Exhibitions: Surviving & Thriving

• AIDS is not over, and HIV continues to have a disproportionate impact in certain communities
• The National Library of Medicine and other agencies and offices of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services provide reliable health information about HIV/AIDS risks, prevention, and treatment in both English and Spanish
• Social media campaigns can reach library regulars and extend beyond typical library audiences
• In this program, librarians develop a social media campaign raising awareness of NLM’s HIV/AIDS health information resources based on the NLM-funded University of Florida Health Science Center Libraries (HSCL) HIV/AIDS Community Information Outreach Program (ACIOP) project

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• Develop relevant, measurable social media campaign goals
• Raise awareness of reliable English and Spanish HIV/AIDS health information resources from the National Library of Medicine among local young adults
• Provide reliable health information in both English and Spanish in an engaging and creative way
• Present easy-to-read and demographically appropriate health information resources based on local statistics

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• Public librarians
• Health sciences librarians

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MedlinePlus is an online health information resource for patients and their families and friends / MedlinePlus en español es un servicio informativo para pacientes, familiares y amigos:

• Easy-to-Read HIV/AIDS Health Information
• HIV/AIDS / VIH y sida
• HIV: PrEP and PEP / VIH: PrEP y PEP
• Living with HIV/AIDS / Viviendo con VIH y sida
• MedlinePlus Social Media Toolkit / Kit de herramientas para redes sociales

HIV.gov is a gateway to all domestic U.S. government HIV & AIDS testing, treatment, & research information

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• Campus cultural and student centers
• Campus health services
• Local HIV/AIDS organizations

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Time

• Planning: 20 hours

Budget

• No funds are required to run this program as described
• Optional: $100-500 to run targeted social media platform ads
• Optional: $100-200 for professional translation services

Suggested supplies

• No supplies are required to run this program as described

Before the program

• Identify the people in your organization that develop social media posts and approve external communications. Ask them how and when they would like to be involved from the beginning, adapting the steps described below as needed
• Understand your library’s social media guidelines, or advocate for development of guidelines using the American Library Association’s Social Media Guidelines for Public and Academic Libraries
• If monolingual staff are providing original content in English or Spanish, work with trained translators to develop appropriately and accurately translated posts rather than using automated translation software or asking bilingual staff in other program offices to translate content. Trained translators are experts in cultural context, idioms, and medical terminology.

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• Amplify and contextualize this program by making it part of an HIV Awareness Day such as HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day (June 5), National Transgender HIV Testing Day (April 18), or National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (February 7)

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1. Identify goals for your social media campaign that are specific, strategic, and measurable

• Examples:
  • Increase customer engagement, measured by the number of likes, comments, and shares on each post
  • Grow the library’s audience, measured by the number of followers of your page or clicks on links to library program signups
  • Increase awareness of Spanish-language resources, measured by the percentage of posts in Spanish or clicks on Spanish-language links

  There are countless books, articles, and online courses to learn more about social media marketing, many of which are geared toward libraries. Search “library social media marketing campaign” to find additional resources

2. Identify the length of your campaign and the frequency of posts within that time, such as daily posts over one week or weekly posts over one month
3. Identify the audience(s) for your campaign; decide whether your posts are meant to inform current patrons, or engage with new, unaffiliated groups. For example, the HSCL campaign targeted 18 to 30-year-olds with University of Florida affiliations and 18 to 30-year-olds within 50 miles of campus
4. Identify which social media platform(s) will be used, and familiarize yourself with the platform requirements such as image dimensions and text limits
5. Develop or curate posts in English and/or Spanish for your campaign that support the goals developed in Step 1

• Option 1: Select ready-to-reuse posts in English and/or Spanish from the MedlinePlus Social Media Toolkit / Kit de herramientas para redes sociales
• Option 2: Create original posts that include an engaging image, an informative caption, and link to a relevant MedlinePlus or MedlinePlus en español health topic page

6. If you have a dedicated marketing budget, buy ads to reach the audience(s) identified in Step 2
7. Publish the posts manually or use a service such as Hootsuite or Loomly to schedule posts to be published at the designated times
8. Moderate comments on the posts per your organization’s content moderation policy
9. At the end of your campaign, use the platform’s analytics to measure engagement with your posts and refine your strategies for future campaigns

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