David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Managing your Library’s Social Media Channels

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Just an FYI – my new Library Technology Report is out! It’s titled Managing your Library’s Social Media Channels. What’s it about? From the introduction:

“The process of implementing, managing, and measuring social media channels in a library setting will be discussed. Tips include:

  • creating strategy and goals for social media channels
  • creating teams to run the library’s social media channels
  • connecting and communicating with customers using social media
  • tracking usage and engagement levels using analytics and insights”

Here’s a brief summary of each chapter:

  • Chapter 1 – why use social media. Yes, you still need to explain this to people.
  • Chapter 2 – the “landscape” of social media in libraries. It outlines what social media tools are being used and why, with some examples of stellar social media use in libraries.
  • Chapter 3 – How to connect & communicate with customers. I wrote a whole book on that, if you’re interested 🙂
  • Chapter 4 – Social media teams. How to manage the work of a social media team. What they should post, how they should post, and how to deal with problems.
  • Chapter 5 – Analytics, Goals, and Strategy for Social Media. What to track and why, and how to connect social media to those large, multi-year library strategic plans.
  • Chapter 6 – What to do from start to finish. Pretend there’s a new, hot social media tool that appears next week. This chapter provides an organizational approach to incorporating that new tool into your library’s workflow.

There you have it! Get it at the ALA Store.

Comments

  1. Let me ask you this, David. And it’s a real story.

    I’ve been working to expose the admitted provision and cover up of child pornography in the Orland Park Public Library. Never harassing nor spamming them, I write well-sourced posts on things like how the Illinois Attorney General has found repeated criminality by that library such as by holding a specially scheduled trustee meeting on a holiday to stifle public comment. I tweet such posts to the library’s Twitter account or I make comments on the library’s Facebook page. The library has responded by blocking my ability to do this, thus the public’s ability to learn about this.

    Let’s set aside the hypocrisy of the censorship of free speech by the library.

    I get that a person might not want to hear the truth about themselves if they are repeatedly breaking the law to enable child pornography and so they would block me. I get that. But this is a public library. It’s public. The public has the right to hear criticism of the public resource.

    So the question is, does a public library have the right to cut off legitimate criticism and discussion on its social media? I know library social media almost never posts negative information about itself, but blocking people from speaking is totally different, as is censoring their comments.

    Thanks.

    Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries

  2. Hi Dan! You asked, so I’ll answer…

    To your question “does a public library have the right to cut off legitimate criticism and discussion on its social media?”

    Answer – Sure they do, for many reasons. It depends on what their posting and commenting guidelines are. For example, at my library, we would block you/not respond if:

    – if the comments aren’t on-topic
    – if the comment seems like a personal attack
    – if we asked you to stop and you refused
    – if the comment seemed spammy or contained highly inaccurate info about the library

    In our case, we might respond first, and attempt to correct inaccurate info. After that, we’d probably ignore the poster. If it continued, then yes – we might block the person.

    So – it depends on the individual library and how they run their social media channels.

    One other thing. You’re claiming the library “responded by blocking my ability to do this, thus the public’s ability to learn about this” and that they censored your comments. All the library did was block you from replying to them in social media (I’m guessing). But your posts in Twitter are still very public and accessible to all. So nothing has been censored, and the public can still see your posts, if they are interested. The only thing you can’t do is post with a mention of the library’s Twitter account. Hashtags still work fine (which I think you are using).

    Hope that helps!

  3. Okay, thanks. Your response prompts me to remember that some libraries have indeed responded as yours might, even cordially, as you have, and that is greatly appreciated. For good karma, may your publication sell plenty of copies.

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