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80 - Social media

from Section 3 - Activities and tools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2018

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Summary

Social media

Social media allows people to create, share or exchange information, ideas, and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks.

Wikipedia, 2015

SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS and tools such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare allow you to discover, disseminate, organize, collaborate and even curate information. It provides news from around the world at a speed that is incomparable with news dissemination 20 years ago. It empowers,

democratizes and has even brought about regime change. LKS staff can use it to promote their services, engage with their customers, stream content (Taylor & Francis, 2014), create professional networks and update current awareness.

Social media is included in CILIP's PKSB (2013) section ‘IT and Communication’ (Sections 12.4–12.7). The PKSB describes an information professional who understands social media tools in a variety of ways – not just for communication and networking but also using them to create usergenerated content, and as part of media and PR skills.

It is important that managers help staff to foster an awareness of social media in this information age. Staff need to know how their users are discovering and using information, so they can answer questions about it and exploit tools to promote their service. Here are a few handy tips for using social media:

  • • Starting out? Try a Twitter account first – it's very quick and easy to create. It also will help with you and your staff's current awareness.

  • • Finding out about new stuff? Have development meetings. Get each member of staff to research a new and different social media channel and bring it to present at the meeting.

  • • Librarians involved with children and young people should explore Snapchat, Instagram and the latest craze for following vlogging and vloggers.

  • Being open to social media in the first place is important, so if you want to develop this in your staff, have your own accounts in at least a couple of tools. You can then encourage staff to do the same. Even if you are only using a couple of social media channels, an awareness of functionality will make it easier for you and your staff to learn how to use new tools. Leading by example in this way shows staff how important social media is to you, and having a Twitter account will help you to find out about new social media tools.

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    Publisher: Facet
    Print publication year: 2016

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