This is Natalie checking in for my first blog post. Today’s post is going to revolve around the article “Introduction to Social Media Optimization: Setting the Foundation for Building Community” by Scott W.H. Young.
As far as my reasons for selecting this article, I’ve always been fascinated with how social media—and technology in general—have shaped our world. I’m an early 90’s kid and, as I grew older, it was interesting to watch the world (or at least, the U.S.) reshape itself around all the technological advancements we’ve made. Technology went from being this strange new wonder to common occurrence as a way to maneuver through society. Social media is no different in that sense.
Businesses have evolved in sharing the latest announcements, updates, and bargain sales via e-mail and sponsored advertisements through social media platforms. I can see up to ten different advertisements every time I scroll my Facebook timeline.
While newspapers, news stations, journals and magazines are all still relevant and used often today, social media is one of the one of the quickest platforms to spread and share news. An example of this is the video footage of Notre Dame burning last April going viral worldwide on Twitter and Facebook within hours of the fire being discovered.
Basically, in order to give a wide range of people access to an announcement of any sort as soon as possible, social media is a very impactful way to do so; which brings us to the article I mentioned earlier about social media optimization (SMO). Young’s article entreats libraries to strengthen and connect with their communities by utilizing a platform that already links people together: social networks. He argues that optimization can be achieved through five principles:
- create shareable content
- make sharing easy
- reward engagement
- proactively share
- measure use and encourage reuse
(Young, 2016, p.6).
My biggest take-away from these principles is the theme they revolve around, which is that the best way for libraries to augment use of social media platforms is to utilize interactivity. Two-way communication and interaction are key to community. Every single one of the five principles listed above revolves around some form of engagement between libraries and patrons, implying libraries function best by playing off the interests of their patrons, which cannot be done without some form of interaction with the patrons. To support this, Young compares the Montana State University Library’s experiences with their patrons before and after incorporation interaction with followers on social media. Before direct interaction with followers, MSU would post automated announcements and responses to their social media pages, which resulted in very few followers from their target audience: college students. By hiring someone to interact and engage with social media followers and create posts in a more relatable way, it gave the library a “personality” and “point of view” for the patrons to connect with and as a result, more students followed the social media pages (Young, 2016, p.7).
This caused me to wonder what others had to say in the terms of how to best optimize social media and whether direct interaction with patrons via these networks played a part.
I was led to a similar article titled “How Social is Your Web Site? Top Five Tips for Social Media Optimization” by Darlene Fichter. Her article was directed toward any sort of website, regardless of topic. However, she too had her own set of principles that required direct interaction and engagement with readers and followers:
- be friendly and mean it
- be link-worthy
- make bookmarking and sharing content easy
- let library web “stuff” circulate
- participate: join in the conversation wherever your users are
(Fichter, 2007, p.58-59)
Fichter also made the point toward the end of her article that “Libraries are in the business of building relationships and communities in order to meet the needs of users. It makes sense to carry out activities online that you would carry out face to face” (Fichter, 2007, p.60) A face to face meeting with a patron requires interaction and the ability to maneuver the conversation to engage the patron in something they have an interest or passion in. Social media optimization also requires interaction and engagement, even if it is on a different platform.
Of course, direct interaction with patrons and followers on social media comes with its own set of troubles. Joe Fernandez’s article “A SWOT Analysis for Social Media in Libraries” highlights some of the cons of interacting with patrons online. The biggest “weakness” he brought up was “libraries may be exposing themselves to criticism” (Fernandez, 2009, p.37). Librarians are human and humans can make mistakes. Having a librarian directly interact with followers requires a certain amount of caution. While wanting to be friendly and develop a good relationship with patrons, sometimes the wrong thing can be said or be misinterpreted and that’s how “cancel” culture comes into play. It can be difficult to delete things off social media, and even then some things may not be able to be completely erased from the internet. The wrong or incorrect response can lead to loss of followers and it damages community relations.
At the end of the day though, the presence social media doesn’t appear to be diminishing any time soon and libraries could benefit from learning how to optimize their social media use. And, while direct interaction with patrons can be tricky and has its risks, interaction appears to have a more positive effect.
References:
Fernandez, J. (2009). A SWOT Analysis for Social Media in Libraries. Online, 33(5), 35–37. Retrieved from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=44372921&scope=site
Fichter, D. (2007). How Social Is Your Web Site? Top Five Tips for Social Media Optimization. Online, 31(3), 57–60. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.lib.utk.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lls&AN=502915184&scope=site
Young, S.W.H. (2016). Introduction to Social Media: Optimization Setting the Foundation for Building Community. Library Technology Reports, 52(8). Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.lib.utk.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=122939785&scope=site
Social Informatics 