Coordinating a social media presence for the library

Coordinating a Social Media Presence for the Library Sarah Houghton-Jan Digital Futures Manager, San Jose Public Library Author of LibrarianInBlack.net

Why do you want to be present in social media?

Before you even start...ask yourself: why? who? what? when? where?

Only then move onto the how .

“ Understanding local patron culture is essential to creating used and useful technology services.”
- Char Booth

Community Research
What social networks does your community use? ASK!
How does use break down by demographic groups?
What is trending upward?

What to post?
Facebook
- library news
- events
- parent-specific materials
Twitter
- library news
- general book/tech news
- snippets of local materials

Are you pushing information out? Or having a discussion?

Institutional & Policy Limits
What policies exist & are they still relevant?
- Customer and staff posting policies
- Distinguishing work vs. non-work use of social media
- Existing policies about at-work tech use, photo use, etc.
- Who is allowed/encouraged to post?

Social Media Guidelines

Creating Social Media Guidelines
Taskforce of expert users to do project planning and research
Project manager + a few key champions
Solicit staff input and use it
Develop a launch plan

Elements of Social Media Guidelines
General Social Media Best Practices
(Overview, Personal Social Media Participation, Site Set-Up, Site Management, Profile Standards, Online Posting Guidelines for User-Generated Content, Additional Guidelines for Staff-Generated Content, General Social Media Best Practices, Notifications and Comments, Statistics, Publicity, Additional New Tech)
Practices for Specific Sites
(Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Yelp, wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, photo sharing, podcasting, videocasting)

Site Set-Up
- Procedure for new sites
- Planning: goals, target audience, success metrics, plan for maintenance)
- Log-Ins: sharing/standards
- Linking from current site

Profile Standards
- Profile images
- Profile name standards (e.g. Almaden Branch-SJPL)
- Account email, log-ins, & passwords
- Location, contact info, website
- Biography template
- Disclaimer and/or posting policy links

Guidelines for Posting
Customer Guidelines need to be clear
Staff Guidelines = the above + existing policies (e.g. Email & Internet Use Policy, E-Government Policy, Information Security Policy, Code of Ethics, Public Records Policies)

General Best Practices
Be clear. Make it clear what you will be posting so that you will get users who are most interested in that type of information.
Be there. Any social media page must be maintained frequently.
Be personal. Speak as “I,” not “the library.” Speak as a person and be friendly, just as you would in a physical library setting.

Notifications & Comments
Site coordinator should subscribe to notifications for comments/messages.
Staff should post-moderate daily.
Staff should reply to all comments within 24 hours.

Handling New Technologies
Who decides when to jump on a new social media site?
What standards will be used in deciding to participate?
How can someone make a suggestion?

Twitter-Specific Tips
What to post
Frequency
Hash tags
Following your followers
@ replies
URL shortening

Facebook-Specific Tips
Profile vs. Page vs. Group
What to post
Setting up administrators
Frequency
Friending
Applications/Games/Causes
Events
Privacy Setting

Tools to Use for Twitter
Statistics: Twitter Counter ( http://twittercounter.com/ )
Tools: Twitter Search ( http://search.twitter.com/ ) – library mentions. TwitPic ( http://twitpic.com/ ) – photos. Flickr2Twitter ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11212 ) & SnapTweet ( http://snaptweet.com ) – Flickr auto-posts. Twtpoll ( http://twtpoll.com/ ) – polls. Screenr ( http://screenr.com/ ) – screencasts. FutureTweets ( http://futuretweets.com/ ) – pre-schedule Tweets. Management tools such as Seesmic, Touiter, TweetDeck, etc.

Tools to Use for Facebook
Statistics: Facebook’s internal Fan Page statistics (page views, fans, new fans, removed fans, wall posts, photo views, etc.). Plus weekly email update w/ usage.
Tools: Flickr Tab & My Flickr ( http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2352557895 ) - Flickr auto-posts to FB. Visual Bookshelf ( http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2481647302 ) - virtual book displays. Other Facebook Apps can be used to create individualized and content-rich tabs

General Tips for Social Media
Develop an social media plan with a budget and staff needs.
Start with the easy one-time things.
Move on to the harder, more time-consuming stuff.
Duplicate content to save time.

General Social Media Tools
CheckUsernames.com: check username availability
Ping.fm, Hellotxt, AtomKeep: sync up posting to multiple sites
HootSuite, Seesmic, TweetDeck: manage multiple sites
Filtrbox, MyBUZZmonitor: impact/stats

Successful Launches

Planning a Launch
Develop a list of existing pages/profiles
Meet with key stakeholders first
Hold team/branch trainings and talks
Encourage and acknowledge participation

Getting Staff Buy-In
Educate, educate, educate.
Inform early and constantly.
Ask for & use input.
Demand consistent managerial support.

Staff Training
Part of training is information.
Provide staff exposure at least 1 month before soft launch
Offer staff formal training in that time
- Play with it, touch it, and learn it.
- Fun. Rewards. Food.
- Types and numbers of trainings

Soft Launches
Beta test everything!
1. Launch for a small group of staff first (to find big bugs).
2. Launch for entire staff (and ask for feedback, problems, suggestions).
3. Launch for users (without “hard” promotion and ask for feedback).
4. Do a hard launch and promote.

Assess projects thoughtfully

Evaluating New Services
Survey users and staff 6 months in
Would you recommend this service to a friend? Why or why not?
Evaluate the library's follow-through
Has adequate marketing and training been done?
Evaluate statistics
service use vs. staff time ROI

Project Evaluation Plan

Results of Evaluation
Continue service
or
Discontinue service
or
Extend pilot
and
- change aspects of the service
- do more promotion or training
Discontinuing a service is not failing. Persisting in a failed effort is failing.

Marketing ≠ Bookmarks

F2F World Marketing Ideas
Intentional communication & discussion
Outreach to partners & community groups
Dynamic physical marketing
LCD screens in-library or in the community
really nice flyers, posters
geocaching in the community

Online Marketing Ideas
Library website promotions
Have a good service URL (sjpl.org/social)
Promote one network through another
Short promotions on receipt printers, email alerts, newsletters, catalog
Ensure search engine findability
Events websites (Eventful, Going, Upcoming)‏
Get links from partners

Rejoice in failures... for failing indicates that you have encountered a boundary that needs testing.

Questions?
Sarah Houghton-Jan
web: LibrarianInBlack.net
email: LibrarianInBlack@gmail.com
IM: LibrarianInBlack
Twitter: twitter.com/TheLiB
Skype: LibrairanInBlack
Facebook: facebook.com/librarianinblack

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Coordinating a social media presence for the library

by Sarah Houghton on Aug 02, 2010

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