Blog #3 from the Social Media group.
The third session was “Evaluating, Recommending and Justifying 2.0 Tools” by Marydee Ojala, Editor of ONLINE Magazine.
Marydee pointed out that it is much easier for individuals to adopt to changing technologies than it is for institutions, such as libraries.
She advocated using social media for empowerment and collaboration, as well as having a clear purpose for the tools selected.
Marydee also looking for needs in your community and using Web 2.0 tools to meet those needs. Examples of needs are: meeting customer/patron expectations, marketing the library, product promotion or branding, transmitting information, learning from others’ experience, and monitoring the library’s reputation.
In order to justify tools, she recommends seeing how they might align with the library’s missinon statement, providing research that appeals to the discipline or interest of those you are speaking to, and making sure that you keep your managers informed. A few people in our library have been advocating the use of Facebook for marketing for quite some time. I found this session helpful because it provided avenues for research that will appeal to our administration.