Top Tips for Social Media

Carole Bowe,  Development Officer at Gloucestershire Libraries, shares her top tips on social media engagement to inspire you this Libraries Week.

  • Keep posts fresh and relevant – ensure you have someone/team rota who can input, respond and monitor.
  • Build your followers by following back if relevant and following “influencers” nationally and locally
  • Tag people or companies in your posts to alert them to your message, celebrities will retweet if you’re promoting their books or work
  • Use hashtags – these are recognised on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. They can be made up or campaign ones e.g. #LibrariesWeek #OurDay #GetOnlineWeek
  • Use photo video or GIF to attract attention – visual images are more eye catching and “thumb stopping” to stop people scrolling
  • Schedule posts where possible but be prepared to edit if required. This is useful over weekend/ for planned campaigns
  • Interact and engage with followers – retweet items which will be of interest to your follows, you can add your local links to these
  • Get a gimmick! Check out Orkney Library or our #Bookblends, #BookFaceFriday and #NicheBookMonday for inspiration
  • Use what you have – book spine poems, book titles into song titles etc. – all show the quirky side of library life
  • Respond. Social media enquiries should be responded to in same way you would reply to written comments/complaints-use auto responses where possible
  • Stay positive. There may be some negative comments but these can be taken offline where possible and libraries have many more positive services to talk about
  • Get recommended! Our Pinterest page has 214,000 followers as it was on a recommended list for people joining the site so we have a worldwide following!
  • Use social media analytics to show – reach/engagement/best times to tweet etc. and to check your most successful posts
  • Keep it fun and informal – showing the human side of libraries encourages people to interact and visit you!

Follow Gloucestershire Libraries on social media:

 

Check out the BBC News coverage of Gloucestershire’s ‘Bookblend campaign which has had nearly 1 million views.