Lonna M.

Vines LIS490SMG Final Project April 30, 2013 Young Adults and Social Media If you are a parent or teacher, you might assume based on your own experiences that young adults, ages 11-18, using a social networking website such as Facebook or Twitter is of no more worth than playing a quick game of World of Warcraft or watching the newest Hunger Games trailer on Youtube. However, social networking websites present many opportunities for marketing and educational strategies geared toward teens through the use of these frequently visited sites. Inside libraries, we refer to the age range of young adults, sometimes also referred to simply as teens, as the age group 11-18. Discussing the benefits of social media and how to create successful social media results in this paper is geared towards the use of librarians and teen librarians but could also be applied to any profession working with teens. I concentrate largely on how to create a successful Facebook library page for teens based on my findings that Facebook is by far the most widely used social media by teen users. We will also look at survey statistics that find fun being the number one reason for why teens use social media websites so often and how you can incorporate fun into your library media pages for more successful results. As a Young Adult Coordinator at Oconee County Library located in Watkinsville, GA, I have seen firsthand the benefits and fun that can come with social media marketing. We use our face book page for everything including promoting events, hosting online contests, praising frequent teen patrons for personal and academic achievements and of course pictures, pictures, pictures! In my experience, teens love pictures. I began this 2

position four years ago, and at that time there were very few pictures from events on our library page and the ones that did exist were not well organized, often simply thrown up as a page upload as opposed to an album with the event name as the album title which is what we do now. More recently, we try to upload a new album about once a month following our biggest events. Some of our album titles have included, Spring Break Concert w/ the band Yer Heart LIVE, Anime Club Holiday Party w/ Candy Sushi, and Teen Iron Chef. The titles themselves, are designed in such a way that even a passerby teen who might not choose or have time to open every single album can still see an instant representation of the many different types of events we hold at their local library. Not to mention, pictures keep the teens who frequent library events coming back to the Facebook page on a regular basis. Teens who are often visiting your library page whether it be for pictures of past events or some other reason is exactly what you want as a Facebook page administrator because it gives them the opportunity to see advertisements for other upcoming events, contests or library policy changes. We have also had luck with other websites such as Blogspot which several teens often say they still check for a quick look at that months events, where we post nothing but upcoming events for the upcoming month, once a month on the first of each month. I also started a professional librarian Tumblr blog to document popular events, craft how-to tutorials, poster designs and book recommendations that is geared specifically to other Young Adult librarians. I opened it up to my colleague so that she could also submit to the blog when something was relevant. However, some of our teens found the page and now often frequent it! They even started specifically requesting that we update the blog, what 3

they refer to as our librarian blog with different craft tutorials for various events. As far as why I chose Blogspot for one and Tumblr for the other is simple. The Blogspot was already created before I took over my position and I chose Tumblr because it is currently the most popular social networking site. I have used the site for many years and know there to be a great community of other librarians to benefit from seeing the blog, should they happen to run across it. Having seen so much success with Facebook and our blogs, we have not yet branched out with other social medias. The reason for this being simply because we dont see the need as Facebook is by far the most popular used social networking website currently being used, so it makes sense for us to concentrate on making it the best it can be as opposed to spreading ourselves thin by trying to keep up with various different websites on a frequent basis. To begin researching this topic further I decided to start by pooling the resources I have access to, which was to ask the teens in my library. I set a goal of fifty survey users for myself gathered both online and in person at my library. I made an agreement with my boss who approved my idea that as long as I share my survey findings with my co-workers, I would be allowed to hand out surveys at the library circulation desk and at my Young Adult programs. I just barely made my goal with fifty-two participants. The only real problem I came across was due to my lack of knowledge in the field of surveying as opposed to the survey itself, being that documenting online and hand collected results as one larger, yet unpublished, survey made things more difficult for me. I had a couple of expectations going into my survey. One was that, specifically in my

4 small town, that teens would be have stricter restrictions from parents on internet use. I also believed the percentage of those with restrictions would be larger with those filling out the survey in person as opposed to those filling it out online. In fact, I thought the results would be largely different betwen the online and in-person submissions for several different reasons. I anticipated this to be the case because those with current internet access, who found my survey while using Facebook would obviously be online, currently using a social media website. Where as, those in person, I assumed, would be more likely to have stricter parents, or potentially without access to internet at home. However, my results were quite different from what I expected, giving very similar results despite whether it was submitted online or in-person. Almost every category yielded similar results with the exception of top reasons for using social media having a slightly higher percentage for education, but still not higher than fun or keeping in touch with friends and family.

5 Young Adult and Social Media Survey Combined Results: In-person and Online (Vines, Survey) 52 Participants 70.58% female, 29.42% male Median age 16.5
Social Media Sites Percentage of Users Actual #

Percentage of participants using the following most heard of social medias: Facebook 100% Youtube 94.12% Twitter 64.71% Tumblr 52.94% Top three reasons for using social medias: Fun 94.23% Education 5.7% Keeping in touch 3%

6 I have a majority of female teens coming to library events on a regular basis so it was no surprise that the majority of those who were able to locate my survey online via Facebook and those who filled it out at an actual event were also a majority female at over 70%. We also tend to have more older kids, as opposed to those in the 11-13 range and in fact the youngest participant we had in the survey was 12. No eleven year old filled out the survey. I could speculate that a larger number of younger participations may have changed the results on internet restrictions. Based on my results, it is clear that a large majority of my libraries frequently visiting teen population use Facebook and therefore make it the most likely to be used by teens. Other popular networking sites are Youtube and Twitter. Some people might not consider Youtube a traditional social networking website, however with the ability to make profiles, send messages, reply to videos via comment box or reply video features, you can see how it can easily be used as a social networking site. However, I dont think Youtube would be a very useful site for library use when implementing marketing strategies and event promotions to teens. I have however cross-platformed before, sharing a Youtube video made by a patron of our Teen Literary Haunted House on our Facebook page. The most helpful and insightful information learned from my survey was that teens have very little restrictions when it comes to internet use and they choose to use social media sites for the most part just for fun. This leads us to the conclusion that if you want teens to frequently visit your Facebook page, you should definitely make it fun and interactive. You can achieve this through the use of contests, pictures and daily trivia, just to name a few ideas. Some examples of contests would be to post a book quote and the

first 7 teen to reply with the correct answer can come into the library to get a prize. Prizes we have had in the past included a free book from the book sale room, a $5 gift card to a local bookstore and a DIY Make Your Own Zine Kit. However, as discussed previously, I personally find pictures to be the easiest way to draw big numbers to your Facebook page. When considering how to start a library Young Adult Facebook page, you have a lot of different things to consider. First, you need to find out whether or not your library has any rules about this in your social media policy. My library does have a social media policy but it does not address this and the page was already created when I started the position. If your library does not already have one then you should get approval from your manager and/or library board to make sure that yours plans are in line with the vision they have for the main library Facebook page. It is possible that they would want you to only be an admin for the main page and to not have a separate page. I think this is better than nothing but certainly not as fun or helpful for individual groups of patrons such as young adults. After you have approval and are ready to start dressing up your Facebook page, you will want to start considering the visual appeal of your page. You have many choices, such as page icon and background photo. At my library, we usually choose group pictures from bigger events and the next upcoming event as our icon. In the photo below, you can see Oconee County Libraries Facebook page as it is now, with a background photo of teens taking a picture with the lead singer from the band Yer Heart who came from Nashville, TN to perform a free concert at our library. The Icon is a flier promoting our upcoming

event, Minute 2 Win It.

(http://www.facebook.com/oclya) Once you have worked up a good look for your page, you want to start thinking about content. Some content to consider is library policy changes, event promotions, last minute cancellations, photos, book recommendations and contests. In my teen section, we try not to stick to a set rule of book recommendations per month because we dont think it is very conducive to the truth. You end up not reading anything and you just pick out something you think will be good and stick it up there. Thats not how we go about things. Since it is just myself and one other co-worker, we decided that we would only post book recommendations when we are especially excited about a book. Hoping that the teens will feed off our excitement and not be able to resist checking the book out. But, every library is different and I could certainly see plenty of merit in doing one a week, especially if you have a larger staff alternating days. Contests are really great way to keep teens coming to your Facebook page, where a library will ask a question about a Young Adult book or author and the first to reply comes

to the library and pick up a prize. Bringing teens to the library through the use of social media does exactly what you want it to, it gets them in the door. In my experience, the tens 9 almost always get at least a little distracted by all the cool books in our section making it that much more likely that they check one out, or better yet, read an actual book! The main goal of having a Facebook page is to get it to translate to foot traffic and in the case of contests, it does just that. When considering the advantages of social networking, it is also important to consider potential problems that could arise. For example, as mentioned in the Athens Regional Library Systems social media policy in relation to comments boxes, ..if a comment is ugly, offensive, denigrating and completely out of context, then the content should be rejected and removed (Athens). At my library, we have a very small Facebook community with 161 followers but I imagine with larger communities such as Atlanta, there would need to be someone checking for inappropriate content on a more consistent basis. Checking with your library or library systems social media policy is of the utmost importance. According to Teens, Libraries and Social Networking,a majority of internet users read at least one blog regularly, and around sixty percent of those under twenty-five read multiple blogs regularly (Agosto). Another social networking website of use to librarians is the blogging platform, Tumblr. With the rise of teen sensation bloggers such as Tavi Gevinson, also know as, Rookie and Tumblr, the fastest growing blogging website amoung teens right now (Foss), its easy to see that jumping into that online world will catch the eye of many of

your local teens. Tumblr has a terrific, user-friendly platform that allows for the Tumblrcreation of reblogging. Which means, simply put, that if someone likes what you post they will repost 10 your original post which gives you the opportunity to gain more followers and reach more potential patrons. The only downside to the growing social media is that you never know which platforms will stick and which wont. For example, not so long ago it was Blogspot that was the number one used blogging website. However, starting an endeveavour with out knowing whether or not your chosen social media site will have outlast the ever changing internet is one of the risks you take when using any social network. Over eighty percent of the population in Western Europe and the Unite State have internet access (Swanson, 5) and 100 percent of teens polled use social media is some form. With statistics like these on your side, it is easy to see how social media can become a great tool for those who work with teens in a library setting to use social media to enhance their section. Not only does it give you a way to connect with your patrons when they are not in the building for important issues such as library policy changes but it gives you an outlet to utilize the communicative power of social networking, a relatively new concept that plays a large role in the everyday lives of many teens. Making your social media pages fun, interesting and interactive are key concepts in getting the results you want: foot traffic in the library and connecting with your patrons.

11 Works Cited

Agosto, Denise E. Teens, Libraries, and Social Networking. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2011. Athens Regional Library System. Personel Policies: Social Media. April 16, 2013. <http://athenslibrary.org/images/PDF_documents/personnel_policies/staff_social_m edia.pdf> Foss, Mark. Business To Community, Tumblr Is The #1 Social Networking Site For Young Adults In US. April 17, 2013. <http://www.business2community.com/socialmedia/tumblr-is-the-1-social-network-for-young-adults-in-us-0411517> Swanson, Troy A. Managing Social Media In Libraries. Oxford: Chandoe, 2012. Vines, Lonna M. Young Adult Social Media Survey. Survey. Survey Monkey. 12 March, 2013.