Social networking - in and out of the library
I joined Facebook over ten years ago when it was still a new, delightful thing. I didn't yet have an iphone, so I logged in to Facebook the old fashioned way: on a desktop computer. Mostly, I shared pictures of my children and enjoyed catching up with distant cousins. Those early days of Facebook were fairly benign and uncomplicated. Since then, many different social media platforms have emerged. Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are the three that loom the largest in the public's consciousness aside from Facebook. We could debate the efficacy and issues of these platforms ad nauseum, but I won't bore you with those debates right now.
Today I am thinking primarily about the benefits of using social media to reach out to library patrons - because long gone are the days of sitting back and waiting for patrons to ask the library "what can you do for me today?" Libraries must be ready to use social media to reach out to patrons in new and different ways almost continually.
In the world of libraries, Facebook and Twitter have been used for several years already as marketing tools to target young and old alike. Both platforms allow pictures to accompany a post about a library program or other important information that the library wants to disseminate to their broader community. Each platform also allows for patrons to interact virtually with library staff and other community members via comments directly to the post. This keeps communication strings about a topic together and allows library staff to see how many people are potentially interested in a topic or bit of information that has been communicated.
Facebook allows for longer posts than Twitter which could be seen as a benefit. Although Twitter has expanded it's character count recently to 240 characters, the need to thread posts to expand on information may prove less than helpful for libraries wishing to inform their patrons. The ability to use hashtags on Twitter, however, could be a plus if the library is well versed in what hashtags their users might follow.
In my personal life, I am more likely to make a post on Facebook simply because my home community and family are all more likely to see it there. Twitter, for me, is an informative platform but it is less personal and my community (rural, population 18,000) simply doesn't utilize it on a local level. Our school district, city, police department, and many local entities and businesses all use Facebook to communicate with the community. None of them use Twitter.
As a parent, I rely on the local school district to update parents via Facebook. Below is an recent example of an informative Facebook post about a collaborative public and school library program from the local school district that my children attend:
Knowing how a community uses social media is integral to figuring out how the library should integrate it into their marketing and outreach plan. If you are tweeting away about public library programs, but the local community does not utilize Twitter much, you are tweeting into empty space. On a college campus, however, the student community is more likely to use a variety of platforms because the average age of student/community member is much lower. I follow IUPUI on Twitter and the university tweets multiple times a day:
Libraries need to use different types of social media to reach their communities based on the audience they are serving. School and academic libraries may choose Instagram and Twitter as primary platforms, whereas public libraries may find that a combination of Facebook and Instagram are a better fit. Either way, there is no question that social media is a valuable part of patron communication for every library in every community, and libraries must be ready to adapt to the best platform for their audience.
Today I am thinking primarily about the benefits of using social media to reach out to library patrons - because long gone are the days of sitting back and waiting for patrons to ask the library "what can you do for me today?" Libraries must be ready to use social media to reach out to patrons in new and different ways almost continually.
In the world of libraries, Facebook and Twitter have been used for several years already as marketing tools to target young and old alike. Both platforms allow pictures to accompany a post about a library program or other important information that the library wants to disseminate to their broader community. Each platform also allows for patrons to interact virtually with library staff and other community members via comments directly to the post. This keeps communication strings about a topic together and allows library staff to see how many people are potentially interested in a topic or bit of information that has been communicated.
Facebook allows for longer posts than Twitter which could be seen as a benefit. Although Twitter has expanded it's character count recently to 240 characters, the need to thread posts to expand on information may prove less than helpful for libraries wishing to inform their patrons. The ability to use hashtags on Twitter, however, could be a plus if the library is well versed in what hashtags their users might follow.
In my personal life, I am more likely to make a post on Facebook simply because my home community and family are all more likely to see it there. Twitter, for me, is an informative platform but it is less personal and my community (rural, population 18,000) simply doesn't utilize it on a local level. Our school district, city, police department, and many local entities and businesses all use Facebook to communicate with the community. None of them use Twitter.
As a parent, I rely on the local school district to update parents via Facebook. Below is an recent example of an informative Facebook post about a collaborative public and school library program from the local school district that my children attend:
Knowing how a community uses social media is integral to figuring out how the library should integrate it into their marketing and outreach plan. If you are tweeting away about public library programs, but the local community does not utilize Twitter much, you are tweeting into empty space. On a college campus, however, the student community is more likely to use a variety of platforms because the average age of student/community member is much lower. I follow IUPUI on Twitter and the university tweets multiple times a day:
Libraries need to use different types of social media to reach their communities based on the audience they are serving. School and academic libraries may choose Instagram and Twitter as primary platforms, whereas public libraries may find that a combination of Facebook and Instagram are a better fit. Either way, there is no question that social media is a valuable part of patron communication for every library in every community, and libraries must be ready to adapt to the best platform for their audience.
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