Social Media Optimization

Doralynn Rossmann and Scott. W. H. Young

Social media can be an effective tool for building and engaging community. By following the five principles of social media optimization, your library can become an active voice in a thriving community.

Create shareable content

Creating meaningful web content for sharing on social media can lead to increased website traffic and community growth. Shareable web content is defined by two key characteristics: It’s published on the web at a unique URL, and it’s relevant to the community. Your library has probably already published many forms of share-ready content, including items from your digital collection, blog posts, institutional repository items, email newsletters, videos, or staff directory pages.

We suggest looking to major national libraries for inspiration, as they often have robust digital content that is well-suited for sharing. For example, New York Public Library’s Public Domain collection features more than 180,000 digital objects and is free to access, share, and reuse through social networks.

Make sharing easy

Add social media links on your webpages in a way that users can easily share library content with others. These links usually consist of a small icon associated with the platform. When clicked, the platform opens with prepopulated content for the user to post. These shares should include your organization’s social network account name, a title for the content, and a simple URL. Each social network manages shared content in a different way. You can look at Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest’s developer sites for guidance in customizing these buttons.

Reward engagement

Rewarding engagement involves actively listening to your community on social networks and recognizing users who engage with your library and its resources. For example, you can discover user-shared library content, such as digitized historical photographs, through Twitter Analytics. This gives you the chance to like the post, make a comment, and reshare with your Twitter followers. By regularly monitoring analytics and responding to posts, you strengthen connections with users and show that your library is listening.

Add links on your web pages in a way that users can easily share library content with others.

Proactive sharing

Libraries can be the best promoters of their own material and services by following an intentional and well-planned approach to sharing. Geotagging is a useful way to promote library-related activities wherever they occur. Your library can geotag any photograph it posts to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. This will offer many opportunities for creativity by gamifying geolocations through treasure hunts or check-ins, or by asking users to share location-specific pictures related to library promotions. Anyone searching for this promoted geotag will get a broad overview of library activities, and the library can identify other posts in the same location to reshare as appropriate.

Measure use, encourage reuse

You can apply web analytics along with user feedback to evaluate your networking activity, with success measured by community growth, community engagement, and connectedness. To measure community growth, you can record how many members like or follow you on each social network at the beginning of each month. You can then use that data to calculate the percentage of change over time. Focus groups and online surveys are a good way to evaluate connectedness, and analytics available through Google, Facebook, and Twitter are useful for measuring engagement. This data can be used to inform your social media strategy. You can also cultivate a culture of sharing by posting content that has been marked for reuse with a Creative Commons license, as well as through interactive web applications and content promotions.

Social media optimization offers a flexible framework for creating and sharing content through social networks. By following these five principles, you can build an engaged community of library users and connect those users with your collections, services, and staff.

Latest Library Links

14h

Joe Árvai writes: “As artificial intelligence (AI) creeps further into people’s daily lives, so do worries about it. At the most alarmist are concerns about AI going rogue and terminating its human masters. But my own research as a psychologist who studies how people make decisions leads me to believe that all these risks are overshadowed by an even more corrupting, though largely invisible, threat. That is, AI is mere keystrokes away from making people even less disciplined and skilled when it comes to thoughtful decisions.”

The Conversation, Apr. 12
18h

Tess Prendergast writes: “As someone who teaches contemporary children’s literature, I have been following the surge of picture books about climate and environment topics for several years. While there has been some great scholarly research about such books, I have devised a simple framework for grouping these kinds of books. This four-tiered categorization may help you decided what to read, suggest, or display in various scenarios and for different audiences.”

ALSC Blog, Apr. 11
2d

Max Eddy writes: “It’s a nightmare scenario: You’ve protected all of your online accounts with two-factor authentication (2FA), but then your phone is broken, lost, or stolen, and you’re locked out of everything. Past You’s effort to protect Future You has made Present You’s life a living hell. 2FA is supposed to keep attackers and scammers out of your online accounts, but what if something happens to your second factor? With a little planning, you can reduce that risk and still keep your accounts safe.”

New York Times Wirecutter, Apr. 12
2d

Nik Altenberg writes: “About 100 librarians and their supporters rallied outside San Francisco Public Library’s Main Library on April 9 to demand the city hire security guards for every branch. Workers decried a lack of security at most of the city’s branches and said they are often forced to de-escalate volatile situations and step into the role of providing security themselves. The rally is the latest in a series of union actions [from 10 unions representing more than 25,000 city workers across city departments] seeking to draw attention to what they say is a pervasive understaffing crisis.”

KQED-TV (San Francisco), Apr. 9
3d

“Two years after Brooklyn Public Libraries’ (BPL) launch of Books Unbanned, an initiative to protect the freedom to read for young people, In Their Own Words: Youth Voices on Books Unbanned gives new insight into the impact of censorship on teen and young adults across the US and how restrictions and other barriers to access build upon and reinforce each other. The new report, published April 11 by BPL and Seattle Public Library, analyzes 855 stories shared by young people who signed up for a free Books Unbanned ecard from April 2022 through December 2023.”

Seattle Public Library, Apr. 11
3d

Samantha Guss, Sojourna Cunningham, and Jennifer Stout write: “Recruitment and retention are both critical to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in academic libraries, and failing to improve retention has and will continue to derail these initiatives. Research that addresses retention tends to focus on proposed strategies, such as stay interviews (structured interviews aimed at strengthening employee and employer relationships) and mentorship programs. But there is no agreed-upon definition of retention that would allow us to assess these strategies. We should recognize that involuntary staying can be just as negative an outcome for the individual and the organization as leaving, setting the stage for legacy toxicity.”

In The Library With The Lead Pipe, Apr. 10
4d

Jackie Edwards writes: “As spring rolls around, seasonal allergies can flare up among library workers, resulting in symptoms like sneezing; runny or stuffy nose; itchy eyes, ears, and nose; coughing; and asthma. Not only are these symptoms detrimental to well-being and productivity, but they can also mean you’re less able to provide excellent customer service to library users. Fortunately, by purifying the air, preventing mold, and keeping your work area clean, you can improve indoor air quality and combat allergies in your library.”

Library Worklife, Apr.