Likeable Social Media

I bought this title in November 2011, as I had heard good things about Dave Kerpen. 

It's a simple introduction for businesses/organisations using Social Media, with a particular focus on Facebook. I did wonder if perhaps it is too simple, but perhaps that is because I've done some reading and playing around in this area and am therefore not the key audience. Having said that, I did appreciate the book for it's easy to read style, it's emphasis on likeability and customer interaction (which are often overlooked in more techo books), and it's examples. 


It's main thrust is remembering to stay 'likeable' during your interactions in social media.  There are very good examples (I had heard a few before) to show how businesses are finding that this is the key to engagement with their customers - and a major part of this is to show that there are real humans involved at the other end. Be approachable. Be responsive. If a mistake is made, admit it freely and offer to make amends/provide solutions. Staff need to be empowered to be able to interact in a human way - the main thesis in the Empowered book.
Of course, you also need to know your customer, what they are interested in and how they interact in the social media landscape (including what tools they are using, and how they are using them). He encourages us to use the tools available as a customer, as well as a provider, to understand the experience better and therefore modify for the optimum experience.


Libraries have long believed that we are likeable (and our ratings amongst our customers have been pretty good in this area) but as we become more and more part of larger, highly structured organisations, our ability to respond to individuals in a highly targeted and 'likeable' way has been reduced. We need to ensure that the structures assist us in connecting directly with customers, in being approachable and responsive rather than the other way around.


Kerpen, Dave (2011) Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook (& Other Social Networks). McGraw-Hill. Kindle version

Empowered by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler

Bernoff, Josh & Schadler, Ted (2011) Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business. Boston, Mass. : Harvard Business Press. 

I read this late 2011 - the Kindle version

One of the key changes that social media is bringing with it, is the empowerment of ordinary individuals. It is now possible for one person to take on a big corporation and change the way it interacts with all of it's customers. As a result of this, we need to ensure that our staff are also empowered to respond quickly and in a way that meets the demands of our customers.

This is a big challenge for both businesses and non-profits/governmental agencies. We tend to have historical reasons for why we interact with our customers the way we do, and the larger the organisation we work for, the more structured those interactions generally are. It's also often more difficult to free up layers of bureaucracy and allow staff the authority to make decisions as they are needed, and in a timeframe that is now expected by the customers (i.e., almost instantly).

This book (by one of the authors of Groundswell) gives examples of how different organisations (from a range of sizes and industry types) have used different social media tools to bring about a change in how they interact with their customers.It's about being deliberate about introducing social media, but not waiting for the perfect solution. It's ok to make mistakes as long as they are acknowledged and lessons learnt.

They also talk about people they call HEROes — highly empowered and resourceful operatives.Without these leaders (in the sense of those who lead others, not necessarily having a job title or salary that implies leadership), transitioning to a more innovative and responsive organisation is much more difficult. They provide tools that can be used to evaluate organisations and their readiness for change, on their website as well as in the book.

Although I didn't find this as useful as the first title (Groundswell), it still made me think. Always a good thing!
Specifically, I considered current structures including roadblocks, some of the ways that roadblocks can be overcome, and who to target when working towards implementation of more responsive customer service in our organisation.

Facebook marketing boot camp webinars

This post has been finally made live - nearly 6 months after I drafted it. Life just gets in the way sometimes!

I couldn't make it for the live sessions but I have been slowly catching up on this series using the webinar videos.
Each webinar went for around 30 minutes - an initial presentation of 10 minutes, then a series of answers to pre-received questions. There was generally one host and two presenters/subject experts from Facebook. Although it was very business focussed, there were some new tips for me that I thought could translate well to Libraries.


Topics and presentation dates were:
November 1st 2011 Why Facebook for Business?
November 2nd 2011  Connect to people with your Facebook Page
November 8th 2011 Spread the word with Ads

November 9th 2011 Let your customers do the talking with Sponsored Stories

November 15th 2011 Maximize your efforts with Insights and Optimization

November 16th 2011 Make your business more engaging with social technology

So, some tips and thoughts :
Facebook is (as they say over and over) about connecting people with things they care about. So it's a prime tool for libraries.
There's a lot of inexpensive ways of getting started. Don't ignore the obvious - ensure the page details are properly completed. Connect your physical location with your virtual location by including Facebook (and any other social media/virtual addresses) on stationery, library cards, check out slips etc. Engage people by asking questions and posting things of interest to them. Don't post too often though. Make your content interesting and relevant and people will share, and your numbers will grow organically.

Once you have a core group of people, look at Facebook ads. Although this is more relevant for businesses, Libraries (and other non-profits) may find that Facebook's low entry fees (and ability to target very locally) mean that using adverts judicially is worthwhile - even if it is only to raise awareness of a specific program or event. There are different kinds of ads available. The detail of this changes regularly as Facebook are continually working on new ways of tweaking what's available to suit advertisers whilst ensuring that their revenue stream continues! Page Managers can trial the different ads and get a feel for the financial impact that they might have, without committing to a big upfront amount.

Once you have the basics in place and you are interacting with your customers, it's time to look at the analytics, and tweak your offerings. There are quite a range of tools (and again, these are evolving as Facebook constantly trials improvements) available to Page Managers, and with a little bit of playing around, these can be very powerful.

Social Plugins were also discussed - Facebook provides a range that can easily be popped onto your other sites to increase your social reach and make it easy for connections to be made.

Nothing life shattering in here, but a good basic foundation for those new to using Facebook as a marketing tool. 

So, who (or what) are we? And what does that mean for the future?

A few things I've been reading/listening to this week (and yes, some of this is rather old - takes me a while to catch up on my professional reading sometimes and then I get taken on a tangent!) have been raising the question of whether libraries and librarians are about a physical space, a specific service or program (and specific processes to support them), a specific format in which information is provided, or something more nebulous.
Of course, this is not a new question and not one that will be answered in the short term even with the interesting conversations already taking place in print, in blogs, at conferences etc., but I wanted to put down some of my thoughts...

• Our customers are moving online, but they're not all there yet. It may be another generation (or maybe never!) before we have a customer base who is comfortable with all things electronic. I'm amazed sometimes when young (to my eyes) Uni students want me to help find print materials rather than electronic (and are quite adamant in their belief that print is superior). My sister travels most months and remotely accesses many of her work tools, but finds technology too difficult/complex/frustrating to invest her private time in learning. She's smart and savvy about many things, but this is not a priority. And don't get me started on my Dad!
  We shouldn't assume that there won't be a need to continue to provide existing materials and services for the foreseeable future.

• The library as a collaborative space is very important to many people. But many people still crave a quiet space too. A place for research or just some peace. Sometimes these competing needs are from the same people with differing needs at different times. Juggling continues, particularly for Academic libraries!

•  Yes, there are many processes that we have done because they used to be needed, but may no longer be the most appropriate or required at all. Ongoing reviewing of our services/programs/procedures is healthy. However, communication of the aims of any review must be clearly communicated (and repeated as necessary) as otherwise staff may experience natural concerns about their future resulting in uncertainty. Not good for the health and vibrancy or teamwork of a library team. And review after review without benefits clearly being seen can lead to inertia or resistance (passive or aggressive). Ongoing dialogue is key to ensuring staff feel that they are an active part of the process rather than being steamrolled.

• A recurring (and rather important I think) theme is  “If we built it today what would it look like?” (Nussbaumer and Merkley 2010) This seems to be a good way to review our services and do some future dreaming.

• Dorney and Frierson (2011) have an interesting discussion of plans for reference service provision when there is no physical library (at least, not with reference librarians in situ). The librarians will be in another physical space altogether, but moving around campus and possibly logging their locations via social media. Most 'just in time' reference services will be provided remotely.
  This has relevance for Murdoch's review of service delivery (with specific emphasis for me on the reference service - I may be out of a job that I really enjoy, very soon!). Millerville's 'experiment' in alternative reference provision is certainly one to watch - nothing particularly new in the proposals, but the fact that they are not running it alongside a 'traditional' service means that the results will possibly be more meaningful.

In summary? We need to ensure that changes and 'moving with the times' are not at the expense of those who don't or can't move at the same pace that we want them to. There may need to be parallel services for some time yet (with cost implications of course) and above all, communication and education to help along those (patrons and staff) who just find the changes a little difficult but will get there in time.

Dorney, E. and E. Frierson. 2011. "Renovation as a catalyst for change".  In the Library with the Lead Pipe http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2011/renovation-catalyst/ (accessed 3 December 2011).

Garrison, J.. 2011. What Do We Do Now?: A Case for Abandoning Yesterday and Making the Future. Reference & User Services Quarterly 51, no. 1, (October 1): 12-14.  http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed December 3, 2011). 

King, D. L. (2005). Website as destination.
http://www.davidleeking.com/2005/09/22/website-as-destination/#.Trqe_PLeIhE (accessed 3 December 2011).

Lankes, R. David (2011) A New Librarianship for a New Age. http://vimeo.com/32400532 (accessed 3 December 2011).

Nussbaumer, Alison and Merkley, Wendy. 2010. The path of transformational change. Library Management 31, no. 8/9, (October 10): 678-689.  http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed December 3, 2011).

Strategically Social Online Seminar

This week I had the enjoyable experience of sitting in on a Webinar presented by Zaana Howard (via QUT Information Studies) titled "strategically social. plan. engage. act." and then reviewing the mp4 a few days later (I remember better if I get to see/hear/consider again!)

For  future reference, Zaana's slide set is available on Slideshare.

I found the whole presentation quite useful for getting my head around some of the issues regarding growing a social media strategy (either in general or for a specific tool) from scratch to ensure that it is structured and sustainable. For this post (linked to my reason for this blog in general) I'm going to just dot point and then flesh out a few of the many things that stood out to me/that I want to remember and refer to again/that I want to find out more about.

• 1 in 4 businesses have a Facebook presence but this is actually less than 2009 (which was a big year for experimentation).  
• Public and private sectors using social media very differently.
• Interesting stats and comments on EU Libraries and their use of social media. Does this carry across into Australian situation smoothly, or are we different?
• UTS is a great example of a library effectively using multiple channels to reach it's target community. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/  
•  POST framework from Groundswell. These should be considered in this order. Too often we start with the tools, but we need to first establish WHY we want to be present in Social media in the first place. Then consider:
• People - Who is the audience? What are their specific needs? (Don't assume that you know them - need to ask/observe) How would we like them to interact with us know, and in the future?
• Objectives - What are we trying to achieve? What actions do we want the audience to take? What benefits are there for the customers? For the providers?What will success look like in this sphere?
• Strategy - How will we get there? What existing services can we collaborate with? Timelines? Are there barriers to be overcome? Map them to better understand how they can be overcome. Governance issues?
• Tools - Once we have established the above, we can look at specific tools and determine which is the most appropriate. Ensure we look at where users are, and also the levels of resourcing available.
• Also looked at Buy-in - both bottom up and top down buy-in are important for success. And buy-in is not a one off event - need to build a strong, consistent, ongoing relationship.
• Evidence - where does it LIE? (Provide evidence that "speaks" to the people that you need to convince.
• Literature
• Industry
• Experience
• Need to establish roles & responsibilities (eg may be one key person, but they will need a support team especially for leave/holidays)
• RASCI for resourcing.
• Map out the first three months (slides 84-86). Make it explicit for each tool. Remember, it's about growing the audience.
• Allow enough resources. For example, initially Twitter will require one person, one hour per day until they build up their presence through regular posting of good content, and involvement in conversations.  However, although there will generally be one key person, they need to have a team behind them to find useful information and also cover when on leave etc. Also means not just one perspective and results in a more rounded account. Note, unlikely to see success with Twitter for 6 + months.
• Measurement is very key.
• Not just followers/friends/views/click throughs although these are valuable.
• Sentiment analysis – what are people saying and what emotions are they showing? There are some measurement tools available in this area but still being developed.
• Conversations and stories are the richest part of social media, but difficult to measure. 
•  Some specific tips for Twitter
• Plan ahead and know what you are going to post - don't necessarily limit to core business but consider other related information that will be of interest to the majority of your customers.
• Frequency 1-5 tweets per day (any more can be overload)
• Use relevant hash tags
• Consider who you should and shouldn't follow (don't need to follow everyone who follows you)
• Use @ replies
• Use URL shortening services - eg Bit.ly which allows you to track stats of the click throughs, etc.
• Some specific tips for Facebook
• Profile vs Group vs Page (which is indexed in search engines). Once set up can be difficult to change.
• What to post - as per notes for Twitter above.
• Admins - who, and enough in case people leave.
• Frequency of updates
• Friending 
• Events
• IN summary, a quote from Sarah Houghton-Jan "Be clear, Be there, Be Present" - paraphrased as be consistent, authentic, available.

Things that I want to follow up/find out more about:

• Bit.ly for URL shortening & tracking
• Foursquare - esp growth in Australia
• Diigo - taken over in some respects from Delicious, but more functionality
• POST framework 
• Groundswell (2008) by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li

Useful tools to examine (at some point!)

This is another post to help with my absolutely appalling memory!

With many thanks to Judy Connell (2011) for her slideshare post 'Taming Information Chaos' http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/taming-information-chaos/ accessed Sept 17 2011

 http://search.carrot2.org/stable/search

"Carrot2 organizes your search results into topics. With an instant overview of what's available, you will quickly find what you're looking for."

http://quintura.com/

And of course, remember to use Google's "related search".

http://search-cube.com/

"search-cube is a visual search engine that presents web search results in a unique, three-dimensional cube interface. It shows previews of up to ninety-six websites, videos and images."
 
http://infospace.com/

"Powered by metasearch technology, InfoSpace.com returns all the best results from leading search engines including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Ask...we look at all the results from each separate search engine and compile the best of the best in one easy place. In the end, you get a list of results more complete than anywhere else on the Web."

http://www.pandia.com/index.html

"The Pandia Search Central gives Internet surfers access to several tools that will help them become more able net searchers. Then there is a vast amount of information for Webmasters trying to achieve higher search engine rankings for their sites."

 

LibCampOz September 19 2011

Written fairly late at night...
Stimulating, tiring, horizon expanding, pushing me out of my comfort zone, challenging... These were all things that I expected from my first unconference, and it delivered. It was a good experience.
But I also had reinforced what I'd heard about this format - you really get the most out of it if you give freely of yourself, and throw yourself into the process.
In many ways I was more of an observer than a participant - not what I'd intended.
However, I found that I had few relevant experiences to offer on the topics discussed. But I figure that is partly because of where I'm at in my life/work journey and partly because of the topics which were chosen to be discussed. And that's ok, because I learnt and was challenged and stimulated and made some interesting people's acquaintance and discovered some resources that I want to follow up, and there is (hopefully) next year!