There are as many ways to use social media as there are social
media platforms. This stems from the fact that each platform has its own unique
set of features, as well as reputation and user demographics. Libraries that
have chosen to use more than one social media platform to be present on are
aware of this and have tailored their methods of engagement to suit.
Melbourne High School Library has an Instagram where it posts photos and short videos of events and other things happening in the library and school. The descriptions for each uploaded item are kept short. MHSL also has a Wordpress blog, where it writes up posts about events that have occurred. Each posts has several photos and lots of text, and the authors of the posts vary. Uploading so much text with several photos at once isn’t possible with Instagram.
Melbourne High School Library has an Instagram where it posts photos and short videos of events and other things happening in the library and school. The descriptions for each uploaded item are kept short. MHSL also has a Wordpress blog, where it writes up posts about events that have occurred. Each posts has several photos and lots of text, and the authors of the posts vary. Uploading so much text with several photos at once isn’t possible with Instagram.
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| MHSL Instagram account |
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| MHSL Wordpress blog |
Yarra Plenty Regional Libraries is another library that is clearly using their different social media accounts for different purposes. The core purpose is, of course, to reach out to and engage their community and clients online, but each of their social media accounts has a different focus. On Instagram, they post photos of events in the library and fun things like book covers for book face Friday. On their Pinterest however, YPRL they have curated a virtual library with several boards titled around Dewey numbers, which customers can browse in a similar way to walking through a library and stopping at a section of the shelves. The boards hold pins related to the Dewey numbers topic, such as pins in board 391 being about fashion. They have taken a more light-hearted and entertainment geared approach to their Instagram, and a more resource sharing approach to their Pinterest.
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| YPRL Instagram |
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| YPRL Pinterest |
Twitter and Facebook are
both used by libraries to disseminate information about their events and
programs and other public service announcements, but there are some crucial
differences in the way they do it. Twitter has a 140 character word limit,
which is also impacted by images and hyperlinks which take up 23 characters
each. It is useful for short posts, but Facebook has no such restrictions and
is more suitable for longer posts. Facebook also allows photos to be grouped
into albums, which Twitter does not support. However, one area that Twitter
excels in is “live tweeting”. Because of how simply and quickly one can tweet,
it is easy to tweet about something as it is happening, and because of their
short nature, multiple tweets are seen as less a nuisance than multiple
Facebook posts. For example, Melbourne Library service recently live tweeted
photos and text of a guest talk on Seniors Rights in the library.
The National Library of Australia is a great example of a
library that has embraced social media. It has six accounts: Facebook, Twitter,
Flickr, Instagram, Youtube, and Soundcloud. The NLA does a great job of listing
its social media accounts and describing exactly what it uses each of them for.
It also has a social media policy and strategy available for public perusal.
Some other examples of great social media accounts of libraries:
Melbourne High School Library’s Instagram and blog
Yarra Plenty Regional Library
Some interesting articles for further reading about libraries using
social media
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