How to Maximize Your Message Through Social Media: A Global Masterclass from Library Professionals
Taking Libraries into the Future continues with the second of three posts on making the most of social media in academic library environments. This week's masterclass brings together the insights and advice of four experienced professionals from three outstanding institutions.
Did you know? Taking Libraries into the Future is also a quarterly webinar series for academic librarians. Learn more here.
Our last post explored the advantages and limitations of using social media to promote activities and collections in academic libraries. Today we follow it up with a ‘how to’ masterclass in specifics from library professionals based in three countries: Katy Kelly, who is Assistant Dean for Strategic Communication and Outreach, University of Dayton Libraries, Dayton, Ohio, USA; Sarah Howard and Catherine Radbourne, who are respectively Acting University Librarian and Research Support Librarian at QUT Library, Australia; and Marcus Wong, an Associate Director for Marketing Communications supporting academic libraries at a major institute of higher learning in Singapore.
As with previous installments in our series Taking Libraries into the Future, this masterclass takes the form of an interview, conducted by Gold Leaf’s Linda Bennett.
Linda Bennett: Could you describe some of the tactics that you use to promote the library?
Katy Kelly: I use a calendar spreadsheet to help plan messages to our audiences, employing specific communication facilities. Our campuswide internal communication channels include weekly emails, an intranet and digital signage. I gather and write current news items for a monthly email template. The email is then relayed by liaison librarians to their academic departments and I follow up by posting on the campuswide internal channels, as appropriate. I boost communication about certain topics to student channels, in keeping with the broader school year. Our calendar also includes dates for engaging with alumni and donors through official university advancement channels. This gives us strategically timed opportunities to tell our story through proven outreach methods.
“We must be creative and strategic with our content to attract followers … we have hired a very gifted student photographer whose excellent photo content on our Instagram page recently increased our followers by 25% in four months.”
Sarah Howard and Catherine Radbourne: When we have an event, we usually use multiple avenues to promote it. For example, we have several events spanning Love Data Week. We start with a blog post that covers all the events and background information relating to the week and then link to a news item on our internal network, promoting it to staff and students. We follow that up with targeted emails inviting prospects to pre-register. During the week of the event, we will send several Twitter/X posts promoting a data-related news item (it could feature a dataset, an external blog post, etc.).
LB: If you use social media as part of your strategy, how do you engage with it?
KK: Social media is part of our communications strategy, but it is used primarily to engage with external audiences such as parents, prospective students, alumni and donors. Our librarians write blog posts to tell the story of their work: perhaps how they support student learning, the impact of a monetary gift or a description of something unique held in our collections. Blog posts are included in the university’s e-newsletter and shared on our Twitter/X and Facebook accounts. We use Instagram to circulate attractive photos that showcase how our spaces, expertise and collections are used. Students like to see themselves in these posts and such content also appeals to our external audiences. We use TikTok to create #BookTok content to raise awareness of our large collection of books to read for fun.
SH and CR: We certainly try our best to make our marketing effective and we know what a powerful tool a social media platform can be. Over the years we have used a variety of platforms including our blog, Facebook and Instagram, but we are currently focusing on Twitter/X, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Ultimately, we are guided by the Queensland University of Technology social media team, which oversees all QUT social media platforms. If they ask us to stop using a platform, we comply. If we want to open an account on a new platform we must seek their permission; but they encourage us to post content in the ways we consider most effective. This gives us a lot of freedom, although we always follow university policy. When we organize an event, celebrate an occasion or promote a service or space, we take photos and include these in our posts (having first obtained permission from the subjects). Visuals work well when engaging our followers. We take pride in ensuring our content is accessible to all and add alternative text descriptions to images.
Collaboration is important to us. We include others (both internal and external) in our posts, via hashtags and handles – for example this celebration of National Simultaneous Storytime. Thinking about when to share a post is important, and we find that engagement in the afternoon is higher than in the morning.
“The adverse publicity arises from user and business owner (mis)behaviour, and not the intrinsic features and value proposition of social media itself.”
LB: Do you feel that some of the adverse publicity social media has encountered recently detracts from its value, or is it still a very powerful marketing tool?
KK: Yes, I think perceptions of social media are changing for the worse, whether it be the platforms’ stance on algorithms and censorship, or dangers for children and the lack of privacy controls. It provides a good marketing tool for engaging with people who want to know more about us, but it’s difficult to grow our audience without the boost of paid-for posts. We must be creative and strategic with our content to attract followers: for example, we have hired a very gifted student photographer whose excellent photo content on our Instagram page recently increased our followers by 25% in four months.
SH and CR: We haven’t received negative or adverse comments on our posts. Spam is the worst thing we have experienced, but as posts must be approved before they are published, we catch and delete it. Until it became X, Twitter was our platform of choice. The recent changes to this platform have certainly affected our use of it. We no longer enjoy the same level of engagement because many of our followers have closed their accounts. Some libraries have also left X.
We have transferred our efforts to LinkedIn, a platform that seems to be increasing in popularity in academia, where we are discovering more willingness to engage and a better overall experience than Twitter/X provides. We believe that, used judiciously, social media still offers a powerful marketing tool. It helps us not only to promote our services and spaces but to share information and news – for example, changes to opening hours – easily and effectively.
“Impact stories, photo and video content get the most engagement, especially when the audience can see themselves in the subject.”
Marcus Wong: We should make a careful distinction between the functionality and value proposition offered by social media and how the platforms are actually used and run. It’s complicated: how social media companies and their owners choose to conduct themselves and their businesses media is different from, and may conflict with, the manner in which various segments actually make use of these platforms. It is my view that the adverse publicity arises from user and business owner (mis)behavior, and not the intrinsic features and value proposition of social media itself.
I therefore believe that social media has much to offer society. It enables brands, organizations and other groups to address and engage with their respective publics, demonstrate value and share meaningful information. Social media also continues to facilitate the engagement of brand advocates and enthusiasts, creating an online focal point for communities to congregate and interact. The human desire to connect with and relate to others or just ‘keep up with the Kardashians’ is a powerful incentive. A technology or platform that offers the right mix of accessibility, richness of content and ability to attract a critical mass of participants will always achieve popularity. However, marketers and communicators should remember that the ways in which people prefer to interact are constantly evolving – for example, there is increasing reluctance to share updates publicly; instead, users have turned to private groups and direct messaging to engage with each other. We should not feel beholden or obliged to use a particular platform or service to keep up with the Joneses (or Kardashians!).
“We are discovering more willingness to engage with Linkedin and a better overall experience than X provides.”
LB: From your experience, which types of contact do academics and your other patrons most value? What do they respond to well? Since library patrons are often very busy, how is it best to engage with them without eating too much into their time?
KK: Impactful stories, photo and video content get the most engagement, especially when the audience can see themselves in the subject. We tell stories that showcase a benefit to a certain audience, such as faculty or students, that demonstrate the broad range of our services. I believe our calendar helps us stay on track by supplying timely and consistent communication, so we’re covering important topics every year, just in different ways.
Here are some examples: Barbie Streamhouse, Curricular Comrades, “Without the help of the UD, I couldn’t publish this paper” and My “Why UD” Story: The Libraries.
SH and CR: Our social media statistics show that postgraduates and higher degree students are our main – and sometimes only – readers, alongside our own staff and professionals from other libraries. To communicate effectively with all our students, we need the assistance of our marketing and communications teams, to use our Learning Management System (Canvas), official university email, digital signage and website banners.
LB: Katie, Sarah, Catherine and Marcus, thank you very much indeed for these brilliant insights into how you work and for the many tips you have shared in this post.
In our third and final post on social media in libraries, Marie O’Neill Maher will describe how the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) uses social media. Look out for the interview next week!
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[Title Image by epapijon/iStock/Getty Images]