Since coming to MBTS, I have become the social media manager for the Library. And in case you think, "That gotta be easy." That is far from the truth. Although, social media is fun, it is not easy. If you want to do it right, you have to put a lot of work into your strategy. There is not point in doing social media if you don't engage your with your audience.
Librarians can especially find social media difficult. This is both true for small and large libraries. Small libraries can run into problems such as having to defend their need for a library account to a library board or administration. Large libraries can run into other problems such as frustration over the fact that they do not have a lot of followers even though they are a large institution.
The point of social media is to be "social". You need to find some way to interact with your users in order to create a relationship with them. If you are just putting out posts that are not generating traffic and responses, then you are not reaching them. Do not mistake me for saying that you need a lot of followers or likes to be "successful". Ultimately, it is about the quality and interactions then the actual final count of how many people are seeing your post.
Here is a list of things that I have found useful in social media. These ideas and suggestions come from Laura Soloman's The Librarian's Nitty Gritty Guide to Social Media, Mark Shaffer's The Tao of Twitter: Changing Your Life and Business 140 Characters at a Time, and some of my own experience..
- Find out what social media services your audience is using. The MBTS Spurgeon Twitter account currently has over 2,300 followers. However, our Spurgeon Facebook account has not made it to 200, yet. I don't see that as a failure. With Facebook, you have to pay for pages to be promoted. It is hard to get the attention of pastors, professors, and theologians throughout the world. However, it is not that way with Twitter. All it needed was a few follows, follow backs, and retweets. After we started gaining alot of attention it, we grew exponentially. Our audience for Spurgeon is on Twitter. Don't start an account on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or whatever the next new thing is and expect people to find you. Use your library training. Find your users and bring your services to them like you would with any other library service.
- Get a strategy. Think about what kinds of contents you will and will not post. Our Library social media does #MotivationMondays where we put in a qoute from a famous theologian, #TitleTuesdays in which we showcase an ebook title, #WorldWednesdays where we showcase pictures from our Missionary archive, #ThrowbackThursday where we post a picture from our institution's history, and #FasthelpFriday which we use to showcase a database or LibGuide. With the Spurgeon social media, I have chosen to do more seasonal themes such as Puritan books for Thanksgiving, Dickens books for Christmas, and works by Shakespeare and Lord Byron. Other times I will post books that center around an event in his life. There will be times when you will think forever about what to post and it will be a complete dud. Other times you will think about five seconds about it, and surprisingly it gain lots of attention. Social media is dynamic. If at first you are not getting the results you are looking for, then keep trying. If you keep hitting a wall then you may want to change what you are doing. But it is good to at least have an idea what kinds of things you will post.
- Seek out followers and follow back. This is especially relevant with Twitter. As I said, social media is social. Conan O'Brien can get away with having millions of followers and following one person. You can not. Use Twitter to build up a support group. Follow other libraries, archives, professors, and organizations that are like minded. Many of them will follow you back and later retweet you. It is considered bad etiquette not to follow someone back on Twitter. Also, it will allow you to see what others are talking about.
- When you do a post, always think "so what"? You may think something is important, but your patrons and audience may not understand why they should care. You bought a new database! Great but why should your patrons care? Explain concisely what your database, service, or event means to them. Make your posts about them and not just about you. Is this post suppose to entertain, encourage, or inform them of something new?
- If you want to be successful in social media, you need to learn the gift of brevity. When you are doing a social media post, you are competing against literally thousands of posts. If every single one of your posts ends with "... Click here to read more", then you will not be successful. If you have long posts then you will be largely ignored. People want as much information possible in the shortest and quickest way as possible. Never make a social media post more then three to four sentences. Not many people want to read something on social media that will take them more then ten seconds.
- Use pictures. I like pictures. You like pictures. Chances are really good that your patrons like pictures too. Pictures are a great way to engage your patrons. Looking at long lines of text in social media can bore your audience. Pictures are a wonderful method of getting attention.
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