Social Media

There has been much debate in the information profession about the use of social media, with many professionals advocating its use as a powerful networking and marketing tool for Librarians to keep up to date and provide a useful service to their users. Some Librarians differ in this view, seeing it as unnecessary to service provision and an attempt to make libraries 'trendy' and up to date. Most however, agree that if used correctly, social media platforms can be incredibly useful at allowing the Library to reach out further to it's users. Using Twitter for example can be really useful at expanding your professional network or keeping up to date with relevant news or special interest groups within your field. As a newbie to Twitter (I am now around six months old) I use the service to keep up to date with the latest news, I follow people who interest me and I tweet and re tweet not just about Library stuff, but about a wide range of subjects that interest me and sometimes just about personal thoughts and comings and goings.

With a personal (I'll try to avoid saying addiction) interest in social media, I was eager to find out how best to use these platforms within the information world, so I attended the SLA Europe event 'Engaging with social media for fun and career success'.  I listened to three very different speakers providing their personal and professional experiences with social media and came out with some new ideas of how to think about my professional use of social media. The major learning point for me from this event was to 'network, network, network'. Speak to people after events, make contacts and engage with discussion both in person and over social media platforms. Learning and discussion helps Libraries immensely and anything you as a professional can do to raise your profile and expand your portfolio is important. The key pointers I will be taking away from the event are;

1)Be yourself! Even if your twitter account or blog is based around your professional identity, show you are human. It makes for much more interesting reading and makes you more approachable to others.

2) When blogging, the key is consistency and focusing your blog around a specific thing, i.e new job, learning etc.

So... From now on, I will try and be more regular with my posts and try not to worry so much about keeping my personal and professional identities separate (within reason!)

If you are interested in reading attendees tweets from the event search for #slae on twitter