David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

IL2009: Micro Interactions, Conversations, and Customers

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Micro Interactions, Conversations & Customers

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My part of this session is above… I introduced the concept and talked about the variety of interactions available using social networks.

Up next was Amy Kearns and Julie Strange, talking about: Tweet What? 5 sweet ways to connect in 140 characters or less. Notes below:

Searching for tweets with a positive/negative attitude – sentiment at advanced search of search.twitter.com

showing examples of types of tweets from libraries

Twitter can be embedded anywhere:

1. use it for reference
2. connect for customer service
3. broadcast news & events
4. solicit feedback
5. broaden professional networks
6. harness the hive

Lists overview

Tweet Like you Mean it! Twitter Strategies for Tweeps

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Tweet Like You Mean It! Twitter Strategies For Tweeps

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I am one part of a 3-person preconference session at Internet Librarian 2009 that’s focused completely on Twitter! Here’s my part of the session – enjoy!

Tips for Managing Social Media Burnout

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Great tips from the Nonprofit Tech 2.0 blog on avoiding social media burnout (some of which I could use, boy howdy). The tips are:

  1. Don’t update your organization’s profiles on the weekend.
  2. Pick a time to quit in the evening and stick to it.
  3. Pick one social networking profile and keep it entirely for fun and your personal life.
  4. Sometimes just leave the smartphone at home.
  5. Take time for lunch.
  6. Breathe, exercise, and treat yourself. Seriously.
  7. Make time to connect with friends – in person or over the phone!
  8. Ignore, block, and delete grumpy, mean people.
  9. Stay focused on the Good.
  10. Make sure your work is appreciated by the higher ups in your organization.

Go read the whole article – lots more explanation for each point! Here are a couple more articles on burnout for those interested:

Pic by shoothead

Thank you, Anythink Libraries!

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Freak Out, Geek Out, Or Seek Out: Trends, Transformations & Change in Libraries

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Yesterday, I spoke at TechFest for Anythink Libraries in the Denver metro area. Cool place! They have completely re-worked their library brand, they have dumped Dewey, and are quickly picking up speed learning about technology (just the fact that their staff inservice day was called “Techfest” is a testament to that!). Keep an eye on this library – they’re doing some pretty cool things.

It was a fun presentation to do for a dynamic group of people. So thanks, Anythinkers!

Conversation is Experience

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Some web designers, especially those with a marketing or graphic design background, say they want to build an experience – but their designed experience, no matter who the website is for, tends to be designed like a movie or a rockstar’s website – heavy on the Flash, on the intro page (complete with low-pitched ominous music), and it makes cute noises when you click on a link.

That’s great for a movie or a rockstar website. But most of us are building library, organization and company websites. What type of “experiences” should we be creating for those types of websites?

Conversation Spaces

Visitors to your website want to talk – with you, and with each other. Are you providing conversation spaces? The web is FULL of conversation now – check out Amazon, most newspaper and TV news sites, YouTube, this blog, Facebook, Twitter – all spaces where conversation can happen. And conversation DOES happen, because that’s what people do. We like to talk, we like to share, we like to voice our opinion (as I hope some of you do in the comments!).

So, my simple digital experience tip for today is this – make sure to create conversation spaces on your websites. Places like comment boxes, online forums or discussion groups around a topic, Twitter accounts for feedback, online places to Ask a Librarian, etc.

Enable Conversations

Also remember to actually enable conversations once you build the space. What’s that mean? In my library’s case, we allow unmoderated comments to fly free and easy onto our digital branch. I know what some of you are thinking – “OMG, David! Don’t you have a TON of cussing, swearing, name-calling, and other highly inappropriate things being posted? How could you EVER allow that!???!!??”

Um. No. We simply don’t have that. Yes, once in awhile we have some negative comments. But why would we moderate or not show those? Instead, we respond appropriately.

But some of you will need to moderate comments for one reason or the other (i.e., those old-fashioned city attorneys who haven’t yet discovered the joys of Facebook). If you DO moderate comments, make sure to do it quickly. Same day is good. Same hour is best. Why? Because it’s a CONVERSATION. If someone starts a conversation and you don’t get around to moderating the comment for a few days … well, you have killed the conversation. And that’s really no conversation at all.

pic by Adventures in Librarianship