Social media
Find out how to engage with users using social media.
Social media is best for:
- engaging with library users and potential users
- raising awareness and visibility
- building a library community
- professional networking
However, there are a couple of things to consider before deciding to use social media.
- Should you use a library or team social media account, or should you use your personal one?
- If you are using a personal account for social media, are you happy to share all your cat video’s, family photos and the fun things you did on an evening out with your professional social media network?
- What is the policy around social media in your organisation? Is there a policy you should be following? If there is, are you following it?
- How does social media link into your marketing and promotion of the Knowledge and Library Service (KLS)?
- Once something is out on social media everyone can see it, including your manager and Chief Executive.
Tips for social media
If you are actively using social media as part of your KLS marketing and promotion, you need to ensure that you plan out your interactions, what events are you going to highlight and what awareness weeks are you going to engage with.
You should also try and work with other people within your organisation to like and retweet social media interactions of different departments or accounts.
Most importantly, you should be realistic around what your service can manage in terms of social media. You do not need to be on all systems, choose the ones that work for you.
Choosing a social media channel
Twitter can be a fun distraction or a place to waste time. To make Twitter work for you and your team/organisation you need to place importance on how it helps with planning, networking, marketing, and goals.
Schedule regular visits to your Twitter stream. Add twitter trips to your work calendar so that you make time to visit twitter throughout the day and try and do this when your audience is most likely to be active.
Lists
Regularly review who is following your Twitter account and who you follow.
Think about if you want to follow inactive accounts, those who don’t follow you back and brand accounts.
Hashtags and images
When using hashtags on Twitter, you should capitalise the start of each word, so that they can be used by screen readers. For example, '#GreatDay', #LibraryEvent #NewBooksList.
With images remember to add in the alternative text, again so screen readers can share information about your image.
Advanced search
You should familiarise yourself with Twitter’s advanced search function. You can access this from any search, click on the … dots. You can also save and rerun searches.
Tips
- You don’t have to read and respond to every tweet.
- Put your favourites into a list.
- Think about scheduling tweets to different times of day.
- Maintain an informative, relevant bio. If you have a team or work account, make it clear what organisation you work for.
- Engage other users directly, ask and answer questions.
- It’s okay to reshare the same content.
You can use Instagram in numerous different ways. For example:
- show off your new books/resources or most popular books/resources
- share your events and services
- go behind the scenes on a project or event
- share some images from behind the scenes to keep your users engaged and explain the limited access if you're closed
- i you are working on something, give users a peek
- build engagement and interest in a new display or other changes
- if staff are happy, share pictures of the library staff engaged in work to make them more human and approachable and highlight the different skills the staff have
- share your marketing material
Not all NHS organisations will allow access to YouTube.
If you do have access to YouTube, you may want to check your organisation is happy with you posting content on behalf of the KLS.
If you have access, you can:
- record and share virtual events
- create and share virtual tours of the library
- share recordings of training events
Remember to obey all copyright requirements for YouTube and that YouTube is a public platform. The public may comment on your videos and you may want to consider turning comments off or moderating them for this reason.
To ensure your content is accessible, you should add subtitles to your videos.
Twitter can be a fun distraction or a place to waste time. To make Twitter work for you and your team/organisation you need to place importance on how it helps with planning, networking, marketing, and goals.
Schedule regular visits to your Twitter stream. Add twitter trips to your work calendar so that you make time to visit twitter throughout the day and try and do this when your audience is most likely to be active.
Lists
Regularly review who is following your Twitter account and who you follow.
Think about if you want to follow inactive accounts, those who don’t follow you back and brand accounts.
Hashtags and images
When using hashtags on Twitter, you should capitalise the start of each word, so that they can be used by screen readers. For example, '#GreatDay', #LibraryEvent #NewBooksList.
With images remember to add in the alternative text, again so screen readers can share information about your image.
Advanced search
You should familiarise yourself with Twitter’s advanced search function. You can access this from any search, click on the … dots. You can also save and rerun searches.
Tips
- You don’t have to read and respond to every tweet.
- Put your favourites into a list.
- Think about scheduling tweets to different times of day.
- Maintain an informative, relevant bio. If you have a team or work account, make it clear what organisation you work for.
- Engage other users directly, ask and answer questions.
- It’s okay to reshare the same content.
You can use Instagram in numerous different ways. For example:
- show off your new books/resources or most popular books/resources
- share your events and services
- go behind the scenes on a project or event
- share some images from behind the scenes to keep your users engaged and explain the limited access if you're closed
- i you are working on something, give users a peek
- build engagement and interest in a new display or other changes
- if staff are happy, share pictures of the library staff engaged in work to make them more human and approachable and highlight the different skills the staff have
- share your marketing material
Not all NHS organisations will allow access to YouTube.
If you do have access to YouTube, you may want to check your organisation is happy with you posting content on behalf of the KLS.
If you have access, you can:
- record and share virtual events
- create and share virtual tours of the library
- share recordings of training events
Remember to obey all copyright requirements for YouTube and that YouTube is a public platform. The public may comment on your videos and you may want to consider turning comments off or moderating them for this reason.
To ensure your content is accessible, you should add subtitles to your videos.
Page last reviewed: 18 August 2023
Next review due: 18 August 2024