Businesses and nonprofit organizations in Evanston are catching on to the popular use of social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter.
The Evanston Public Library is hosting a workshop May 6 to discuss how organizations can use Twitter to their benefit. The library is just one of many local organizations already using some form of social media.
The Evanston Athletic Club started a Facebook page approximately two months ago to get its name out and promote interaction between members and prospective members, said Manager Amy Whalen.
“We’re all moving in that direction,” she said. “It’s something people want, and we want to be a part of it.”
Evanston Now, an Evanston online publication, has a Twitter feed announcing daily headlines. It does not generate huge traffic but requires little extra labor, said publisher Bill Smith, who will sit on the panel at the EPL workshop. Evanston Now also has a Facebook page and may increase its Facebook presence, he said.
EPL uses Facebook, a Twitter feed and blogs to stay relevant to its users, adult services librarian Karen Hansen said.
“It’s a no-brainer that we should be doing this,” said Hansen.
Hansen said she has been working on personalizing the Facebook page for the public to make it fun and capture their attention. For instance, she has added Facebook Trivia Challenge, a game where the first person to answer a weekly question correctly gets a free DVD rental.
It is critical for businesses to use social media, said Liz Strauss, blogger and founder of SOBCon, an annual conference discussing online business practices that will be held in Chicago this year.
“Social media is really a tool to reach more customers in more ways,” said Strauss. “You can know where your customers are and build relationships with them, bring them into your business in a much closer way.”
Businesses should not just advertise or post information without engaging with their online audience, because they can improve the image of their brand by participating in social media, said David Armano, senior vice president at Edelman Digital, a communications firm in Chicago.
“Advocacy’s a really big end goal, to ignite your customers or even your employee base to participate for the benefit of your organization,” said Armano.
Although social media offers new opportunities, it is not equally important for all businesses, said Bruce Carruthers, a professor at Northwestern working in economic sociology.
“There are lots of firms that will do just fine without social media,” he said.
