We are excited to announce that our Day 1 Keynote for LMCC 2026 is the Milwaukee Public Library's Communication and Marketing Department!

Community Engagement: Leveraging Social Media and Partnerships to Reach New Audiences

What happens after you go viral? And how do you keep reaching new audiences when the tactics that brought you success keep changing?

Milwaukee Public Library built a national social media presence through humor, trends, and a shared love of libraries. But this brought a new challenge: how could the team build on that momentum to connect with more people in its own city?

Join members of MPL’s communications team as they share how they expanded their approach by working with local content creators and organizations whose values aligned with the library’s mission. A campaign for the new Martin Luther King Branch generated over five million impressions and helped build relationships that later led to The Library Show, an after-hours music event in the historic Central Library.

Bios:

Melissa Howard is the Director of Communications and Community Engagement at the Milwaukee Public Library, where she guides the Library’s marketing, public relations, and community engagement strategy across 13 locations. Prior to joining the Library, Melissa built her career in agencies and in-house, leading brand and digital strategy for organizations ranging from startups and nonprofits to global companies. That experience shapes her approach: pairing creative ideas with audience insight to help organizations connect more meaningfully with the people they serve. She believes authentic storytelling, backed by data, never goes out of style.

Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs has worked on the Milwaukee Public Library's groundbreaking videos since their inception in 2022. She brought her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Literary Criticism background to the library in 2015, serving in reference and volunteer coordinating. In 2025, she officially joined the Communications & Marketing Department full time as a Marketing & Communications Coordinator. She received her MLIS in winter of 2025. Her love of libraries, the arts, and the City of Milwaukee lends itself uniquely to content creation.

Joey McMahon obtained his MPH from Zilber College of Public Health in 2022. In his role as Research and Policy Coordinator, Joey is the primary data analyst, where he collects and analyzes data, as well as creates reports for local officials and stakeholders. Additionally, since becoming part of the Communications and Marketing department, he assists in social media creation, partnership building, and engagement statistics. He believes that data is the most important way to create lasting policy changes which can be achieved by working at the intersection of public health and community advocacy.