Marketing

market day by sunstarrr

This is a tricky one. For the first time I felt I needed some inspiration from fellow Cam23 bloggers before I started. Having looked at some of the other blogs I found not only ideas but also that I am not so far behind with my blogging as others.

I think that social media offers lots of new ways to reach library users but it can be difficult to decide on the best ones to use. Facebook and Twitter are two of the most popular forms of social communication at the moment but it wasn't so long ago that Friends Reunited was the one people talked about. There will always be something new which is both the good and bad side of progress. How many people change mobile phones regularly because the technology that was new and exciting a year ago is now out-of-date and obsolete.

Okay, now I've got that off my chest, I would just like to state for the record that I am not opposed to social media, just it's overuse for trivialities. Anything that gets the library out there must be a good thing. The Librarian recently posted a survey to our undergraduates on the relevant Camtools sites asking them what they thought of the library service and some of them replied that they couldn't possibly comment as they'd never heard of us. Part of the problem may have been that the survey referred to us by our library name and not by the Department name but it was still disappointing. The Librarian has decided to include a question next year asking people how we can best communicate with them. This may lead in the future to the creation of a library Facebook page.

As for the adoption of a tool or strategy to promote the Library, I would choose Twitter, which we already have. It's very popular and needs only short notices so it's very quick and easy to maintain.

Linkedin

LinkedIn smurfs by 99zeros

I have had a week's break from blogging for two reasons: the first being that the Librarian and I embarked on a major stock check of the rare book collection, trying to discover how much of it is catalogued online. We made the wild and totally unfounded assumption that it was all on there somewhere. The first hour quickly disabused us of that hope. We finished the basic checking of over 6000 books in a week but the queries and adding of missing records will keep me busy for much longer. The second reason is that after Facebook I needed a lie down in a darkened room with a damp cloth on my forehead before I felt able to tackle the next Thing. Last Wednesday, faced with a choice of more blogging or poking about among old and dusty tomes, I'm afraid that age and dust proved to be the greater temptation.

OK, finished with digression. Must concentrate. I looked at all of the suggested profiles on Linkedin. Some had more on than others, like Facebook you can reveal as little or as much about yourself as you like. The big difference is that Facebook is more of a personal networking site whereas Linkedin is solely professional. You can put your CV up there and find other people in the same areas of business. All users wanting to see the whole of your profile have to ask first so you can reject any undesirable suitors. Twitter feeds can also be added to a profile but this would depend on the kind of tweets you receive. Should a profile be completely professional or does it matter if some of the personal sneaks in?

I can see how this would be a useful tool in the business world (and popular with Smurfs as well!) but less so in the library community.

Facebook

Facebook by laikolosse

I had just managed to catch up on all my Cam23 Things before I went away for a week and now I'm back to find four new things vying for my attention. Thing 16 is Facebook which is not the best thing to ease my way back into blogging with. I didn't have a Facebook account until I set one up with the most basic of information and following Cam23's instruction that you didn't have to be truthful, I changed my date of birth. Thinking about this afterwards though, I realised my mistake as not only had I hidden it on my profile but I had actually made myself older. When lying about their age, people only make themselves older when they are under 18 and wanting to buy alcohol or nearly 60 and wanting to pay concessionary prices.

But, back to the original subject. I looked at some of the library Facebook pages. My favouriteswere Jerwood Library, Trinity Hall and the English Faculty Library. They had updates on changes in opening hours, reminders to return books and other news items. They also had photos of events and images of books held in the library. I can see the value of Facebook for a library as a further way to publicise your activities, in the same way that Twitter can. However, this would also be another form of communication to keep updated. Whenever the Balfour Library has news to impart, the Librarian already has to do some or all of the following: put it on our website, post it onto our blog, send out a Department-wide email, post it on several Camtools sites, write a piece for the Departmental newsletter and tweet about it on Twitter. The libraries' Facebook pages mentioned above both had over a hundred followers each, mostly students and academics, I presume, so maybe this would be a more popular way of staying in touch than some of the other ways.

From a personal perspective, I don't like Facebook as I feel it's too intrusive and it can be easy to get caught out. A recent example was a group of pilots from a very well-known airline experiencing industrial unrest who posted rants on Facebook criticising their passengers. They may now be facing disciplinary action. Social media is not like having a conversation or writing a letter, it is there for everyone to see.