Social Media in the library - discovering best practice: findings from the Taylor & Francis White Paper

These are my notes on the UKSG Forum 2014  presentation by Laura Horton and Jodie Bell (Taylor & Francis).

The ‘use of social media by the library’ is a white paper researched and compiled by Taylor & Francis to provide an overview of current practices relating to the use by libraries of social media. This is a world-wide perspective, against which individual institutions can benchmark their own activities and be inspired to try new approaches and is available online here:

http://www.tandf.co.uk/libsite/whitePapers/socialMedia/

Many libraries are experiencing a drop in traffic to their static web pages but are seeing much more active engagement with users through the use of social media.

Research methodology for the paper involved several interviews and case studies across libraries of different sizes and types. Some of the top findings were:

• The fast-paced nature of social media means that short response times are very important to users. If libraries are not able to respond quickly, they should clearly outline a suitable timeframe (immediately visible to the user), which is in keeping with service level agreements. 
• Presently most libraries only employ a small number of specialist staff to handle social media communications. It is worth considering how to share this knowledge and skills across a larger team to ensure business continuity of the service. It was noted that this method of communication is expected to grow and that team structures may need training to accommodate this change in user behaviour. 
• The best use of social media was considered to be where engagement through conversations could be demonstrated and it was felt that twitter was an effective tool for this. "Broadcasting" messages alone does not foster engagement with a service or positive relationships with users. 
• It was noted that it takes time to develop strong communities of users through social media. As the founders of your community you can decide if it will engender a passive or active form of engagement. A more active way of engaging users might be to poll them. Drake University uses a "soapbox" platform that allows library staff and users to pitch ideas, services and promotions.

Being more active means addressing issues that are important to users – quickly and professionally. This issue is compounded by the fact that problems outlined by users and the actions taken by staff are visible to the entire community in realtime.

It's important to post a variety of messages in order to keep your users engaged. This includes using a variety of different media. The use imagery is an effective way to communicate ideas quickly. This format is somewhat changing the way users search for and absorb information online

YouTube is being seen by some as a valuable collection management tool. Local digital collections are not as exposed to the wider web as applications like YouTube. This service can also make it easier to connect different accounts and so can make outputs discoverable to a number of different communities simultaneously.

The role of social media is expected to grow and become a primary means of communication for the future. Many of those who took part expect to see dedicated roles and teams emerging in the future.

Image licensed for reuse on commons.wikimedia.org