Method 8 - Social networking

Social networking sites such as Facebook and My space are lots of fun and allow you to make connections with persons and companies that you might not easily be able to connect with otherwise. For libraries there is much potential to promote the library to a whole range of connections that would not have been reached in any other way. Since social networking is growing in usage daily, it certainly behooves the library to devote some staff and time to marketing the library on a social networking site. As with anything else given a priority, a library should allot time for a staff member to do this on a daily basis.

Privacy on a personal social networking site is a cause for concern and it remains to be seen how much that will impact individuals when they apply for a job or even try to keep other connections. For most individuals, care must be taken not to involve oneself with a site of a political nature or even a controversial social cause. Anyone signing on to a social networking site should be very familiar with the privacy settings available on the site.
Hopefully, these sites can exist and still allow an individual to maintain a level of privacy he or she is comfortable with.

The ability to advertise to individuals with links to certain interests certainly is a huge temptation for companies and indeed a way of saving time and money if a company can determine an individual is most likely to be interested in their product line. Privacy protections should be in place so that individuals can opt out of being mined for this kind of information if they desire.

At present my library is planning to become involved with social networking but is not involved yet. The marketing potential of social networking sites seems unlimited. This alone would make it worth a library's while to invest staff and time toward developing a social networking policy and moving forward on Facebook, My space, and/or Twitter. How the library's online presence will be defined and maintained should be thought out well beforehand.