A lot of us are posting about not having enough resources, about having to be selective on which social media tools we choose to stay connected to our users, about the longevity of some of these tools that keep popping up, etc. I am in that same boat. Though not managed by me, my library has Facebook, Twitter and Blog presence. Blog posts are automatically fed into our Twitter account with shortened (bit.ly) urls. Personally, I am on Facebook, Twitter (though I hardly tweet), and just created a LinkedIn account. I’d like to venture into Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram.
I don’t think most libraries, unless they are a very large institution with significant resources, have the luxury of a PR officer or a web team (as it used to be called) to manage it all. Most of us are trying our best and have added on the duties of creating accounts, posting, responding to users, etc.
There are so many social media tools out there that there are now tools to manage those tools! You can consolidate/schedule posts, be alerted when others comment, provide analytics (who is checking you out!), etc. Though it does involve creating more accounts, I’ve begun to explore this as an option. Being on the cheap at my job (I don’t have any funds to buy a subscription), I will look at tools that have a free option. Some of the tools are very sophisticated; some may not have a free option but you may be able to set up a free trial. I’d love to know if anyone is using any such tools and what your experience has been.
Google even makes life “easy” for you: they have set up a page of companies/tools which they know have incorporated Google+ into their social management tools! That is one nicely compiled page to start me off on my trek, though I haven’t joined the Google+ bandwagon yet.
Some useful articles to get started:
- 3 Tools to Simplify Your Social Media Marketing (published 11/28/12)
- 3 Low-Cost Tools for Managing Social Media (published 1/27/13)
- 3 Tools to Better Manage Your Social Media Presence (published 2/13/13)
- The Top 5 Social Media Management Tools for Small Business (published 11/7/12)
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How to do Social Media Management on the cheap (published 1/16/13)
Thanks for the links! I’m going to study them both for my own social media use and for my social media plan assignment!
Thank you for these! I can’t wait to try some of them! I have used Involver for our Facebook Page before and found it really useful for integrated things like newsletters and other additional content to the page.