Social Media Learnings

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m new to the whole social media scene.  I suppose, I’m like everyone else on the planet, stumbling on to new things as I go.  Here’s what I’ve learned so far, thanks to poking LOTS of buttons and reading a few books, including Doing Social Media So It Matters by Laura Solomon.  Hope this post is helpful to any other newbie social media librarian-types.

First, social media, (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, and wikis) is all about interaction, communication, and connection with an audience.  Based on my vast experience thus far (lol), most SoCal libraries are currently doing it wrong.  They… I should say we, are guilty of using social media as a one-way advertising platform.  Tsk. Tsk.  This is no way to earn “social capital” from the community.  Social capital or trust is something we want!

Even though it’s done electronically, social media revolves around PEOPLE.  These people are just as time-crunched and overwhelmed as we are.  Libraries CAN’T be like noisy ads!  We must instead aim to participate with our communities.  Share links, posts, tweets.  Publicly give genuine thanks, kudos, and credit to others.

People also have brains and feelings.  It’s okay to ask for opinions.  Reveal some behind-the-scenes (non-boring) library stuff once in a while.  We’re librarians, not under-cover cops or FBI agents, for crying out loud.  Why not post an intriguing reference question, cute storytime scenario, or frustrating tech challenge.  The goal here is to share unique information that people care about.  Post, tweet, write like a normal person, not a hyped-up-on-theory librarian.  Stats, even though they’re exciting to us, are boring to read about, unless they are presented in meaningful ways that pertain to the audience.

Like everything else in life and library-land, one is supposed to set goals to achieve when using social media.  Some easy examples that Laura Solomon points out on page 11 of her book could be :

• Get more people at events at the library

• Better overall awareness of the library

• More blog subscribers

• New knowledge about your patrons and how they view the library

• More “buzz” about the library

It’s easy enough to invent ways to measure the success of these goals.  Some suggestions might include to count blog comments, retweets, number of followers or friends, etc.

The hardest part of social media is the time-investment.  Energy, enthusiasm, and determination, I have in abundance.  But TIME for this idealistic SoCal librarian is scarce!