So Much Social Media, So Little Time: Using Student Feedback to Guide Academic Library Social Media Strategy

Abstract

The majority of college students use social media of some kind, and academic libraries are increasingly using social media to reach them. Although studies have analyzed which platforms academic libraries most commonly use and case studies have provided examples of how libraries use specific platforms, there are few examinations of the usage habits and preferences of local user populations to guide library strategy in this space. This article reports on the results of a survey in which students at one university were asked about their personal use of social media and their preferences for how the library uses social media.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• social network
• academic libraries
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• promotion
• outreach
• marketing
• engagement