Social Blog

Introduction

One of the things we pride ourselves on at the North Grandville Public Library is our ability to connect with patrons. With a little friendly conversation over the reference desk or circulation desk we are able to choose useful and interesting resources, develop relevant programs, and suggest community events that appeal to our patrons. It is important to us that the people of North Grandville see the library not as a storage facility for books, but as a place that helps enrich their lives. To improve our ability to connect with patrons we have decided that we cannot limit our interaction to the people who come through our door and when people come through our door. That is why we have created a Twitter account.

By posting quick updates and small pieces of information geared towards the interest of our patrons, we hope to increase our presence in their life and their knowledge of the world around them. This should also prove to be a good venue to reach community members who might not be patrons (yet!) by sharing information about our resources and programs with other groups and people who may be interested. Even just getting their attention with an interesting link might give them cause to come check us out (online or in person). We think this is a fun and organic way to create a sense of community for our library online.

Target Audience

North Grandville Public Library’s twitter account has been established in order to reach out and engage an often hard to reach clientele, kids and teens. We believe that the best way to connect with this group is to ‘go where they are’ and ‘speak in their language’. We are specifically interested in expanding the library beyond the physical walls of the library itself by reaching out to clients in more convenient ways. With the predominance of social networking tools throughout society, and as a result of the strong use of these tools as communication, and collaboration means, we believe that we can better serve this often hard to reach group. We feel that our twitter account will attract this group because of the strong population of them who already use social networking tools. Whether they use these tools for recreational, informative or social interests, the fact that they are there, and that we know that they are, is imperative. Here at North Grandville Public Library we are excited to engage kids and youths by encouraging them to participate in programs, take advantage of our resources and services, and essentially learn more about the library through our twitter account. It is just another tool we are taking advantage of in this social network driven society in order to communicate with our valued patrons.

Our project however, did not come without a few barriers, or rather dispiriting information. In a study done by Pew “Social Media and Young Adults” it was found that teens, 12-17 year olds, account for the majority of social networkers at 73%. They typically use these tools to post pictures and videos, to chat with one another and visit and post on others’ facebook, twitter and other accounts. Although there is a large population of teens using these tools, many of them are not particularly interested in Twitter, as only a mere 8% follow or have twitter accounts. Twitter appears to be an exception to the growing use of online tools. A mere google search of ‘Teens AND Twitter’ reveals a discouraging amount of literature exploring their disinterest in twitter.

For example:

1. “Why Do Teens Shun Twitter?” (PC World)-
2. “Teens Don’t Tweet; Twitter’s Growth Not Fueled By Youth” ( Nielsen Wire)
3. “Twitter not all that popular among teenagers, report finds” …(Washington Post)

This was an issue North Grandville Public Library had to work through; as, despite our interest in engaging and capturing the audience of kids and teens, we were unsure of how successful our efforts would be. We wanted to increase the potential success of our project, and ensure that this group would be responsive to our efforts. Therefore, we explored this issue further, particularly by speaking and surveying youths in order to determine why exactly they are not responsive to twitter. We asked such questions as ‘why do you not have a twitter account?’, ‘would you follow your public library on twitter?’ and ‘if you were to follow the public library on twitter, what kind of content would you like to see?’, in order to learn more. By better understanding youths and their relationship, or lack there of, with twitter our library was able to apply our knowledge in order to create the best twitter account we could build. We believe that our library’s twitter account has strong potential, and can inevitably capture the attention of this group. Although we cannot assume that they will be, and remain, responsive to our endeavours, our promotional strategies will inevitably assist us in our efforts to make our project as successful as possible. We have and will continue to develop strategies to encourage kids and teens to not only follow our account, but also to comment, contribute and collaborate with one another and with our staff.

Twitter: The software and its useful features

After researching other public libraries that are implementing Twitter and internalizing the results of our recent patron survey (in which patrons described how they would like to see our North Grandville Public Library grow), we collectively decided to use Twitter. This software is a social networking and microblogging service that allows users (staff and patrons) to use up to 140 characters to post or “tweet” a message (Twittering Libraries, Brown) on our own account web page. Posts or “tweets” can also consist of a photo, audio clip, or even a video snippet. Once we developed our North Grandville Public Library account, our library circle, or audience of “followers” could “follow” our posts or messages. With this Twitter web-based software, we also have the option of creating these messages or “tweets” for all of our patrons as a large group, or to make some private, or to send certain messages to only certain reading or library groups of subscribers, such as our teen readers, or teen techies groups. As our staff update our library “tweets”, it is not only displayed on our Twitter account web page, but is also delivered to our “followers’” or patrons’ pages who have signed up to receive our messages (based on Twittering Libraries, Brown). Our information is then aggregated into the personal stream of our patrons. We can also tag posts with keywords so that patrons can search topics within our posts and follow conversations (7 Things…, EDUCAUSE).

We chose Twitter because social media service marketing trends and industry information indicate that Twitter is currently the best-known microblogging site (7 Things You Should Know About Microblogging, EDUCAUSE). Twitter is also still growing, with increasing applications that enable microblogging to do more, which is encouraging that this software will be able to increase our communication and community.

We also selected Twitter as our social media of choice for North Grandville Public Library because it will give us the closest connection to our users, especially teens. Twitter is one of the most current, cutting-edge social media softwares available, and if this is what our patrons are using, focusing on our teen groups, then this is the software for us.  Using Twitter will also help bring our library into the realm of Web 2.0 services by implementing this real-time web software.”

We feel positive that using Twitter will be very advantageous to our North Grandville Public Library and library community. This web-based social networking software has many outstanding and library-friendly features, as outlined below:

- free software; only cost is staff time

- quick and easy to use, like instant messaging (e.g. Microsoft Messenger); will take very little staff time

- web-based software can be accessed by mobile devices; staff can update from several devices

- on the flipside, patrons can link to Twitter with many mobile devices and applications and access our posts; ease of accessibility

- can be used often; frequency will keep patrons interested

- software has reach and scope of other social networking services (e.g. our page will be available to the public like other websites) (based on Good, from Brown)

- simply that we will be able to reach, connect, and communicate with a few individuals or all of our patrons at once

- we will have the ability to network with not only patrons in our library community, but also other libraries in our system and the staff there as well

- this tool can be redirected for staff use, such as for educational and professional development opportunities

- ultimately it allows us to create awareness in advertising our programs and services

- finally we can improve our branding by incorporating/syncing our Twitter account with our other social media services (e.g. our main North Grandville Public Library website, our Readers’ Advisory blog, our Facebook page, etc.)

Execution

Most of our tweets will focus on awareness – the promotion of new or interesting books and resources, and informing people what activities and events are going on at North Grandville Public Library. In these tweets it is important that we provide a link to the library’s webpage that provides more information. We will also keep on top of current events and issues affecting the community so that we can provide links to useful websites and promote our items that are of timely interest.

We also plan to follow other high profile libraries to stay informed about what they are doing and increase our followers’ exposure to the public library community.

We have set up an RSS feed to receive any tweets that mention the word “library” within 25 kilometers of North Grandville (London, Ontario). This way we know if anyone is talking about us, or if someone has a library related issue or question, then we can help, even if it wasn’t directed to us (suggested by David Allen Kelly). To reach out to other people who may not be following us or be patrons, North Grandville will search for community groups and events that have Twitter accounts and send them messages about our resources and services based on their interests (also suggested by David Allen Kelly).

Maintenance

All staff, including librarians, technicians, and pages, are encouraged to tweet for the library if they come across anything that people might find interesting or useful. To ensure that this is not ignored when things are busy and that important events get the promotion they deserve, one staff member will be responsible for posting and responding to tweets directed at the library (responding should be done every day, and no more than three days, at the very most, should go by without a new post). This responsibility will rotate month to month, and staff members and always ask the project manager for the Twitter account for help or advice. Re-tweets are also encouraged for events, but they should be used sparingly.

Promotion

We will promote our new Twitter account heavily on our website, and in the teen and kid’s areas of the library, as well as at their programs. This includes adding our Twitter user name to our brochures, bookmarks and posters, and, of course, word of mouth. It is hoped that gaining followers on Twitter will come naturally once the community is aware of the library’s Twitter account.

Follow us on http://twitter.com/NGrPubLibrary