Engaging students with Social Media: Updating your relationship status
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My (modified) presentation for New Librarians' Symposium #6, February 2013. Alternative title: "Getting the Stone-Age out of the sandstone"
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Engaging students with Social Media: Updating your relationship status
- 1. Social Media for Engagement Academic Library is In a Relationship with Undergraduate Student Updating your relationship status
- 3. Library Resources & Technology Services (LRTS) Library Scholarly Publishing & Digitization Services (SPADS) Research Information Services (RIS) Library Admin & Teaching and Learning Service (MOCS & TALS)
- 4. LRTS SPADS Teaching and Learning Service RIS Marketing and Outreach MOCS & TALS Corporate Services
- 8. Age of Users in Australia Facebook Twitter Largest Age 25-34 yrs 45-54 yrs Segment 27 % 34 % Over half of Facebook Users in Australia are aged 16-34 years
- 9. Gendered use of Social Media in Oz Twitter Facebook Male Female
- 17. TALS proposed… • Social media policy & guidelines… • Access to post on Facebook page by TALS staff… • Encouraging interaction on FB to improve our Insights Metrics • Using appropriate language for the medium… • Making the most of the visual aspects of the medium…
- 18. July 2012 UQ Library’s 1st Market Day Stall
- 19. Next month, we will be discussing “Reclaiming the F Word”
- 20. oh, “hi…”
- 21. Image is not actual supervisor
- 23. Library Facebook page today… the page since April...
Editor's Notes
- I am going to talk about a couple of different topics – one is using social media for engagement, the other is being heard in a large institution as a new graduate.
- This video snippet was the very first part of the video that I initially posted as my proposal for NLS6. I had to remove it. I understand why I was expected to remove it, and I did take it down and withdraw my initial proposal – they were not even bothered by the rainbow vagina cupcakes – it was too critical of the institution.
- I just need to quickly explain how UQ Library works. The Library has a service based structure. There are four Directorates which cover a number of services.
- I worked as a TALS librarian. TALS is responsible for St Lucia information assistance, undergraduate and genericinformation literacy, collection development to support coursework, course reading lists, and circulation more generally. TALS are the first contact for the bulk of students.
- When I started working at UQ Library, the average age of permanent staff was 53. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that – the staff are experienced, professional, and knowledgeable. The problem is, that the vast majority of the clients they serve are students aged between 18 and 22 years, and this was creating a communication discord, I guess. The Library had a Facebook page, a Twitter account – even a service in Second Life, but none of these tools was reaching the bulk of students.
- So, I started to consider how we could use social media to best engage the undergraduate student cohort. Facebook reaches almost 70% of the Australian population, which is remarkably similar to the percentage of population who have regular access to the internet. So, basically, all students.
- Facebook is less time sensitive than Twitter, so easier to monitor, check it three times a day, rather than having someone on all day.
- While FB is less useful as a “news” or informational service, it is more visually appealing and can be used to create an “emotive response”. This is a key tool used when marketing to gen Y and Z audiences, and appeals more to the younger age group we were aiming at.
- Facebook is also more equally used my males and females in Australia.
- This was our Facebook page when I initially looked at it (the end of March, 2012).While posts were relevant, well written, and accurate, they did not encourage interaction, or make the most of Facebook’s potential to be visually very engaging. We had not changed to the new format with the large cover picture (which was available at the time)… there were no photos… it was impersonal. We had few “friends”, and the lack of interaction with posts meant that they were not appearing on “news feeds”, even to people who did “like” the page.
- TALS run a bunch of super classes and have online tutorials, tools and things for students, and they were mostly unaware of them. If they were aware, they would rather suck wax fruit than spend 50 minutes in a library class. The students who did attend were a handful of international students, postgraduate coursework and mature age students. There was no incentive for students to attend classes or to complete the online tutorial. Talk about My Library.
- So in an effort to start looking at some sort of proposal or something for TALS librarians to start using Facebook as an engagement and marketing tool, I went looking for a social media policy. We didn’t have one. The university were writing one for the whole institution and we had been waiting a few years, for them to complete it. In the meantime we were to use the Queensland Government social media guidelines. – a 64 page document which looks at social media platforms individually – There were two pages on Facebook, which, at the time I looked at the policy were out of date. The one page policy document Qld government had was more flexible, but also vague. It basically said, “Don’t break any laws”.
- Or, well do any other really obviously stupid thing…
- So I started showing some examples of good Facebook pages… I showed them Harvard University. Well, that is an entire institution, not a division of the institution like the library… Okay.
- So I showed them the UQ Art Museum page – which is also great. That isn’t a library. Well, no.
- Alright, what about the University of Melbourne Library? I had found my example! University of Melbourne Library Facebook page people, I must congratulate you on a most awesome Facebook Presence. Note the use of humour in the top right, the request for interaction in the bottom left, the personal connections created centre left, and the blatant appeal to student chocolate cravings bottom right…
- I would also like to point out at this point that I did not write the initial proposal. I asked for help at this point from my colleague Kerri Klump who was the TALS rep on the communications and marketing committee. Social media policy & guidelines…Access to post on Facebook page by TALS staff…Encouraging interaction on FB to improve our Insights Metrics Using appropriate language for the medium…Making the most of the visual aspects of the medium… 1st step , put up good quality cover picture.I took the proposal document up to the 6th floor and had a chat with upstairs. That was pretty scary, but I got a lot out of the meeting and was able to take it all back to our next TALS Librarian meeting… These things were possible presence at events and new training timetable…
- As well as improving our Facebook presence and having a pretty timetable published, we started increasing our presence on campus. I said, “Can we do a Market Day stall, please?” and they said, “Actually they asked me last week if we wanted one, and I was not sure we could staff it, and it costs however many dollars for the stall…” I said, “Book it.” We ended up having a member of staff from the Ask IT service, the Teaching and Learning Service, and the Research Information Service on the stall all day. It was crazy busy. We handed out lot of timetables
- At UQ Library there is an internal Professional Development program, and one of the things we do is every month a topic is picked and we meet for “Journal Club”. So I was asked to do the presentation on Social Media and lead discussion. I chose an article called Academic Library Use of Facebook:Building Relationships with Students, By Nancy Kim Phillips, 2011. The conclusion of my presentation actually echoed the conclusion of the article… The article said… “The immediacy, informality, and interactivity of Facebook offer libraries opportunities to influence how they are perceived, to demonstrate their support of students, and to reinforce the contexts they share with students. Being the Facebook fan of an academic library does not equate to a personal friendship for students, yet libraries may still establish relationships through Facebook which encourage students to take greater advantage of library services.” I stressed that Facebook is not a news or informational tool so much as one for creating positive relationships. The session went well.
- The problem was, I drew attention to myself and my NLS6 proposal, which I had shown to my supervisor and several colleagues to check it didn’t you know, break any rules, or the code of conduct, or anything. I realised it was a little edgy, I thought I had done all the right things. But I had really messed up.
- My supervisor fought for me, and I was allowed to submit something, although my initial video was a no go. And now I am here to tell you about the changes that I managed to make.
- MassiveFacebook Insights Metrics lift – viral reach of posts had increased massivelyThere is a TALS librarian with access to the official Library page and also secret TALS group on FBto propose and discuss possible posts for the UQ Library page Social Media guidelines based on Qld State government policy Image use guidelines for the Library about format, contents, and copyright/creative commons type informationSo, while this is initially what I wanted to come and talk to you about, I ended up with a story as well, about working for a big organisation, where it takes a lot of work to initiate small changes. And about not letting this get you down or dampen your enthusiasm.
- Okay, so now that you are looking at the results of nine months of work, I just want to sum up by saying that: Even with the best of intentions it is possible to really fuck up. If you are doing anything at all, you will make mistakes, and some of them will feel really yucky. But don’t let it stop you from pursuing excellence in everything that you do. If you ideas are initially knocked back or you are told that you cant do something, find a way around it. Get someone else to put it forward for you. Make compromises. My initial ideas and nudging did make changes happen, even though I didn’t actively make the changes myself, because I just didn’t have the authority.