1. Sample social media presence business case[Check to see if your own institution has a social media policy and be guided by theirrequirements if you are seeking a social media presence. You may find they have differentheadings from the ones Ive used here but its likely the overall issues are similar.][NB this sample business case is designed for seeking access to be a creator of content, ratherthan asking for access to be able to read blogs etc]NameJob RoleContact detailsI am seeking permission to create a: a) Blog b) Twitter account c) Facebook page d) Whatever1) Reasons for separate presence (outside of the corporate generic accounts)[Explain why you would like a separate, non-corporate presence. This could refer to things likehaving a specific target audience in mind, the friendly trusted face of the library, yourmarketing or communication role [if you have one]. You could also refer to other libraries whohave what you would like and quote their follower numbers or examples of why this has beenbeneficial for the organisation. ][You may also like to make reference to how your social media presence might fit in with yourorganisations policy of engaging with the public/students etc the strategic fit.][You will also need to consider if you are seeking a personal workplace presence, or if you areseeking a library presence]2) Purpose of the [Blog] and [Twitter] account[s]Creating and maintaining a library [blog/Twitter/Facebook] account as part of my job isnecessary to enable me to: Inform the public/students of service changes [you could refer to many councils using twitter to update the public about road closures and bin collections]1

2. Promote library events to increase participation Engage with the public/students Raise the profile of X library with a wider audience Communicate with different user groups in different ways [where do teenagers hang out online? Are they on Facebook or somewhere else?] Inform customers about new stock Maintain the professional skills of the library staff Show that the library is relevant and up to date in todays online community Be where our customers are Meeting customer expectations[The above is a sample list. You should make you own list of your objectives first, what youwant to achieve with the social media presence. Which media are best suited to yourobjectives? Think about this before you decide on which social media you want to use! You maywant to look at Phil Bradleys blog posts on the use and applicability of different social mediafor librarians see http://www.philb.com/articles/whichsocialnetwork.htm.][You may also want to mention that library professionals are often among the first to adoptnew technology and the library community in the UK has a significant number of well respectedand eminent social media experts. A large number of library staff and libraries are using socialmedia. It will soon become a weakness for a library not to have a social media presence.]3) Communications objectivesThe [blog/Twitter/Facebook] accounts would enable me/the library to achieve the followingcommunication objectives: Share and disseminate information to customers Raise the profile of the library and its activities Gather information from the library world to help inform future planning and activities Interact with library professionals in Wales and beyond Improve communication with customers[You may be asked to say how you will promote the social media presence.][You could include here some statistics on how many of the population are on your chosenchannel theres quite a few infographics around with current information about this, althoughquite a few are American.]4) Risk analysis 2 3. Using social media within a professional or personal capacity brings both benefits and risks.Benefits: Sharing of information Interaction with customers Meeting growing expectations of customers Raising the profile of the library Improving communications Interaction with other library staff Gathering information to help inform my job[Add any evidence you have of other libraries you know who have done this and how itsbenefited them. You could refer to @OrkneyLibrary on Twitter which has currently 3557followers; the population of the islands of Orkney is 20,000. This account is quite a quirky oneso if you think it would put your decision makers off, dont refer to it.][If you have access to library blogs, Twitter, Facebook sites etc at home and picked upinformation or learnt something useful for your job from using them, you could include that inhere.]RisksIt would be disingenuous to say there are no risks involved, either professionally or personally,by having a social media presence. [Perhaps you could go on to say that through your personalknowledge of social media and understanding of the issues involved that you believe the riskswould be low. Although you should also note that personal and professional usage is verydifferent.]I abide by [workplace code of conduct] and professional code of ethics for librarians all thetime, and this would be no different for this different medium.I would apply the same principles to social media as I do to other forms of communication e.g.phone calls and emails. Whilst social media communications are more instant and more easilycirculated to a large audience, the principles of content and professionalism remain. I wouldnot engage in communications that brought my reputation, or that of [organisation] intodisrepute.Risks of not having a presenceI think it is valid to consider what the risks are of not having a social media presence. Theseinclude: Perception of the library service / organisation being out of touch Harder to engage with different user groups who are increasingly online much of the3 4. time [you can probably think of several that are relevant to your organisation]5) Activity (monitoring and updating) a) Blog [Would you have sole responsibility for updating and maintaining the blog?Would access to update it be password protected for yourself? Or would you be part ofteam writing the blog? b) Twitter [Would you be the only one with access, or would you be part of a team?] c) Facebook [Again, who would have access to this to update it?][You may be asked to factor in the time that will be spent on updating the social mediapresence. This is difficult to predict and you do not want to be in a position where you have towrite a new blog post every week, but, you do need to set aside time, ideally every day, tocheck into the sites and monitor comments, other Tweets etc. I personally log into Twitter firstthing, then at lunch time, then quick skim at the end of the day. In total its about 30minutes onTwitter, reading and following links. Writing blog posts will obviously take longer. Building up areasonable presence on Facebook also takes time and social media sites do need to be kept upto date or the audience will stop coming to them.][You may also be required to say what would happen to the channels if you were off sick for along time, changed job etc. Would the channel close or could someone else take it on?]6) Other resource implications[As well as the time factor you may need to factor in other resource needs, for example if youare in Wales will any of the channels be offered in Welsh, and who will be responsible for theWelsh language content, you, a translator? You may need to check your organisations bilingualpolicy.]7) Legal issues[You may wish to address how you would deal with comments on a blog, or how you wouldrespond to @replies on Twitter etc. Comments and @replies facilitate interaction and are afundamental part of social media. You can often set up approval/moderation of comments onblogs which helps also prevent spam. You could also say that if the discussion is more relevantto one person you would take it off-line to email or phone call.][You should also note that FOIs submitted on blogs/Twitter etc can now be considered valid FOIrequests. Check your organisations policy on this.]4 5. [You may also need to mention how you would handle privacy issues on things like Facebook,pictures etc. I would recommend looking at this guidance from JISC Legal on use of Facebook inFE and HE settings which is also relevant to public librarieshttp://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/ManageContent/ManageContent/tabid/243/ID/2114/Facing-up-to-Facebook-A-Guide-for-FE-and-HE-02082011.aspx ][You may also need to consider copyright issues if you place pictures on your Facebook page, orin your blog.]8) Location of blog[You may need to say in your business case which hosting service you will use for your blog e.g.Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr. Note that Wordpress has adverts unless you pay to remove them.]9) Evaluation of the presence to measure success[You may be asked to evaluate your blog, Twitter, Facebook account etc after six months, or ayear or so. Or you may be asked to say in the business case how you are going to evaluate it.You could use a variety of methods, principally quantitative and qualitative.For example Wordpress has a statistics feature built into it which enables you to see (on a daily,weekly, monthly basis) the page views, hits on each blog post, key search terms used to find theblog, source (location) of incoming traffic and links people followed from the site to somewhereelse. It will be possible to see whether a mention about the blog on Twitter, or somewhere elsethen leads to a spike in the hits that day. Blogger can use Google Analytics to do the same sortof thing.On blogs you will also be able to enable people to subscribe by email. The number ofsubscribers who choose to do this can therefore be monitored. With Facebook and Twitter youwill be able to record the number of friends or followers etc, the number of likes to postingsetc.]Created by Alyson Tyler, alyson.tyler@wales.gsi.gov.uk @libalysonhttp://libalyson.wordpress.comYou are free to use this under Creative Commons licence (free to re-use, no attribution oracknowledgement necessary), but if you do use it and you get your social media presence,please let me know! 5