Samvera Marketing WG notes 18-05-22

Owned by Chris Awre
Last updated: Jun 20, 2018
2 min read

Present: Chris Awre, Alicia Morris, Charlotte Nunes

Apologies: Ryan Steans, Richard Green, Karen Cariani


An initial brainstormed list of areas that may merit attention had been created and discussion centred around this list.  Key points arising were:

Audience

  • There is strong interest in focusing on internal audiences - including library colleagues and those in other parts of our organisations - and get it right for them.  This will then usefully inform how we market to external audiences.  What questions do they have?
  • There is a clear distinction that needs making between library colleagues and academics/students in their understanding of what Samvera offers them. 
  • We need to find ways of marketing that targets audiences without technical knowledge.
  • Need to ask 'why have a repository' ahead of asking 'why use Samvera' for some audiences.

Marketing materials

  • A flyer will be of use, but it would be more useful to generate text about Samvera in a way that allows it to be re-used for different purposes (e.g., a brochure).
  • Create a presentation template, and a brief standard slide deck that others can use.
  • Twitter works fine for social media, but its management might usefully be more structured.  Who currently 'owns' the account and has access to it?
  • The need for the group to review the text on the website was noted.
  • Brief discussion about physical giveaways highlighted no immediate preferences, although it was noted that with a charge now being made for bags at the grocery in the US (it is the same in the UK) that providing a long-use bag may be useful for some.

Marketing messages 

  • Samvera as infrastructure to support digital scholarship.
  • Eliminate silos of digital content.
  • Manage/curate digital content, and deliver it.
  • We need to identify the unqiue features that Samvera has where we can (acknowledging that it is not always compared on a like for like basis with other systems).
  • Samvera is up-to-date when compared with some systems (e.g., Islandora), but not necessarily with others.  How can we highlight the ways in which Samvera keep up-to-date to address this?
  • Using open source software to link into the development of open access.
  • How do we address the issue of commercial providers indicating they will just sort the issue out for an organisation through their nproduct?
  • What is the competition we are marketing against?

(colour emphasis added to highlight key elements)

Exercise

All members were asked to consider ahead of the next meeting what questions their internal colleagues have about Samvera (or a repository in general) and capture them on the wiki.

Next meetings

It was agreed to meet fortnightly until July and then review in the light of summer holidays.  The next calls will take place as follows (communication channel to be confirmed, but hopefully the same BlueJeans link):

  • Monday 4th June, 11:30 EDT
  • Wednesday 20th June, 11:30 EDT