social media Archives - john, from the library

Library marketing and communications conference 2022 – day 1

This week, I’m attending my first in-person conference in more than three years. I am in Indianapolis at the annual Library Marketing and Communications Conference. This is my third time attending this event and what I loved about it most in 2016 is still true today. The attendees are a mix of librarians and non-librarian staff, instruction and outreach folks, graphic designers, social media managers, front-line staff and administrators, all from both academic and public libraries. It’s a hodgepodge of “people who do outreach work” with a specific focus on communications. These are people who do the same work I do, albeit in a wide variety of settings and capacities.

I attended every possible session on Day 1 of the two-day conference. Here’s a run-down of my favorite sessions.

Chris Tonelli (NC State) on “The Comfortable Uncomfortable”

Tonelli spoke about two recent events from the NC State Libraries system: the discovery of the First white supremacist history of their building’s namesake as well as the discovery of a library-adjacent (though not technically employee of) staff member who identified as a Proud Boy and was accused of doxxing students. Tonelli’s presentation urged folks in the room to not think of these as “PR nightmares” and instead see them as opportunities for healing, connection, and clearly communicating your institution’s values. I particularly appreciated how he walked us through the entire communications cycle between the library’s external relations team, library administration, and university communications. As he reiterated numerous times, having a good working relationship between all three entities is essential for finding a solution that is respectful of both the institution and the people who (rightfully) brought the issues to light.

Main takeaway: Never accept the first draft of an external comms. And if you don’t agree with it, offer an alternative draft.

Chris Vitellio and Charles Samuels (NC State) on “When Other People Try to Do Your Job”

As an outreach librarian, I would never unilaterally negotiate an e-resources contract with a vendor. I would never accept (on my own) the gift of an archival collection. I would never set up my own roving reference desk. Yet, quite often I find myself having to negotiate communications- and programming-related agreements that others have made on behalf of the library. As Vitellio and Samuels point out, that’s part of the job: sometimes we are freelancers, collaborators, service-providers or, yes, an afterthought. They instead showed strategies and examples for how you can get more colleagues on board with your workflows and processes, including templates, style guides, and web forms.

Main takeaway: Try to shift your role from “creator” to “editor” when you can’t control the entire process.

Best line: (referring to logos and branding) “We are not a food court. We’re Apple.”

Brianna Marshall and Julie Pitts (NKU Steely Library) on “Transforming Non-Library Users into Library Advocates”

The project described in this presentation blew me away with its creativity and outcomes. Marshall and Pitts, in collaboration with a library student advocacy group, created a social media campaign that blended storytelling, scavenger hunts, and exploration of library spaces in a truly innovative way. To highlight their makerspace, they created 3D prints of stegosaurus babies in the style of a statue that occupies their library’s main lobby. On Instagram, they then encouraged students to “Find my babies” using clues and photo hints. The winning team would win a study room for a whole day of their choice, plus a catered lunch for 3 additional friends (brilliant!). The level of engagement they got through Instagram was through the roof.

Main takeaway: Scavenger hunts on Instagram can work, with the right incentive, the right story, and the right real-time modifications.

Erin Rushing (Smithsonian Libraries and Archives) on “Collaborative Social Media Strategies”

This idea has been on my to-do list for years: cooperating with other institutions to mutually engage and boost each others’ content. Initiatives like #ArchivesHashtagParty and #MuseMeme are good examples of such projects. Followers love to watch institutional accounts interact with each other. Some great ideas that came out of this session include “swapping” accounts with another unit on campus; connecting with institutions that have similar names as yours (and may be frequently confused); and finding creative ways to highlight similar collections across institutions.

Main takeaway: Clear your schedule. If you host something like this, it’s going to take all day.

Final Thoughts

As I am fond of saying and my colleagues are tired of hearing, “I don’t need more ideas. I need resources to implement those ideas.” It’s true: there is no lack of good ideas coming from library outreach circles. As one presenter noted, we’re all extremely creative people and it’s likely what attracted us to these positions in the first place. Add to that the fact that we work with colleagues who are as equally scrappy as we are creative, and you will have no end of potential outreach projects. However, there are only so many hours in a day, weeks in a year, and people on my team. So I am torn when returning home from conferences such as these: what can I implement now? And what needs to sit on the hold shelf until I’ve finished my current to-be-realized projects list? Regardless of my answer to those questions, I’m leaving Day 1 inspired and energized.

November 2, 2022

Far from the maddening feed

In Cal Newport’s latest article for the New Yorker, he contemplates the future of social media companies in the wake of TikTok’s recent growth. The kernel of the argument is that TikTok’s method for capturing attention (which it does remarkably well) is not rooted in the social graph, something which gives it an advantage over older platforms; and that this essential difference could lead to an arms race that results in a more diffuse social media landscape.

“This all points to a possible future in which social-media giants like Facebook may soon be past their long stretch of dominance. They’ll continue to chase new engagement models, leaving behind the protection of their social graphs, and in doing so eventually succumb to the new competitive pressures this introduces. “

I can imagine a third path: one in which Twitter and Facebook push back toward the local. Part of the original appeal of these platforms was that “all my friends are there.” For libraries, it was a chance to connect directly with local communities.

That experience changed with the emergence of retweets and the news feed. It was no longer just you and your connections: it was all their friends and follows as well. The community got too big. For me, I lost the sight of my closest connections. For libraries, we had to compete with content creators outside our community.

This is why I’ve been hesitant to dive into TikTok. You’re not competing for the attention of your local community. They’re not even part of the equation. You’re just competing with everyone.

If the noise was removed from my feed– if I could find the signal to connect me with the people that matter most– would that pull me back? Would that pull others back? Would libraries find it easier to connect with their communities instead of competing with the content creators of the world?

August 29, 2022

This is not going to go the way you think

I don’t think academic libraries need social media.

I say this as someone who has run social media accounts for academic libraries for almost a decade. Granted, the social media landscape has changed quite a bit in the last 10 years, but I think this has always been true and I’ve only just begun to realize it.

Currently, I’m working on a literature review about how academic libraries justify their use of social media and what assessment methods they use to bolster that justification. I’m focusing on articles published in the last 5 years and I’m starting to see a general trend in the narratives. It goes something like this:

Libraries need to be on social media because of X (where X is typically something you would expect, like engagement, communication, or marketing to students).
Ok, so let’s assess how well social media does X.
Hm, the data doesn’t make a strong case that social media does X.
Well …

It’s at this point that I start tensing up. What are the authors going to do next? In too many cases, they go on to say something to the effect of: “Oh well… We should still be on social media anyway!”

What? You just found evidence that something is not working and you’re just going to keep doing it anyway? There’s an apocryphal Einstein quote about that. (The quote is actually from a 1981 Narcotics Anonymous pamphlet, via Rita Mae Brown’s 1983 book Sudden Death.)

We have come to a point where everyone (well, not everyone) assumes that maintaining an institutional social media account is something we must do, despite evidence that it is not producing the results that we would like it to produce. In their 2017 article, “Social Media Use in Academic Libraries: A Phenomenological Study,” published in the Journal of Academic Librarianship, Harrison et al. describe this phenomenon as it relates to the content of academic libraries’ social media:

“The high level of correspondence in codes and themes were interpreted by researchers to mean that academic libraries are using social media in a homogenized manner, suggesting the presence of institutional isomorphic mechanisms (mimetic, and normative forces). Given that isomorphic forces impose conformity, but do not necessarily coincide with efficiency or effectiveness, awareness of these isomorphic forces is valuable to academic libraries. This new knowledge offers libraries the opportunity to evaluate the degree to which they have traded conformity for efficiency and effectiveness. If the tradeoff is determined to be less than ideal: academic libraries may consider requirements for establishing a social media strategy that best suits their organization as opposed to using a onesize fits all approach.”

This concept of “institutional isomorphic mechanism” comes from earlier sociological research cited by Harrison et al. Basically, institutions within any given profession start to copy and adopt each others’ actions and structures over time. This mimicry helps maintain legitimacy and “in-group” status, but sometimes at the expense of function and outcomes. As the authors note: “Regardless of efficiency or evidence of potential efficiency, organizations will adopt formal structures that align with institutional myths in order to gain legitimacy, resources, stability, and enhanced survival.”

I don’t think academic libraries’ inability to quit social media is driven by an insistence on engagement. As some of the articles I’m in the process of reviewing show, engagement on social media is tepid at best. And I would suspect that many us in outreach work would readily admit that social media engagement is an poor substitute for interacting with students in other ways.

We maintain diamond hands on social media accounts due to the (mostly unsupported) expectation that it is an effective communication tool. We want people to know about the library. On social media, we can pump out endless amounts of information: new collections, old collections, new programs, throwback programs, technical updates, deadlines, etc. It’s our personal megaphone! We easily fall into the trap of posting about a new program or initiative on social media and saying to ourselves “Done! Now people know about it.”

Except that no one is listening.

If our goal is to increase engagement online, we need a shit-ton more resources. Full-time, dedicated teams that can strategically build the brand: developing high-quality video content, working with campus influencers, and experimenting with emerging platforms. It would require more targeted, fine-grained assessment (and probably the use of personal data that would make most librarians squirm), more financial investment in ways to expand our reach (read: paid advertising), and way more yarrr! content!

Alternatively, if our goal is simply communication, there are more effective methods.

For example, if you set up a table outside the library and talk with students as they walk by, I guarantee you will speak with more students in a couple hours than might read a tweet in an entire day. Moreover, your interactions with them will be stickier and more impactful. Instead of spending an hour crafting the finest carousel of Instagram images for the library’s page, you could spend that same time crafting content for the university’s main channels and reach a larger audience. You could draft blurbs for other units’ newsletters, go on a roadshow to different departments on campus, develop vanity publications for key stakeholders, or work with student influencers. All would have a deeper impact than relying entirely on social media for outreach needs.

If you can do both, great! But most of us are working solo and thus choices are necessary. Unless you have a team (or at minimum a full-time employee) dedicated to social media, you are going to get more bang for your buck (read: impact) spending your energies elsewhere.

Does this mean I think academic libraries should simply shut down their Instagram accounts tomorrow? No, that would be reckless and unnecessarily disruptive. But I do think exploring the idea of “what would it look like if we did?” might serve as useful exercise in strategic thinking. Plotting the path between here and there by exploring how we might substitute the creative energies we spend on social media to communicate in other ways would almost certainly illustrate areas where we could improve how we connect with students, faculty, and senior leadership.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make some content. (yarrr!)

April 14, 2022

Is it worth it?

At some point, the cost of dealing with trolls and misinformation on social media, combined with diminishing returns on engagement, will outweigh the benefits of spending library time and resources in those spaces. What then? In some ways, it feels like we’re already there.

January 27, 2022

Ubi sunt

This evening, I had the pleasure of attending a discussion between Brian Stelter, host of the CNN show Reliable Sources, and Carol Costello, former host of CNN Newsroom. Their conversation floated effortlessly over, through, and between topics such as misinformation, the impact of mainstream media outlets like CNN and FoxNews, the Trump presidency, the intersection of journalism and entertainment, and social media. At one point in the conversation, Stelter reflected upon how social media has changed in the last decade, from the heyday of blogging and SMS-based Twitter to the notably ugly situation we are in now.

As someone who moved into adulthood during the emergence of “Web 2.0,” I often catch myself looking back longingly on the internet of the 21st century’s mid-aughts. Many of my friends and colleagues built careers, passions, and communities of practice that propelled them to where they are now through the connections they built in these proto-social media spaces. Some of those friends and colleagues have now left those spaces behind, leaving them to the wolves of hate, cynicism, and always-on indignation. These things have always existed on the internet, but their pervasiveness now feels unstoppable. It feels woven directly into the fabric of the web. To go online is to experience violence.

Nonetheless, I still have a small hope that we can make it through this time into something less violent, less polarizing, and less destructive to our civic discourse. I don’t know what that thing will be, but when I reflect upon how much the digital landscape has changed in just 10 years, I can imagine something entirely other taking its place in the next 10 years; and I invite it to arise.

Two years ago I quit LinkedIn. Last year, I erased by Facebook footprint. This year, I’m slowly letting go of Twitter. I don’t miss these things as they are in their current states, but I miss what they used to be (well, except LinkedIn. That was always a mess). Most of all, I miss the hope and optimism many of us held for these platforms.

February 5, 2020

Right speech and speaking rightly

I don’t think I need to read yet another “Buddhist approach to [insert tech]” article. The argument is well-worn and essentially a known entity. Nonetheless, I can’t resist the urge to throw them into my to-read queue.

Social media has the ability to connect us with many people, so we do have a responsibility to post things that are true, kind, beneficial, offered with good intention, and shared at the right time.
Lodro Rinzler, “Buddhism and Social Media“

There is a lot wrong with Twitter these days. In my heart, there is still a spark of love for a possibly never-existing but perhaps always-possible inherent good of the internet, but that spark is quickly dying. I don’t expect the systems to correct themselves, but perhaps I can try to correct my own approach.

October 30, 2019

Don’t rain on my parade

A sudden desire to delete all my social media accounts manifests itself in me about every two or three days. To be honest, it’s always there. Gnawing away at me. Part of my particular problem is that I’ve so thoroughly mixed my professional and personal persona that in order to disengage from “work” I have to also disengage from social media. So I’m usually drawn to articles about people who have cut the chord, gone off the grid, or taken extended digital sabbaticals, but this latest, click-baity article at The Guardian’s Academics Anonymous blog entirely misses the point of jumping off the social media ship.

Almost every paragraph is a straw man. In fact, let’s address the points one at a time:

“Wherever you go in the world, you can pretty much guarantee that a good proportion of the people around you will be too busy checking their phones to look up and appreciate their surroundings.”

Start off with a tired cliché. Check.

“We are in the midst of a selfie epidemic. We document every moment of our lives – the places we visit, the people we meet, the things we achieve. And now this culture has infiltrated the world of academia.”

I’ve been tweeting within academic circles since 2010. Where have you been?

“Before I go any further, let me explain: I am speaking from the perspective of a young PhD student, not some cranky old professor harking back to the Good Old Days.”

Ageist much? Just as an aside, one of the first academic social media communities I got involved with was medievalists and the average medievalist is not exactly a spring chicken, but I digress.

“Using social media to impress people that you know – as well as those that you have never met – has now become a professional concern for many academics. I see more and more of them live tweeting and hashtagging their way through events.”

Ok, fair enough. People too busy live-tweeting to engage with a speaker is annoying.

“When did it become acceptable to use your phone throughout a lecture, let alone an entire conference? No matter how good you think you are at multitasking, you will not be truly focusing your attention on the speaker, who has no doubt spent hours preparing for this moment.”

Maybe. I would bet many of them spent only the length of a plane flight building their slide deck, but your comment on multitasking is true enough.

“Some advocates argue that social media provides a form of dissemination – a way to share the conference with those who are unable to attend. For some tweeters, I am sure that is the case. But it appears that the majority perform this ritual as proof of their dedication to the profession, as if posting a picture marks them out as more enthusiastic than their peers.”

I’m sure some people do indeed tweet for the fame but you know what: some people publish, present, and go to all sorts of unnecessary conferences for the same reason. That doesn’t mean we should do away with travel grants. The majority? Something tells me this is unique to your social circle.

“I suspect that this trend stems from the work of careers advice gurus. “You must remember, potential employers could be Googling your name right now, keeping an eye on your social media timelines,” they advise. “Try to Tweet regularly to ensure that people know that you love your work and are truly dedicated to the world of science.” Perhaps I’m naive, but I need to believe that employability is not directly correlated to how many likes you get on your Instagram posts. I appear to be in the minority, however.”

As someone who has hired academics, yes: I will Google you and look at your various social media spaces. If they are personal in nature, I won’t give them a second thought. But if you maintain even a pseudo-professional space online, I will take that into consideration in the hiring process. Why? Because we all know that no one outside academia reads academic journals. So if you are serving as a bridge between your research and public discourse, I salute you.

“At my university, there are some who utter the words “make sure you tweet a picture” on what feels like a daily basis. These are not social media representatives or marketing executives, but scientific staff. I know many academics who are unwilling to engage in any form of conversation in person, yet will happily broadcast their opinions and conversations to the entire online world.”

Ok, sure. I’ve said “Pics or it didn’t happen” before but I’ve never heard anyone say that in earnest. As to “broadcasting opinions to the world,” I shouldn’t have to say much about the benefit that social media provides for introverts and those of us who find in-person social events to be nerve-shattering and sometimes outright terror-inducing.

“Then there are the staff who go further than just tweeting about lectures and conferences. In the wake of the EU referendum, I have seen many using social media to voice very strong opinions, often criticising the general public en masse. Given that taxpayer money forms a substantial portion of our research funding, this kind of outburst risks alienating the very people we are trying to engage with.”

Surprise! Academics are humans, too. Even citizens. And have opinions outside their field of study.

“It has got to the point where those of us who wish to keep our social media accounts private, or for personal use only, face being frowned upon for somehow being less enthusiastic about what we do.”

I don’t know what you’ve experienced at your place of work, but I would probably never notice if one of my colleagues’ social media accounts went dark. Unless it was a close friend with whom I interacted daily, I rarely think about how others use social media. After you start following more than 150 people, it’s impossible to keep up with that.

“But surely the dedication I show in the lab, and the subsequent data I collect, should speak for itself. I do not – and should not – have to parade myself online to please my employer or to stake my claim as a good researcher. Can’t we save the showing off for where it’s really needed, in the dreaded grant applications?”

Absolutely. Unless social media is part of your job description (which it is part of mine), no one should be forced to engage socially online. There are plenty of good reasons not to have a public online presence. Women and people of color know this more than anyone. But you are speaking within in the context of science and the public (who as you’ve said above pays for your funding) has a vested interest in your research, the results of which may end up in an inaccessible journal using inaccessible language. If social media can make that research palatable, approachable, and human, is it not worth the effort?

Oh, and you know that the grant committee is Googling you, right?

August 5, 2016

We’re eating ourselves alive

“Our current version of the internet lives and breathes off a currency of human attention. With the success and failure of many internet companies predicated on how much of a person’s time they can capture.” Jesse Weaver, Instagram and the cult of the attention web.

After stepping away from Facebook and Twitter for a month and subsisting on a diet of chronologically, self-customized feeds instead of algorithmily-defined ones, I realized how empty much of that content is. Also, I miss Google Reader.

April 8, 2016

March 30-day challenge: Twitter and Facebook

During the past 30 days, I decided to take a break from Twitter and Facebook. Here’s what I discovered:

Facebook

I didn’t miss it much and, to my surprise, there wasn’t much in terms of news and announcements that I wasn’t able to get from other sources. There is one professional group that provides me access to information that I can’t get anywhere else (without as little effort) and it’s necessary for me to be on Facebook for my job, but I could easily let my profile go dark, quietly exit that space, and only use the FB messenger app to stay in contact with friends.

Twitter

This was much more difficult to ignore. For real-time events, conversations, and news, there really isn’t an alternative for me. While I was certainly able to get by without it, I missed checking in during breaking news and, most of all, connecting with the community there. One obvious benefit: it’s been much easier for me to single-task. So I’m torn on whether I want to return to my previous levels of engagement.

April 1, 2016

All social media sites want to lock you in

From jwz. Instagram Hates the Internet:

“All of the “social media” services want to lock you in. That’s been the case for a while. They love their “walled gardens” and they think that so long as they tightly control their users and make it hard for them to escape, they will rule the world forever.“

March 27, 2016