Social Media Graphic for a 2021 COVID vaccination clinic

Increasing Partnership ROI with the Organizational Story

Organization

Illinois Heartland Library System (Edwardsville, Ill.)

Tactics/Skills
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Scenario

In late 2021, Illinois Heartland Library System, acting in its role as a state agent, hosted vaccination clinics sponsored by the Illinois Department of Public Health at each of its three locations. I wanted to use this opportunity to position IHLS as integral community partners in our local communities.

Social media graphic for a 2020 IDPH COVID-19 vaccine clinic

Action

Primary Objectives

  1. Increase awareness of IHLS among community members in the Champaign, Edwardsville, and Carbondale areas, particularly to educate them about IHLS’s role in managing southern and central Illinois’ interlibrary loan delivery. (This was also a part of a long-term goal to garner political support for IHLS.)
  2. Persuade the library staff within 20 miles of an IHLS hub to share the story.
  3. Persuade members of the public within 20 miles of an IHLS hub who were library supporters and were already amenable to getting a vaccine to attend a clinic at an IHLS location.

Key Messages

  1. IHLS runs the interlibrary loan delivery service for half the state of Illinois, including for *your* library.
  2. Getting your vaccine at an IHLS location is a unique opportunity to peak inside this organization.
  3. [indirectly communicated] IHLS is a key community partner.

These vaccine clinics were opportunities for the general public to peek inside the agency that coordinates the interlibrary loan delivery system for half of the State of Illinois. I drafted a news story, pitched this angle to reporters in the three IHLS hub areas, served as media contact, and submitted event information to news media event calendars.

IHLS-Vaccine-Clinic-Press-ReleaseDownload

Simultaneously, I also developed a vaccination clinic informational webpage for library partners, including a template library newsletter story, and used the IHLS newsletter to ask each regions’ librarians to share the event with their patrons.

Finally, I developed Facebook events for each clinic and ran a series of ad campaigns targeting those within 20 miles of each clinic who were likely to be library supporters and unlikely to be hostile toward vaccination efforts. Ads ran in all three service areas leading up to each event and on the day of each event.

Results

On average, the clinic appointments were about two-thirds full, meeting IHLS goals and demonstrating campaign success in moving people to action. The story pitch was picked up by the Edwardsville Intelligencer, which published an article with our key messages included. Event details were published in online event calendars in all three hub regions. The Facebook ads proved a useful tool to cost-effectively reach those beyond our typical audience.

Combined, the ads, media coverage, and partner shares significantly increased the reach of the IHLS story beyond IHLS’s typical librarian audience.