For organisations in both the private and public sector, the role of social media has changed considerably over the past few years. But are libraries making the most of social media to reach out to customers, colleagues and partners? What are the opportunities and pitfalls for library professionals setting out on their social media journey? We spoke to some top tweeters about why they think it’s important for libraries to be active on social media, and their tips for social media success.
Lancashire County Council Libraries were early advocates of social media in the library world, having launched their Twitter account in 2009. Since then, their follower base has grown steadily.
“Twitter is really useful for us,” explains Carolyn Waite, Information Development Manager. “We use it in a whole range of ways to share information about local events, jobs and businesses, to generate interest in campaigns and to retweet council information.”
Managing a Twitter account can be time consuming, and it works best if one or two members of staff take responsibility for an authority’s social media as part of their roles, explains Carolyn. “Our staff write tweets and submit them to us so that we can add photos and plan when to post them. For the Lancashire Book of the Year Awards, we gave our reading team some training in Twitter and access to hashtags so that they could live-tweet from the event. This generated excitement in the event and really brought it to life.”
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