Article Note: On social media as platform for academic library marketing

Citation for the article: Wesley Wing Hong Cheng, et.al., "Social Media as a Platform in Academic Library Marketing: a Comparative Study." Journal of Academic Librarianship 46 (2020): 1-8.

This article looks at use of social media for marketing academic libraries. Libraries often hope to use social media as a tool to better engage their patrons. Given the popularity and ubiquitousness of social media, there is a need for library professionals to learn new skills and best practices in this area. The authors write that "librarians should know how to use these tools effectively by understanding behavior, culture, and etiquette of different users" (2). The librarians and library staff also need to examine how their patrons use and engage with social media. This article looks at an evaluation study done at University of Hong Kong Libraries on how effective or not use of social media was to market the academic library. The study focuses mainly on the library's Facebook page. Information was gathered via a quantitative survey created and distributed via a Google Form at the HKU campus. A total of 101 responses from faculty and students were collected.

Some takeaways from the article for me: 

• A definition of marketing: "Johnson (2014) defines the term marketing from a library context, which is to determine the wants and needs of the user communities, to develop the products and services to respond, as well as to encourage users and potential users to take advantage of those products and services" (qtd. in 1). 
• On perception of the Facebook page they found that "although respondents generally agreed that the use of library Facebook could be beneficial, some issues such as a lack of attractiveness, shortage of technical staff, and too much spamming might hinder them from participating in the HKUL's Facebook page actively" (5). 
• Suggestions from the article: 
• Use casual language and friendly tools so you can create a positive social media environment for users. 
• Introduce training sessions on library marketing with topics such as effective communication and use of social media tools. 
• Adjust posting frequency after investigating when users are most active. Do keep posting frequently. 
• Criteria you can use to evaluate how your social media is performing include numbers of likes, shares, and comments on posts. These are measurable and can be used to set benchmarks.