by retweeting libraries' tweets or "mentioning" the libraries on Twitter. This is a two years master's thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.