Last week I blogged about how circulation grew from a previous high of 20,247 to 45,445 in our middle school🔥. I shared my first ‘how’ … Celebrating readers - and our new reading classes 📚
This week is all about branding and marketing. Changing the perception. Adjusting the vibe. Becoming the place to be.
Because what’s a goal worth if it isn’t lofty?
When I set my initial 3-year goal. It was all based around changing the perception of who we were and what we did.
- We were a quiet space, often closed for random (unexplained) moments.
- We were a place you could get books, but was a scary place to bring them back - don’t be late or have the book not in pristine condition
- It was a place some students avoided
- It was a place some students never visited
- There was no teacher collaboration
- There was no person working there whose focus was on bringing kids in
- It was a great space for quick laminating and color printing services
- It was a useful space to put kids who didn’t have a place to go at whatever time for whatever reason
So you could say that the potential was huge, and quite frankly, the scope was enormous! For all the kudos I’ve been given, it would have been very hard not to have made things better 😀
I set myself 3 main goals focused on changing our branding
- Change the name to help adjust the perception
- Make it a teacher space so that they were involved and invested
- Share the journey whenever and wherever I could - create a school of cheerleaders to support our mission
We became the MLC.
Media & Learning Center.
A mouthful in full, trips off the tongue as initials. Plus, if I can’t alliterate, I want to rhyme. So we got “The MLC is the place to be” as well as Media Mayhem. It didn’t take long and admin and teachers were using it too. A tiny name change helped to adjust perception.
Bonus - less print on the label maker too 😂
The very first thing I did was create The Teacher Hub. I’d visited the coffee station at Piney Grove Middle School - a neighboring middle school - and liked it, but I felt like I needed more. So I took the laminator and poster printer out of the ‘workroom’ and The Teacher Hub was born. Coffee, snacks, a nice table & tinted windows all installed as an escape space for teachers. Chocolate is always the good stuff (Dove, Ghirardelli) and I try for sweet and salty. Between donations, a PTO grant, and occasional front office support, we kept it stocked all year - replenishing is even on my sub plans! The teachers love it. I have my first-thing visitors, my every-planning visitors - I’ve even had a student or two stop in with a teacher request! Coke donated a free glass door fridge with our vending machine, and every now and again it’s stocked as a surprise - it doesn’t stay full for long. During testing I put little gifts each day, stress relieving toys, coloring books, and puzzles. During duty-free lunch, it’s always packed ☕️🍭🍪🥤
They come, they support, they chat, they watch me teach, they see how others use the MLC.
Game-changer.
New name. Market to teachers. Now I needed to share the brand with the community.
Every presenter I saw at GAETC, every blog I read, and every link I follow on Twitter, stated the importance of sharing your successes with the world.
So I did.
Social media. LMS, parent news, teacher newsletters, anything I could think of or create. From sharing success stories to advertising open calendar spaces. From advertising Top Ten Books for a given month to recognizing top readers. Teacher reading contests, morning announcements (ready by students), posters, hallway contests (vote between Jackson and Potter), and more…If there was nowhere to post something, we created something. And of course, my biggest proponents were my MLCC - the committee. My 20 kids ran the show with boundless energy and excited intent. To be honest, it was the committee that created the success - I just put the wheels in place ⚙️
In the past, we’d only advertised events and contests, now the focus was on sharing successes as well as letting folk know what was coming.
Some celebrations we shared in multiple places were:
Top 10 Books Read
Top 10 Graphic Novels
Top Reading Homeroom
Favorite Genre
Most Collaborative Content
Visiting Teachers
Everyone loves to see their name in print!
Branding changed ✅
Teachers involved ✅
Marketing plan in place ✅
I knew that the MLC was the place to be…and the news was getting out 🗞️
Next week, my favorite topic - focusing on the experience, putting the students in charge!
My entire presentation from the GLMA Summer Institute, sharing what we accomplished this year, can be found HERE
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