Steiner Sarah K. - Strategic Planning for Social Media in Libraries

2012 by the American Library Association. Any claim of copyright is subject to applicable limitations and exceptions, such as rights of fair use and library copying pursuant to Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act. No copyright is claimed for content in the public domain, such as works of the U.S. government.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Steiner, Sarah K.

Strategic planning for social media in libraries / Sarah K. Steiner.

p. cm. (The tech set; #15)

Includes .

ISBN 978-1-55570-779-8 (alk. paper)

1. Online social networksLibrary applications. 2. Social media. 3. Libraries and community. I. Title.

Z674.75.S63S74 2012

302.30285dc23

2012007202

THE TECH SET Volumes 1120 is more than just the book youre holding!

These 10 titles, along with the 10 titles that preceded them, in THE TECH SET series feature three components:

1. This book

2. Companion web content that provides more details on the topic and keeps you current

3. Author podcasts that will extend your knowledge and give you insight into the authors experience

The companion webpages and podcasts can be found at:

www.alatechsource.org/techset/

On the website, youll go far beyond the printed pages youre holding and:

Access author updates that are packed with new advice and recommended resources

Use the website comments section to interact, ask questions, and share advice with the authors and your LIS peers

Hear these pros in screencasts, podcasts, and other videos providing great instruction on getting the most out of the latest library technologies

For more information on THE TECH SET series and the individual titles, visit www.neal-schuman.com/techset-11-to-20.

Strategic Planning for Social Media in Libraries is a one-stop manual for how to plan, write, and implement a strategic vision and mission for social media within your organization. Author Sarah K. Steiner walks readers through how to do everything from conducting an audience environmental scan, to carrying out a SWOT analysis, to developing internal guidelines for social media activities. This top-notch primer is full of tips, worksheets, and mini case studies illustrating how to put together a stellar strategic plan, including forming a task force, setting up a planning model, and garnering administrator and peer buy-in. Readers will walk away from this volume knowing exactly how to craft their own unique strategic plan and how to set it in motion in their library.

The ten new TECH SET volumes are designed to be even more cutting-edge than the original ten. After the first ten were published and we received such positive feedback from librarians who were using the books to implement technology in their libraries as well as train their staff, it seemed that there would be a need for another TECH SET. And I wanted this next set of books to be even more forward-looking and tackle todays hottest technologies, trends, and practices to help libraries stay on the forefront of technology innovation. Librarians have ceased sitting on the sidelines and have become technology leaders in their own right. This series was created to offer guidance and inspiration to all those aspiring to be library technology leaders themselves.

I originally envisioned a series of books that would offer accessible, practical information that would teach librarians not only how to use new technologies as individuals but also how to plan and implement particular types of library services using them. And when THE TECH SET won the ALAs Greenwood Publishing Group Award for the Best Book in Library Literature, it seemed that we had achieved our goal of becoming the go-to resource for libraries wanting hands-on technology primers. For these new ten books, I thought it was important to incorporate reader feedback by adding two new chapters to each volume that would better facilitate learning how to put these new technologies into practice in libraries. The new chapter called Social Mechanics discusses strategies for gaining buy-in and support from organizational stakeholders, and the additional Developing Trends chapter looks ahead to future directions of these technologies. These new chapters round out the books that discuss the entire life cycle of these tech initiatives, including everything from what it takes to plan, strategize, implement, market, and measure the success of these projects.

While each book covers the AZs of the technology being discussed, the hands-on Implementation chapters, chock-full of detailed project instructions, account for the largest portions of the books. These chapters start off with a basic recipe for how to effectively use the technology in a library and then build on that foundation to offer more and more advanced project ideas. Because these books are designed to appeal to readers of all levels of expertise, both the novice and advanced technologist will find something useful in these chapters, as the proposed projects and initiatives run the gamut from the basic how to create a Foursquare campaign for your library to how to build an iPhone application. Similarly, the new Drupal webmaster will benefit from the instructions for how to configure a basic library website, while the advanced web services librarian may be interested in the instructions for powering a dynamic library website in the cloud using Amazons EC2 service.

I have been following Sarahs work in the field for the past few years and was thrilled when she was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in 2011. Sarah K. Steiner was the perfect choice to write this book on Strategic Planning for Social Media in Libraries. Not only is she incredibly experienced and fluent in this area, but she far exceeded my expectations with the depth of coverage she was able to achieve with this title. This is an important book that every library will want to have in their collection.

Ellyssa Kroski

Manager of Information Systems

New York Law Institute

http://www.ellyssakroski.com/

http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/

Ellyssa Kroski is the Manager of Information Systems at the New York Law Institute as well as a writer, educator, and international conference speaker. In 2011, she won the ALAs Greenwood Publishing Group Award for the Best Book in Library Literature for THE TECH SET, the ten-book technology series that she created and edited. Shes also the author of Web 2.0 for Librarians and Information Professionals, a well-reviewed book on web technologies and libraries. She speaks at several conferences a year, mainly about new tech trends, digital strategy, and libraries. She is an adjunct faculty member at Pratt Institute and blogs at iLibrarian.

Since the beginning of social medias rapid rise in popular culture, hundreds of articles and studies have been published on its vital importance to corporations and institutions. Profit and nonprofit organizations alike have come to recognize the value of social media networks and communications to their target audiences and have taken steps to leverage it to create customer awareness and loyalty. Social media use is on the rise almost everywhere, with almost every group. In this new world where people tune out advertising automatically, they turn to social media to get information from friends, colleagues, and strangers. Strategic Planning for Social Media in Libraries will show you how a little bit of time and a good plan can make the best use of this smorgasbord of resources.