David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

The Pew Research Social Media Update 2016 is Out!

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Pew Research Center’s Social Media Update 2016 is out. As usual, there are some interesting stats.

Some highlights include:

  • 68% of all US adults are Facebook users
  • 28% use Instagram
  • 26% use Pinterest
  • 25% use LinkedIn
  • 21% use Twitter

Other interesting tidbits:

  • Facebook use is growing, probably because of older adults joining up. This shot up – people age 65 and older went up from 48% to 62%. That’s quite a lot!
  • 76% of Americans who use Facebook visit it daily; 55% visit several times per day (guilty).
  • Yes, younger people still use Facebook.
  • Twitter use seems to have plateaued. But it’s still active.
  • Pinterest still attracts more women than men.
  • 72% of American adults are smartphone owners

Pew sorta-kinda included Snapchat in this survey, lumping it with messaging apps like Kik and WhatsApp. Pew says that 24% of smartphone owners use “messaging apps that automatically delete sent messages, such as Snapchat or Wickr.”

They also said that this type of app is really popular among younger adults. 56% of smartphone owners age 18-29 use auto-delta apps. So that’s a lot! Maybe next time include it in the social media section, perhaps?

Anyway – check out the full report here!

Image from Pew Research Center

Learning from the App Store

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img_9587Ever wondered what people are doing on their smartphones and tablets? Want to know what’s the newest trend is in mobile social media platforms?

Look no further than your phone’s app store.

Here are some things you can learn by looking at the Apple App Store:

  • What’s popular – what people are interested in, what’s captured their interest.
  • Most popular social media tools.
  • What people are doing – for example, sharing photos, playing games, etc.
  • Emerging trends – see what’s experimental and what’s taking off.
  • Maybe you’ll even find an easier way to do stuff

For example, when I take a peek at the app store, I see this:

  • Social media is huge. Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter are in the top 20 free apps.
  • The election just happened – CNN is #2 on the list of free apps. Fox news is #16 and CBS is #47.
  • Visual sharing is popular – hence Snapchat and Instagram.
  • Video – Youtube is #5 on the list, Instagram is #6.
  • There are apparently a LOT of guitar players in the world – Tabs & Chords is #15 on the list of Paid apps.
  • Top Grossing apps – games, video (i.e., Netflix), and music (Pandora and Spotify)

The most interesting thing about this sneaky little trend watching tool? The app lists will most likely be completely different in 6 months or so. Try it out as a trend watching tool, and see what you discover!

Community and Colleges – 2 Interviews

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communitysignalI recently participated in a couple of interviews. Here’s some info about both of them:

  1. Community Signal podcast – I talked with Patrick O’Keefe about libraries and their communities, both online and offline versions. It was a fun talk! We covered a wide range of material, including digital branches and what online community professionals can learn from libraries. Check out the podcast (and the article) here.
  2. McKee Library interview – I participated in an email interview with McKee Library, and they posted it this week. In the interview, they asked me 4 questions: What am I working now, How have libraries been part of my life, What is your favorite book and why, and my advice for today’s college students. Check out my answers here.

Interviews are always fun to do, and hopefully provide some good thoughts and discussion, too. Enjoy!

Libraries ARE Content Creators

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OK – one more post from Internet Librarian. I attended a session … I don’t remember who talked or what the talk was about, really.

Because I got stuck on this. One of the presenter’s many points (really more of a side point) was this: libraries aren’t content creators.

I’d strongly disagree with that. How about you?

Let’s count the ways libraries and librarians ARE, in fact, content creators. At my library, we create gobs of content, including:

  • blog posts
  • The rest of the website. All those pages. With words. And images.
  • social media posts
  • press releases
  • posters advertising events
  • weekly e-newsletter
  • Annual community novels – we write the intros, the outline, and some of the chapters.
  • bi-monthly print newspaper, mailed to 47,000 households
  • catalog records!
  • tipsheets
  • videos
  • content for classes, events, and seminars
  • internal Intranet posts
  • emails. Those count, right?
  • RFPs, resolutions, executive briefs
  • etc.

I think we make a bit of content, don’t you?

The speaker was an academic librarian. I’m just guessing here, but … LibGuides (used by many academic libraries) are content. Presentations, bibliographic instruction, handouts … content. Special collections archives and digitization? Content. All the words describing all the services and stuff? Content.

Heck – the speaker’s presentation … was content!

Moral of the story: don’t ever let a librarian say we aren’t content creators. Because we totally are.

Photo by Rebecca

Interesting Tidbits from Internet Librarian 2016

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I always have a great time at Internet Librarian – meeting up with friends, giving talks, and attending sessions to learn something new or different.

That certainly happened this year! I have a longish list of things to explore in a bit more detail (websites, books, and ideas).

Here’s what I found interesting as I attended some of the talks:

Day 1 Keynote – Indi Young (at www.indiyoung.com):

She gave a talk about Deep Understanding. Not sure I can explain that well, though it was interesting. But I loved some of her major points, like her take on active listening (which helps to get to deep understanding):

  • Act like a tour guide. You don’t ask about the thing the tour guide didn’t bring up. You ask questions about the stuff she does bring up.
  • Break through the surface to get to the depth (reasoning, reactions, guiding principles, etc).
  • Find out why. Toddlers are not embarrassed about what they don’t know.
  • We don’t bring our thoughts to the session. We dive into the depths of the other person’s thoughts.
  • Start with scope. What went through your mind as you <tried to accomplish your purpose>?
  • Ground it. Use and event that happened. I.e., what about the last time, the first time, a memorable time…
  • No list of questions needed. Just follow the last set of details.
  • Avoid judgements and contempt. Her pain is real, even if you don’t agree.
  • Rapport – DO support the participant emotionally.
  • No notes, no analysis, no problem-solving.
  • Attempt to banish assumptions.

I know – hard to do, right?

Gary Price – Super Searcher apps, Sites, & Tools.

Gary often gives a talk about new search tools and interesting apps. Here are some of the things he mentioned this time:

  • – all the tools he talked about can be found on this web page.
  • Zoho – they host one-off web pages for free. Example – the page mentioned above with all the tools listed.
  • Webrecorder – create high-fidelity, interactive recordings of any web site you browse – sorta like a DVR recording of what you can browse. You can also take screenshots. Free tool.
  • Audiosear.ch – full text search and recommendation API for podcasts and radio. You can even set up alerts on words and phrases that appear in a podcast. Cool.
  • C-SPAN – their search tool.a lot of author interviews. Every word spoken is keyword-searchable. Uses CC for the search.
  • Notablist – searches email campaigns!
  • PhotoMath – solves math problems via the camera. And does it really well. It even “shows the work!” This would have been handy in algebra class…
  • and quite a few other tools and apps. Check his list out!

Brendan Howley – Day 2 keynote speaker.

He talked about story telling. It was an interesting talk, especially since I’ve been thinking about video again in a big way.

  • He mentioned this idea – ask the funniest local person to make a short video about the library. It’s bound to a a fun one!
  • He also emphasized this – keep making and publishing content! He said “Good content now is better than perfect content on Friday.”
  • He also had a valid point about mobile users on your website. You need to check your website analytics to see what your bounce rate is for mobile users. Your goal is a bounce rate of under 30%. Most libraries have a 70% bounce rate, which means that they are using the mobile app or website once and not coming back.

I got a lot more than this out of the conference – this is just what I captured. Hope to see YOU there next year!

Image by FoodLibrarian