Our campaign required these results: 1) build excitement to read and discuss The Circle, 2) create engagement to maximize author event attendance – our largest capacity venue to date, and 3) build awareness and engagement for our first-ever online book discussion and interactive library exhibit about social media. Our strategy was to use community influencers and leaders as partners to enhance awareness, grow our audience and build excitement about this year’s book in a new way.

We selected five local social media influencers to read the book, explore its themes and encourage their followers to do the same. Potential influencers were chosen based on their unique demographics and reach. We talked with them about the book, its themes and our campaign and photographed them with The Circle. We invited them to reflect and post on themes in the book and in the related exhibit throughout the 10-week social media campaign.

The first-time use of (free) influencer marketing in this community read marketing campaign was the key ingredient in impressive social media metrics growth from the previous year (over 84 percent). We also saw increases in author event attendance (over 100 percent), book circulation (over 36 percent), book discussion attendance (over 55 percent) and the successful launch of two new OBOV components (multi-department collaborations): the library’s first-ever online book discussion and OBOV exhibit. This influencer model can be easily replicated for other marketing campaigns.