David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Social Media Guidelines for Staff

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My library recently created a set of social media guidelines for staff. There are two parts to these guidelines:

  • Guidelines for social media teams: we take a team-based approach to our social media channels. For example, there’s a social media team for our Facebook Page, and they have some general posting goals that they follow. So the first set of guidelines apply to our social media teams.
  • Guidelines for all staff (when not at work): The second set of guidelines pretty much mirror what’s in our library’s Employee Handbook, but spell out what that looks like in an online setting.

So – here they are:

Guidelines for Social Media Teams

  • Follow team guidelines. Social media teams should follow the guidelines for each social media team.
  • Be helpful. Share content related to the social media team’s goals. Avoid arguments and debates – the digital services director and communications & marketing director will handle those.
  • Get photo permission. Use these guidelines when taking photos and videos of our customers:
    • For photos with 1-2 people, use a photo release form
    • For photos with groups of 3 or more, no photo release form needed
  • Let Marketing do their job. Don’t create social media content that falls under Communications & Marketing, including:
    • Advisories and notices of cancellations
    • Official library communications (press releases, library newsletters, etc.)
    • Events or links to events. The library doesn’t use Facebook Events:
      • They limit invitees. Facebook Page fans can’t be invited to a Page’s Facebook Event. You’re only allowed to invite Facebook friends from a personal profile – not from a Facebook Page.
      • They don’t work well with the Facebook Timeline. Facebook Events are only seen by people who were invited to an Event. A series of boosted posts works much better to promote an event on Facebook
      • We don’t have control over the content. No statistics, no edits if needed, etc.
  • Work for Hire. All content you create for the library is owned by the library and is considered work for hire content. The library has the right to re-share and re-use the content you create on work time for the library.
  • Creating new social media channels. The Digital Services Director does this in cooperation with Communications & Marketing, based on need, library goals and objectives.

Guidelines for all staff (when not at work):

  • Share what you do at the library. Feel free to use personal social media channels of all types to share library-related content. Share what you’re proud of!
  • Be yourself. If you share about the library, let people know you work at the library. Don’t represent yourself or the library in a false or misleading way.
  • Be nice. No spam or remarks that are off-topic or offensive.
  • Keep secrets. Don’t violate the confidentiality of the library or our customers. If in doubt, check with your supervisor first.
  • Don’t overstep official library channels. The CEO and the Marketing Director are our official spokespeople, and they speak for the library on official matters.
  • Remember the Employee Handbook. It also applies to online settings.

So that’s what we have created. Do you have any social media guidelines for staff? If so, please share!

Arrow image by Caleb Roenigk

Managing Multiple Instagram Accounts just Got Easy

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Remember my post about Managing Multiple Instagram Accounts? Well, Instagram has just made this simple (at least, the logging in part).

Take a peek at the image in this post (a larger version is on Flickr). Instagram just added a multiple account login feature to their mobile apps.

Here’s how you set it up:

  • In your app, click the Accounts icon (on the right side of the menu bar at the bottom of the screen).
  • Then you have two choices:
    • Click the Settings icon (the “gear” icon). Scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and click Add Account. Then add your second account!
    • Or click your name up at the top of the screen. A menu drops down that includes Add Account as a choice. Then add that second account.

Once you’ve added a second account, you can toggle back and forth between accounts instead of having to completely log out, then log bak in each time you want to switch accounts.

It’s magic! Ok – not really. It’s a simple user experience improvement that many people have requested. Yay to Instagram for listening!

Interested in the Instagram accounts I play with? Find my Instagram account here, and my library’s Instagram account here. Enjoy!

Marketing to Millenials – 5 Strategies

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I recently read this article about marketing titled 5 Winning Strategies for Millennial Marketing. It has some great ideas, and I thought I’d share them and add some librarian-ish thoughts to them.

Here are the strategies and my thoughts:

1. Stay mobile. This makes perfect sense. A good 85% of millennials have smartphones and use them frequently. So make sure everything your library does works on a mobile device. I mean everything – for example, does your library REALLY want to spend $25,000 a year for that amazing article database if it doesn’t work on a mobile device? Maybe not.

2. Create peer brand evangelists. The idea here is that instead of bombarding people with ads, work on creating partnerships with online influencers already trusted by your millennial customers. So in a library’s case, you might contact your better-known Facebook or Twitter users, and see if you can get them interested in something your library does. Because if they think it’s cool, they’ll share it on their favorite social media channels. And you have just created a brand evangelist.

3. Be socially connected. To do #2 above, you need to have this one in place. You need to have active social media channels, and be connected to your customers who use these channels. I love what the author says in this section:

“When done correctly, your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram channels should make each and every customer feel special.”

Easy to say, hard to do, huh?

4. Create authentic content. This point is why I talk so much about how to create content on your digital branch and in your social media channels. When done well, your content will connect to your millennials. Which means you will have connected the library to them. Definitely something to work on!

5. Give them a say. Reach out to your customers and have them help. In the article, the examples are things like Lay’s “Do Us a Flavor” campaign, where people helped create weird chip flavors. In a library setting, this might be as simple as a list of great books to read, created by your customers.

So go read the article, and figure out how you can better serve (and reach) your millennial customers!

Image from the Blue Diamond Gallery

Newest Pew Report on Social Media for 2015

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smartphone in action!Pew Research Center recently posted their newest report on social media – Mobile Messaging and Social Media 2015. Like most Pew reports, it’s focused on American adults, aged 18 and older.

It’s an interesting report on the “face” of social media and mobile messaging for 2015. Go read it! Here are some highlights and observations from the report:

General Internet and smartphone use:

  • 85% of American adults are internet users
  • 67% are smartphone users

Me: Think about your customers. Does your website work great on a smartphone? Because most of your customers have one at this point. So what’s holding you up?

Mobile Messaging:

  • 36% of smartphone owners report using messaging apps like WhatsApp, Kik or iMessage
  • 49% of smartphone owners age 18-29 use these types of apps.

Me: Messaging used to be easy. It was email, web-based chat, and texting. Now, it’s still all those … plus Facebook Messaging, Twitter, LinkedIn messaging (just overhauled their messaging service), and apps like WhatsApp or Kik.

How are you asking customers to interact with you? Do you need to change anything? Definitely something to look into.

Social Media Growth:

  • Facebook – 62% of adults use it
    • 70% log on daily
    • 43% log on several times a day
  • Pinterest – 26% of adults use it (more women than men)
  • Instagram – 24% of adults use it.
    • Really popular with non-whites and young adults, slightly more women than men
    • 59% of Instagram users are not he platform daily!
    • 35% visit several times a day (guilty!)
  • LinkIn – 22% of American adults
  • Twitter – 20% of American adults.
    • More urban than rural, more popular with younger adults.

Me: Facebook is still HUGE. People are logging on several times a day. Do you have new content there for them? Focused on your library (in an interesting, fun way)? How about Instagram? Who’s on “Instagram duty” at your library?

Again – really good report. Read it, digest it, share it with your colleagues. And give some thought to how your library needs to adapt as your customers adapt.

Photo of a phone by Nicola