Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Consultant Helping Companies Tap the Web

An interesting article in yesterday's Commercial Appeal highlights a local consulting company. They are helping companies use free social networking sites to create an online presence. A couple of sentences jump out at me:

"Because such sites thrive on human connections, common interests and personal recommendations, businesses believe that they are potentially powerful tools to drive word-of-mouth traffic to products and services."

"Feedback has been good, but it is hard to measure the results of the effort".

These two sentences jump out at me because they parallel the experiences of us and other libraries throughout the world.

MPLIC has been blogging for a couple of years now and we are always looking for other types of similar services that may suit our needs. These services have the possibility of becoming extremely useful in connecting with our customers. Or they may not. There is really only one way to find out. And do these online services translate into higher attendance at programs or higher circulation numbers? That is difficult to measure.

But as more and more companies and organizations begin to offer more and more online services, how do libraries keep up?

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