LIR Social Media Lecture and Workshop - DIT Aungier St., 29/5/2013

I attended the LIR Social Media Lecture and Workshop - DIT Aungier St. this morning. The session was given by Glenn Mehta (see http://www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk/bookstore/author.aspx?authorid=303890). The following are my not so expert notes on the session, with a heavy bias on what I got out of the session. It was a very busy and informative session. Lots to think about now in relation to our retired library blog, and the possibilities for subject support. 

Main points: 

Focus of your social media activities should be engagement not follows/likes (although these are important to get the conversation started). Students have moved from being passive followers to active participants.

• Socialnomics by Erik Qualman @equalman is a leading authority in this area. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0EnhXn5boM
• Infinite Ripple by Glenn Mehta provides Irish Examples. http://www.infiniteripple.net/
• Social Media includes (not comprehensive): 
• Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, Wikis, Blogs, Google+, VLE's, YouTube etc. 
• and these create 
• Real-time Information Streams
• Discussions that can be reused to lighten customer service work loads
• Ireland seems to be 8 months behind the global trend
• Social Media has generated a fundamental shift in how we communicate, especially for the Millennial generations
• Students want information in snippets, (snip-bits) and will follow a link to further information only if they think that it is relevant from the 140 character message that you post
• Treat a post or tweet as a headline
• OTT Messaging (What's App & Viber etc.) are replacing phone based testing
• The move away from issuing students with institutional e-mail accounts, as they use social media to communicate, provides a cost saving
• c. 96% of u30's in Europe and USA have a social media account. 
• Smart phones will dominate by 2016
• 4G networks will facilitate this. (16 months or so in Ireland to this being delivered)
• Be conscious of what message you put up as it has the power to go global
• Compliments go viral but so do complaints
• Don't be afraid of negative statements, but make sure that they are responded to appropriately
• Google ranks Facebook statements
• Ask for opinions do not make instructional style statements 
• This generation resists being told what to do
• Instead use 'here's what's happening' and 'what do you think' type statements
• 1/2 the Irish population have a Facebook account
• Twitter and LinkedIn are growing fastest at the moment
• Facebook fatigue is becoming an issue (55-65 currently biggest group joining Facebook)
• Brands may disappear but social media is here to stay
• Social Media supports our inbuilt herd mentality
• Consider Subject Wiki's for collaborative learning, supports and gateways. 
• Social Media users trust their circles (this is now things go viral) 

• Strategic Uses: Remember your primary stakeholders are students 

• Inform do not instruct
• Enable your social media activities via increasing your Facebook page likes and your Twitter follows
• Target your followers with RELEVANT INFORMATION, but don't bombard them
• Think about why it is relevant to your students, and make it timely
• For example students may not feel that information about writers is of relevance to them as their aims are to pass exams and gain employment
• Use associated topics
• Use ITUNES and other Libraries resources which are relevant to your students. (You don't have to generate all the content yourself)
• Include images 
• DON'T LEAVE MORE THAN 5 DAYS BETWEEN TWEETS/POSTS
• Use tools like Tweetdeck (tweetdeck.com) and HootSuite (hootsuite.com) to manage your dissipate accounts, including scheduling tweets/posts in advance
• These apps display accounts on columns, and allow for quick browsing through content. (For example: on a pc you might see 4 columns: what you follow, when you are mentioned, messages to you, your content)
• Connect to Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ etc. all in the one place
• One person should be responsible, but more than one can generate tweets/posts
• Do not leave your accounts idle for more than 2-3 weeks. 
• Organize content for when you go on holiday in advance and schedule it to post
• Regular updates - benefits: Likes, Comments and Shares influence the algorithms used by Facebook (appear in news feeds, leads to comments  improves positioning etc) , #hashtags can influence search engine rankings
• Blog regularly, but use headline statements on twitter to inform followers, enclose a link to the full content
• 400 words is too long for the current student cohort
• Once posted, inform students of it's existence as follows
• 1 > There's a blog post about x
• 2 > Something relevant from the post (give them a reason to want to read it)
• 3> Final reminder: This is why this content will benefit you
• Do this over 2 weeks
• Regularity improves your ranking
• YouTube content is some of the most shared content out there
• Utilize your institutions stream
•  If you begin a conversation, leave it to the participants > monitor it (delete inappropriate and irrelevant content)
• Respond politely if needed, but on their level even if you have to 'resort' to text speak and abbreviation
• Too much formality is off putting especially for undergraduates, and could kill the thread. Let it grow organically
• Show humor in posts and include media (pictures, videos etc.)

• #Hashtags: use of a # allows you to follow comments as a group / community conversation 

• #hashtags are not NORMALLY subject to copyright
• Check for companies, and trademarks
• If someone if using one already, consider using something unique
• Can filter by country
• Works cross platform 
• Try hyper-linking your #hash-tags
• re-tweet (RT) credits the origin
• Make social media the main focus of you two-way communication
• At the end of all this activity you will know if you have been successful if you have increased engagement as users do want you in their social spaces
• Followers become users
• To get started consider running a competition, with a small prize, load the recording of the draw onto YouTube. This will help determine if your students are willing to engage. 
• For librarians LinkedIn should probably stay as a professional networking tool, and Facebook communication should be through a library Facebook page not a personal account. 
• Use e-mail icons on all communications to promote your accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Blog)
• Consider posting QR codes around the library routing to the library site
• Make it easy for them 
• You cannot control who likes a Facebook page
• DKIT library:example of good practice

Glenn's book "Infinite Ripple"s website also includes teaching resources, podcast, and adobe connect materials (some coming soon). The resources on www.InfiniteRipple.net contain some material that is copyright free (lecture slides and later in the summer recordings of lectures), but the lecturer copies of the eBook are obviously not copyright free!