Southeastern Massachusetts Library SystemContinuing Education Program

Navigating the Social Networking Landscape

Presented by Kathy LussierOctober 22, 2009klussier@semls.orghttp://www.slideshare.net/kmlussier

Rocky Terrain, CC image originally uploaded by r-h to Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/r-h/1244347796/

A Question For My FB Friends

Introduce me: what do you know about me?

My family? My likes and

dislikes? What I do when

I’m bored? My political

views?

Sites That Make Up This Landscape

What Image Do We Project Through Our Social Networking Profiles?

Sam Gosling, author of Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You

Source: YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVuoNAeTpUU

“How do you think you’re viewed on the basis of your Facebook profile?”

“Most people have absolutely no idea… they think they know but it doesn’t correlate at all with how they’re actually seen.”

-Sam Gosling, Speaking at the Commonwealth Club of California

Your Friends Are Looking At Your Profile

Confirmed by Researchers at Harvard Business School

“Seventy percent of all actions are related to viewing pictures or viewing other people's profiles.”

- Mikolaj Jan Piskorsk

Biggest Usage Categories?Men looking at women they don’t knowMen looking at women they do knowWomen looking at other women they know

Overall, women received two-thirds of all page views.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6156.html

What Do People Do On Social Networks That Give Others Such An Intimate Glance Into Our Lives?

It’s All In Who You Friend

Or at least remembering who you friend

Relationships in the Physical World

YOU FAMILY

NEIGHBORS

FRIENDSPERSONAL

CHILDHOOD & HS FRIENDS

COLLEGE FRIENDS

EXES

HISTORY

CO-WORKERSCOLLEAGUE

SUSERS

PROFESSIONAL

Relationships in the Virtual World

From The Great American Melting Pot, Schoolhouse Rock, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWJ4udW41Ns

Decide in Advance Who You Will Connect With

Do you really want to be “friends” with? Co-workers & colleagues Your boss and/or employees Your patrons and/or students Your policymakers and funders People you haven’t spoken to in 20

years

Resurrect Those Social Nodes from the Physical World

Facebook and MySpace allow you to organize friends into groups and set different privacy levels of each group. USE THEM!

Some social networks, like LinkedIn, are more suitable for professional contacts.

Some people maintain two different Facebook profiles: one for professional contacts and one for family and friends.

Before Posting Anything Ask yourself: who can read this post? If

it’s Twitter or a blog, it may be the entire world.

If you won’t discuss a topic in a face-to-face conversation with that person, don’t post it online.

Don’t post anything that would embarrass you if it were published on the front page of the newspaper.

Send Friendly Reminders When People Post Messages That Don’t Meet Your Guidelines

Become Familiar with the News You Are Sharing

Social Networking at Work If you’re maintaining social networking

sites for the library, you need to use the sites during work time.

Social networking at work is also good for sharing ideas with colleagues and becoming familiar with the places your users visit.

Employers and staff need to be clear on what is and is not acceptable use of these sites during work time.

Employee Use Policies

Time spent on social networking sites at work.

Guidelines for posting to official library pages.

Guidelines for posts to personal sites in which you discuss work or policy of the library.

Sample policy from the Kingston Public Library at http://www.wmrls.org/policies/6regions/pdf/kingston.pdf

Social Networking With Your Users

Best done as a group or a Facebook page where you can create some distance between the library and the user’s personal information.

Do I Really Want Users Posting Live to the Library’s Profile?

YES!

Public Interaction on the Library’s Virtual Space

We have rules of behavior for the library’s physical space.

We need rules of behavior for the library’s virtual space.

Guidelines to Consider

Appropriate language If sharing images, videos, etc,

submitter must have the right to post that content.

If posting photos, submitter must have permission of anyone included in the photo.

Sample policy from Whitman Public Library at http://www.wmrls.org/policies/6regions/pdf/whitman.pdf

Speaking of photos…

Photos, videos and audio recordings of patrons and students are a great resource to share on these sites.

Be sure to get permission from anyone featured in this media.

Sample photo release forms:http://www.nmrls.org/policies/website_policies.html

Library Staff Needs to Check This Space Frequently

If there is a question, suggestion or complaint, quick response time is vital.

Scenarios

Scenario 1In this scenario, you are a high school library teacher and advisor to a community

service club at the school. When last-minute changes are made to meetings or you need to get the word out about an upcoming event, you’ve noticed that it is difficult to get the word out to all of the students in your club. They don’t seem to hear most school announcements, any flyer just gets buried with the rest of their papers, and even e-mail can remain unread for days at a time. However, they always seem to be tuned into anything posted to Facebook in the last five minutes despite the administration’s attempts to block the Web site.

After receiving the approval of the school principal, you become friends with these students on Facebook. You adjust your privacy settings so that these students can’t see postings that are of a more personal nature. Not only has it become an effective means of communication with your students, but it has also improved the rapport you have with them. Everything is going smoothly until about six months later when one student posts photos of himself and some friends drinking beer at a party.

Scenario 2You work at a library where one of the employees you supervise has created a Facebook page to engage with a user population that has traditionally been hard to reach. The page is a big hit with this user population and has led to increased use of the library among these users. To get a better idea of how this project is working, you create a Facebook account and friend this employee. During your infrequent logins to Facebook, you begin to notice that this employee is making frequent status updates throughout the work day and engaging in conversation with people who post to his Wall. It seems like a lot of his work time is spent on the site, but you initially decide not to say anything to him. However, you revisit this decision after he posts the following status update: “Completely unmotivated to work today. Have started various projects, but FB keeps drawing me away.”

Scenario 3Your library has created a presence on MySpace to interact with teens in the community. Many teens have become friends with the library and often post comments to its wall and to the library’s status updates. The library uses the status updates to post news about upcoming teen programs and to start discussions about books, movies, music and other areas of interest. Overall, the comments have been positive until a day when the teen librarian posts this question: “what can we do to make the library a more welcoming place?” In response, one of the teens says:

“The library sucks! The librarians are always nasty and rude to people, especially kids…one made me pay a $2 fine even though I told her I brought my books back on time. If you want to make it more welcoming, get rid of everyone who works there and hire people who are fun!!!!!!”

Scenario 4Your library has not yet dived into the social networking world, but there are staff members who have maintained their own personal profiles on social networking sites. One staff member, who you supervise, maintains a Twitter account. In her Twitter profile, she identifies the name of the library where she works and often posts about library-related issues. Most of her Twitter followers are colleagues working at libraries around the country. There are also a couple of co-workers who follow her, but no library users or members of the community.

One of her co-workers notifies you that she has recently been tweeting about a policy decision with which she disagrees. She maintains a professional voice in her criticism and does not engage in personal attacks. However, she makes it clear that she is at odds with this decision and also cites examples from her workday experience on why this policy is not working.

Links This presentation is available at

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Delicious links are available athttp://delicious.com/kmlussier/socialnetworkinglandscape