Social Media for Academics

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Social media for academic libraries

David J. Fiander

Abstract:

This chapter discusses the value of the academic library engaging with its users via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. The chapter provides some background on research into how libraries have experimented with using Facebook for outreach and how the user community has responded. It gives a brief outline of the process for creating a rich Facebook page for an academic library system, and tips for how to market a Facebook page or Twitter account and how to use social media accounts to promote the library’s services. Finally, it provides some guidance for how an academic library should think about policies for posting to social sites by staff, and how to deal with ...