Rosalind Moore LIS622 Social Media Plan We will take a look at how developing a social media plan for the James B. Duke Memorial Library will be beneficial to outreaching to students and faculty at-large.

About James B. Duke Memorial Library Johnson C. Smith University Johnson C. Smith University is a Historic Black Private University The library staff serves about 1300 students and located in the heart of Charlotte, NC The JCSU library serves about 1300 students and is an Historic Black University. I would like to add that we currently have a Metro College which is tailored for our non-traditional adult learners.

Why Does our library need to incorporate social media? The Pew Research center reports that 65% of adult internet users now say they use a social networking site like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 61% one year ago. Brian Mathews posted in his blog Ubiquitous librarian, that many libraries are jumping into social media without clear concise target audience and many without plans. From Mathews research July 2011, 40% of libraries had no plan and did not feel a need to create a plan. Another 40% were working on a plan and 20% have a plan in place. Currently we opened a Youtube account and started a library Facebook account but both accounts have been stagnant. I believe this is the case because like many other libraries we failed to plan. Lets see how developing a plan can be effective.

Why Do we need a social media plan? Cont… Librarians can no longer just look at computer use, daily door counts, or the number of literacy classes taught to measure success on getting information to our users. If you take a look at these statistics from the Pew Research Center suggests that our users are utilizing the various social media platforms on a daily basis. We need to ask ourselves are we doing our best to reach all of our users? Of course we can market and hope that our users open up to utilizing our social media networks. Lets now take a look at the effectiveness of our current marketing outreach efforts.

How are we currently marketing to our JCSU users? We currently get information to students by utilizing traditional marketing tactics: Digital signage; table brochures, emails, and advertising posters and signage throughout the campus.

Is this type of marketing effective in 2012? I would say yes and no to this question. I believe the majority of our traditional users utilize some form of social media platform, however there are non-social media users. According to Mezik, libraries need to become more aggressive with marketing services, rather than the assumption that users will come (Mezik, 2007). I think aggressive marketing should be tailored for our social media users and non-social media users. Jessamyn West a librarian activist mentions the importance of acknowledging all users and paying special attention to non-internet/social media users.

So how do we plan? According social media researcher Blanchard there are four phases to the adoption of a social media plan. Phase 1: Test Adoption Phase 2: Focused Adoption Phase 3: Operational Adoption Phase 4:Operational Integration

Which Social Media Outlets do we utilize? Phase 1: Research, research, and more research. Phase 2. Focus on Twitter, Facebook, and Thumblr. Phase 3. Operational- Create a social media committee, write a plan, and designate individuals to test social media outlets. Phase 4:Integration and assessment Phase 1: We plan to research various social media networks and figure out our mission, target audience, and information that best fits the needs of social media . Phase 2: We decided not to confuse our users with indulging in too many social media outlets. So we decided to limit our focus on three outlets for various services and marketing purposes. Phase 3: We first will create a social media committee so individuals can plan and decide which individuals that will run our social media outlets. The committee will determine numbers of hours assigned to each outlet. Phase 4: This is the phase where we will begin and will complete monthly assessments on how each outlet is working to determine if the outlet is right for our library.

Twitter We decided from research that twitter would be more effective to getting messages regarding technology issues and announcements to undergraduates and on-campus students. This market tends to utilize Twitter most often.

Facebook We plan to send same messages and updates on Facebook as we will do with Twitter. Inaddition, we believe that Facebook will be a great vehicle for our new Friends of the library program, advocacy, and raising funds for various programs.

Thumblr The James B. Duke Memorial library is dedicated to promoting diversity on campus. The university has made drastic efforts to diversify the student body. We are on board with the changes and believe storytelling through photos and blog style Thumblr outlet will be the perfect vehicle for diversity outreach.

Who will be accountable for the three social media sites? Thumblr Student Diversity Advisory Board and Evening Library Supervisor Facebook Social Media Work-Study Student and Public and Reference Services Librarian Twitter Social Media Work-Study Student and Educational Technology Librarian The evening library supervisor currently is the liaison for the student diversity advisory board and sits on the campus multicultural committee. This will fit in her role perfectly with assistance from the student advisory board. We decided this role does not require any additional funding because we decided 10 hours a week would be suitable and fits into diversity initiatives. For Facebook and Twitter we decided to hire two social media interns whom will be supervised by Reference librarian and Education Technology librarian.

Compensation and devoted hours Thumblr- no additional fees but 10 hours devoted to social media Facebook- Social Media Work-Study 15 hours a week – no fees Twitter- Social Media Work-Study 15 hours a week No fees There is always a great demand for finding work for eligible work-study students. We will test out the social media sites utilizing work-study labor with supervision and guidance of staff to create a win-win situation. We will then assesse each media outlet to maybe hire a full-time social media specialist depending on 2012/2013 outcomes.

Conclusion We plan to challenge ourselves by putting a huge emphasis on specific services that would have a lasting impact on our users. We plan to offer social media literacy workshops so that our users are protecting themselves and effectively utilizing the positives of social media. We are committed to finding out how our users seek information because we know that it changes constantly. Ultimately becoming the “Embedded Librarian”, a term that Dewy describes as ”Embedding oneself at as many venues as possible to ensure services are fully integrated into all aspects of campus life” (Dewey, 2004).