I spent the afternoon yesterday at 4 different sessions under the category Social Media: Leveraging Web 2.0.
I’ll break up my blog entries for each session.
The first one was called “Micro Interactions, Conversations and Customers.”
This session was largely about how to maximize interaction on social media resources. The first speaker, David Lee King of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, recommended the following
1) Say the stuff in your head (if it’s controversial, people will respond)
2) You have to give to get (if you don’t keep posting things, no one will respond) 3) Ask and ye shall receive. (People love to be asked questions). 4) Listen first. (Hear what people are saying in their comments. 5) Dangle a carrot (offer an incentive to participate – waive an overdue fine, give some free printing, etc.) King’s other suggestion was to connect with your local online community. Often these are people who don’t yet come into the library, but have an interest and ideas on how to get others on board. The other part of this session, led by Amy Kearns and Julie Strange, focused on how to use Twitter to reach patrons. They gave the example of the CEO of Zappos who frequently tweets and thus builds a rapport with customers and potential customers. The two presenters also emphasized the importance of connecting with your patrons – basing tweets on the kinds of questions asked and embedding the tweet stream in some place where patrons already are (one example was a college library that scrolled their tweet stream on large screens in the library). Strange pointed out that there were several uses of Twitter for libraries: reference, customer service, broadcasting events, getting feedback, and professional networking. One example given for customer service was the ability to respond to customer complaints quickly. If a patron tweets about a bad experience at the library, it can be quickly corrected before it permeates the web. These presentations emphasized how useful tools such as Twitter can be, and that using them effectively does require an investment of time.