David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

How to Blog for the Library

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Go read Chris Brogan’s recent blog post titled What I Told the Bloggers at Social Media Marketing World.

The article mostly presents some ideas on the current state of business blogging (that’s sorta what we do). I love this quote:

Blogging for business is about converting attention to value. You have to earn the attention, and then you have to deliver that attention to a potential opportunity to drive value.

I like it so much that I’m writing a whole blog post about it. Some thoughts:

“Blogging for business…” When you write a blog post for your library, you are blogging for business. Blogging for your organization. It means you have to develop a reason behind what you write. Which moves us to the next point.

“… is about converting attention to value.” Yes, there’s a reason we blog for our libraries. It’s not because we are good people, or because we like to share. There needs to be a more strategic reason to do it, or it’s really not worth anyone’s time. So keep reading …

“Earn the attention.” This idea isn’t all that hard. To gain attention, do this: write well, write in an easily readable, conversational style. And share stuff your customers are actually interested in.

Oh, and actually share it somewhere (most likely on your Facebook Page – wherever you have a large gathering of customers).

My new book - Face2Face: Using Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Tools to Create Great Customer Connections“Deliver that attention to a potential opportunity to drive value.” Huh? Another way to say that is to move readers to a next step. After reading, what do you want the reader to do next? On a library blog, that next step could be any number of things, including:

  • check something out
  • visit the building
  • attend an event or class
  • find out something new about the library (i.e, “we have ebooks!”)
  • register for something
  • etc.

We are not businesses, so we don’t sell stuff. But it’s easy enough to translate that idea of “delivering value” or “selling stuff” to what we do as libraries. The “value” we deliver is information, knowledge, learning, and improving people’s lives.

Want to improve your library’s blog? Set some strategies and goals for your blog, deliver a next step in everything you do, and start measuring your successes.

image by Reuben Ingber

Mind your Posting Style

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I recently read this article on Snapchat for business: Millennials [heart] Snapchat: 15 Tips on How to Use Snapchat for Business. The article has some helpful tips for Snapchat, and for social media posting in general.

One tip that struck me was this: “Post in Snapchat style.” The author says this:

Snapchat is a community that has developed its own style and language. Keep it short, fun, designed in the snapchat style (stickers, filters, text and drawings over images … you’ll start to see the trends) and interactive.

That makes a lot of sense, of course. You wouldn’t want to act like a grown-up on Snapchat – that’s just be weird!

But this made me think – is there a “posting style” to the other social media channels we use, like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc.? And do we need to adapt our content to those posting styles?

I think so. For example, videos on YouTube work best when you immediately jump into the content – no introductions needed.  Twitter is obviously short and sweet.

This could (eventually) also mean that you create a unique posting style for your content, and stick to it. For example, you might develop a certain “style” of photos on Instagram (that’s a best practice, by the way), and try to share photos and videos using that same style structure.

So go read the rest of the article – it has some great Snapchat for business tips.

Question – have YOU developed a style or some posting “must haves” when you post content to your library’s social media channels? If so – please share. What are they? I’d love to know more!

Also – I’m davidleeking on Snapchat (and pretty much everywhere else). Friend me!

8 Easy Ways to Humanize your Digital Branch

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At my library, we like to say “It’s not about the stuff, it’s about the people.” Sure, we have a lot of cool books, videos and services, but our staff are awesome and they help make the library what it is. They help give the library a human face.

How do you present that “human face” of the library online? Here are eight ways to humanize your digital branch:

  1. Pictures
  2. Conversational Writing
  3. Videos
  4. Being Available
  5. Responding Fast
  6. Cut Extra Words
  7. Reach Out
  8. Tell the Customer’s Story

Read the rest of the article at Emerald Group Publishing. I also wrote a whole book on this topic!

Image by Marjan Lazarevski

Huge List of Social Media Policies

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I’ve been working on a set of social media guidelines for my library. It’s still in rough draft form, and has a long way to go (i.e., a bunch of meetings) before the library decides to use it.

Social media policies and guidelines can be really hard to write. Thankfully, Social Media Governance can help! This site has links to hundreds of social media policies from corporate, government, and non-profit organizations and businesses.

Here are some guidelines I found while poking through some of the links:

  • Please respect copyright. If it is not yours, don’t use it. It is very simple. It is that person’s choice to share his or her material with the world, not yours. Before posting someone else’s work, please check with the owner first. (From Adidas).
  • Be thoughtful about how you present yourself in online social networks. The lines between public and private, and personal and professional are blurred in online social networks. If you identify yourself as an Apple employee or are known to be one, you are now connected to your co-workers, Leaders and even Apple’s customers. You should ensure that content associated with you is consistent with Apple policies. (Apple Retail employees).
  • All AP journalists are encouraged to have accounts on social networks. They have become an essential tool for AP reporters to gather news and share links to our published work. We recommend having one account per network that you use both personally and professionally. (from the Associated Press).
  • AP staffers must be aware that opinions they express may damage the AP’s reputation as an unbiased source of news. AP employees must refrain from declaring their views on contentious public issues in any public forum and must not take part in organized action in support of causes or movements (also from the AP).
  • Guidelines for functioning in an electronic world are the same as the values, ethics and confidentiality policies employees are expected to live every day, whether you’re Tweeting, talking with customers or chatting over the neighbor’s fence. Remember, your responsibility to Best Buy doesn’t end when you are off the clock. For that reason, this policy applies to both company sponsored social media and personal use as it relates to Best Buy (from Best Buy).
  • Know that the Internet is permanent. Once information is published online, it is essentially part of a permanent record, even if you “remove/delete” it later or attempt to make it anonymous. If your complete thought, along with its context, cannot be squeezed into a character-restricted space (such as Twitter), provide a link to an online space where the message can be expressed completely and accurately (from Coca-Cola).

Interesting stuff, huh? Remember – if you are thinking about creating some social media guidelines for your organization, you don’t have to start from scratch. Find some good examples, pull some points off those, and then tweak and expand as needed.

The Internet is our friend!

Image from Beth Kanter

Nice Book Review of my book Face2Face!

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Zemanta Related Posts ThumbnailThe Teachers College Record just reviewed my book Face2Face: Using Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Tools to Create Great Customer Connections. It’s unfortunately behind a paywall now, but it’s a nice book review!

Here are some snippets from the review:

At a time when social networking is often criticized for driving humans apart, King’s book is upbeat and suggests that we have more of an opportunity to connect in authentic ways with others than ever before, both on a personal and organizational level. While of course nothing can substitute for true “face-to-face” communication, King’s book provides many examples of how social media tools might actually allow for more humanity in virtual venues than we might realize.

Having just finished Dave Eggers’s The Circle (Eggers, 2014), which paints quite a dystopian picture of social networking, it was somewhat of a balm to read King’s cheery tips. – hee… ok 🙂

In a time when many school districts throughout the country still continue to exist at a level of alarmism that hasn’t been seen since Prohibition, King’s approach seems more of an appropriate required read, not only for business owners and organization leaders, but also for school board members and taxpayers.

Sweet! Go read the whole review ( if you already have an account there – silly paywalls).

And of course … go buy the book. Helpful link to Amazon included :-).