Alright, you knew eventually I was gonna talk about this. I love Twitter! It's a wonderful social networking site that answers the question "What are you doing?" in 140 characters or less. Status updates are made in real time, and the message is delivered instantly to those who subscribe to Twitter, aka your "followers." In the article I'm refering to in Public Libraries, "What Are You Doing Now? And Do Your Patrons Care?" writers Michael Porter and David Lee King believe that this is a viable tool for connecting with patrons. Here is their list of potential uses for status updates:
- Connecting with patrons and colleagues
- Connecting with other organizations
- Advocacy
- Answering and asking questions
- Professional development
- Using it as a listening tool to "hear" what your community says about the library
- Broadcasting announcements
- Throwing ideas around
- Promoting services or events
- Job postings
The article also states that libraries that already use Twitter do a lot of linking--to events, new titles added to a collection, webpages, or blog posts. We could use this service to our advantage by telling our audiences that check our FB and Myspace page to join Twitter and to follow us. This could help us listen to our community.
I signed up and didn't really like it. Maybe I didn't spend enough time with it. But it seemed kinda one dimensional to me. I like Facebook more because you can do the "What am I doing" stuff plus tons more.
ReplyDeleteAnyway... My two cents.
I think Twitter is different. And boy is it in the news. I can't wait to see where it goes.
ReplyDeleteI joined Twitter not too long ago and am just becoming acclimated. But I like it so far.
ReplyDelete