and other tips for adding valueto your library’s Twitter presence

Emily Lloyd

Why follow your patrons? Twitter gives libraries the opportunity to not just announce what we do, but to do what we do.

Don’t wait for questions addressed directly to your Twitter account or mentions of monitored keywords to guide people to resources.

Follow your patrons. It’s a bit like roving reference. Notice what interests them. Notice any difficulties they might be having.

Create…

serendipity When you sign intoTwitter, scan through thelast hour of your library’stweetstream to seewhat your patrons have been tweeting about andif there’s anything youmight help with.

This patron didn’t mention @hclib, or use any keywords (library, Hennepin, etc) that the library might have been monitoring. Followinghis tweets made thismoment of serendipity possible.

To quickly reviewwhat your patronshave been tweeting about (and skip overwhat every library, business, or localorganization you follow has been tweeting about), make private lists of your patron followers, and just skim those lists.

Each list holds 500. I named @hclib’spatron lists “Individuals 1,” “Individuals 2,” etc., and added each new local individual that followed @hclib to one of these lists.

Why? Because liking an organization on Facebook is far less of a commitment than following an organization on Twitter.

When you “like” an organization on Facebook, that’s often a terminal act:

You’ve shown your support.

The organization’s posts may or may not--not’s more likely--show up in your news feed.

You may or may not visit their page ever again.

When you follow an organization on Twitter, their tweets will show up in your tweetstream.

If an organization’s tweets do not add value to your experience ofTwitter—

if, instead, they seem to keep getting in the way, interrupting the flow of tweets that are more relevant to you—

you will unfollow them (even if you still like them as an organization).

“Unfollowing”—the word itself—doesn’t feel as hostile as “unliking”. Youare simply trying to make your tweetstream more useful to you by weeding out messages you can’t use (TIP: tweet tweets patrons can use. Here’s how…)

Share…

tips on how to get the most out of the library’s website and other libraryresources.

Share…

tips on how to getthe most out of the web itself.

Share…

practical local information.

Add value: in addition to creating private Twitter lists of your patrons,maintain public lists on local resources or other relevant topics to helpyour patrons findaccounts to follow.

Resist the urge to comment on every trending topic.

Particularly: consider whether you really want to use a celebrity death to market your collection.

( “RIP _______, who passed away today. Revisithis genius with one of our DVDs: [link to catalog]”)

on trendingtopics

The above was tweeted immediately following the Colorado movie theater shooting in July 2012 that killed twelve people.

Prescheduling tweets may seem convenient, but it misses one of the main points of social media for libraries (and companies): to be there. After you tweet, keep your eye on Twitter for a while—even if only for 20 minutes in one tab—in case patrons have any immediate responses that need attention.

Never forget that people use Twitter for news during national and world crises. Prescheduled tweets come off as, at best, insensitive and, at worst, cruel during these times.

againstprescheduled

tweets

Thanks. Have fun!

Emily Lloyd@poesygalore

http://about.me/elloyd74