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How to Have a Student-Centered Approach to Social Media: Perspectives From Library Staff and Student Assistant

Justyne Triest, Evening Supervisor

Alyssa Townsend, Junior

Nicholson Library, Linfield College (McMinnville, OR)

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Basics

Accounts

Twitter
Facebook

Pinterest
Archives Tumblr

Two staff managing

About 5-10 hours/week

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Tools & �Techniques

Focus on students

Library-to-student vs. library-to-library communication

Connecting with college social networks
Relevant Content

Infographics
Contests
Images/Archival pictures (random, but also tied to specific events)
Live-tweeting author readings, other events

Resources/items for checkout
Relevant quotes (in Infographics)

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-Focus on students- it’s important to focus on library to student communication instead of library to library communication which is all too easy to fall into. For our social media we focus on content for students in order to engage them and receive useful feedback in order to better serve the Linfield community.

Connecting with college networks- we follow and interact with multiple other Linfield social network accounts to connect what’s going on at the library with the rest of the departments, organizations, and clubs on campus. By maintaining these relationships other accounts will oftentimes retweet or share our content to their followers, which helps spread messages to a wider audience (and we do the same).
Relevant content- content that students have responded well to (with favorites, tweets, or likes).
Image is an educational infographic created using easel.ly by student assistant. The information on the infographic was gathered from an annual report created by library staff.

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Pre & Post Student

Pre-

Text heavy posts
Less relevant info
Fewer posts that asked for interactions
Facebook/Twitter were automatically connected

Post-

More images, more student images

Archival images

Information presented in visual ways
More original content
Authentic student voice
Info students want/use
Distinctive voice across all social networks

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Source- Twitter

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Source- Twitter

Approx. 35% of our 210 followers are current students!

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Facebook Insights

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Logistics

Documentation

Student Worker contract
Training plan/Yearly assessment
Shared Google Docs /calendar
Wiki with information
Weekly meetings
Most communication via email

Challenges

Training time
Term breaks/summer
Student isn’t a full-time worker, so isn’t always present in the library to see/document what is happening as it happens
Limited work study hours
Student needs to be comfortable communicating with all library staff
Security of accounts

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Resources

Tweet/Facebook scheduler
Easel.ly
Infogr.am
Google docs/calendar
Wikispaces
Photo editing program
Smartphone/tablet

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Contact Us:

Justyne Triest

jutriest@linfield.edu

503-883-2711

Alyssa Townsend

atownsen@linfield.edu

- Twitter

@linlibraries

- Facebook

www.facebook.com/linfieldlibraries

- Pinterest

www.pinterest.com/linlibraries

- Archives Tumblr

linfieldarchives.tumblr.com

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