David Lee King » social media

Library360 – a new Video Series for my Library

David Lee King — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:00:43 +0000

Here’s the first video for Library360, a new video series for my library. Our goals are pretty simple (or lofty): to introduce our library’s customers to the library – our services, staff, etc. All the cool stuff the library does that doesn’t always get noticed.

We’ll see what happens!

In the meantime, here’s what our plan looks like for the video series:

3 minutes or under (didn’t quite make it at 3:16, but we were close!)
big goal – make the library more visible to Topeka
post a new video every two weeks
do this for one year
ask for interaction (likes, comments, subscribers)

Question – anyone else doing a regular video series for your library? I’d love to know about it!

Social Media as Place

David Lee King — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:00:43 +0000

My last post about those billboards reminded me about the difference between a library’s normal forms of content (books, DVDs, music CDs, etc) and social media.

What’s that difference?

Content – a book, a video, etc – is something you DO. You read a book, you watch a movie.
Social Media is a place you visit in order to DO. You visit Facebook in order to share something with your mom.

Think of social media as a crowded room in a pretty social setting. A bar, a party, hanging out with friends, etc. You go there to talk, to share, to listen. It’s a place you visit so that you can do something.

There are a couple of cool intersections though. Things like this:

Go to Twitter (a place) to talk (something to do) about a book that everyone’s reading (content).
Visiting the library (a place) to use the computer to access Facebook to reconnect with a friend (something to do).

So librarians … use your mad powers of social media to connect with your customers to talk about your content. Then see what happens.

image by Bigstock

Hey Milwaukee, You’re Doing it Wrong!

David Lee King — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:00:14 +0000

Milwaukee Public Library is running an interesting billboard campaign right now. See the image above – that’s the billboard – it’s being displayed on digital billboards “throughout Milwaukee County at no cost” (from their press release).

My three thoughts upon seeing this:

Thought #1: “Yikes! They’re showing their print book bias.”

Thought #2: Looks to me like the public library is telling Milwaukee social media users that they’re doing it wrong. In essence, they’re saying “reading books is better than what you’re doing.” It’s sort of a negative message.

Thought #3 (a bit more here): Two of the three messages don’t really make sense, and one seems format-specific. Here’s what I mean:

Putyourfaceinabook and 140 characters? try millions (book vs. Facebook/Twitter): these two don’t really work for me. Twitter and Facebook are online social communication tools; books are, well … things you tend to read by yourself. It’s an apples to oranges comparison. Reading a book is great – but not if I want to chat with a friend, or do some work, or, say, run a revolution in the middle east (all things that people do via Twitter and/or Facebook).
You Could Be Reading (book vs. Youtube): To me, this message makes the claim that one form of content is better than another – i.e., books are better than video-based content. Books certainly work well for some content, but a book isn’t always the best choice! For example, books aren’t the best choice when I want to watch the new Van Halen video, figure out how to install a storm door, or watch a full-length movie (all things I can easily do via Youtube).

I get that the billboards are meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and that many online types think they’re witty and clever. And I think books are wonderful – no problems there. But I also see a lot of libraries taking wistful looks into the past, rather than actively planning to navigate our emerging digital content future. To me, these billboards are looking into the past.

Things aren’t going to go back to the way they were, no matter how many times we tell people they should be reading a book instead of watching a Youtube video or hanging out on Facebook. Is this the message you want to send to your community? I’m not convinced it is.

Then again, I could be way off my rocker. What do YOU think about these billboards?

Update – Check out Will Manley’s post for a historical perspective on a very similar issue … with the same library, no less (ok, and I’m blushing a bit, too – thanks for the kind words, Will!).

Twitter Apps for the iPhone

David Lee King — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:00:08 +0000

I have been using Twitter’s iPhone app for iPhone tweeting … but since their recent update, the app hasn’t worked well for me. I just tested it – it took 5-6 seconds to open, then when I clicked on Connect, it took about 1 minute to actually show me any tweet replies. Every page of the app has been irritating that way.

So a couple nights ago, I asked some Twitter peeps what their favorite iPhone Twitter apps were … and received some great responses, including:

Tweetbot – this is the one I settled on for now. Why? The layout works for me, and Tweetbot does one thing I’ve wanted for awhile – have the main screen default to a list (see the accompanying screenshot) instead of the full timeline. I rarely follow the timeline feed. Instead, I created a shorter list of people I want to follow (ok – actually a few different lists), then follow that list. Makes twitter much easier to handle.
Echofon – I have used this early on. It’s still a really nice Twitter app.
Hootsuite for iPhone – I have this, but haven’t used it much. As far as I can tell, there is no Push setting. So, to see new Twitter replies using Hootsuite, you would need to open up Hootsuite and refresh to see if you received anything new (rather than just letting the Twitter app handle this via a Push). Not useful to me!
Osfoora – heard of it, never used it.
Twitter – the app made by Twitter that I just complained about…
Seesmic – never used the iPhone app.
Tweetdeck – I have it, but it’s been pretty buggy for me so I rarely use the iPhone version.
Tweetings – never heard of it.
… and the Twitter app for android, with a smiley face attached. I’m sure it’s dandy for all you Android users

Is your Twitter app working for you? If not, try out one of these, and share what you like/don’t like about them!

Update those Library Policy pages!

David Lee King — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:06:27 +0000

This morning, I’ve been watching a small PR fiasco unfold. According to CBS Boston, Charlton Public Library sent a police officer to collect overdue books from a 5-year-old. The story also made the Drudge Report and the UK’s Daily Mail – gotta love that international media attention!

OK – there’s obviously a LOT more to the story that was left out. For example, there’s no mention in the article of the reporter actually talking to library staff, who could have filled in the details (they DID talk to the library – it’s mentioned in the video version of the story).

Via Facebook, the library filled in some pertinent details (i.e., what actually happened) after getting some nasty Facebook comments:

“Library materials are purchased using taxpayer dollars. We feel as library staff that it is our duty to safeguard those tax dollars. We have asked the Charlton Police Dept. to help recover items from those patrons who have been delinquent in returning materials for more than 6 months and who have at least $100 worth of unreturned materials at their homes. We follow our standard procedure of phonecalls and/or emails to remind patrons to return their materials. A bill is sent out once an item is overdue for a month. Sending out the police is a last resort effort to get back some of our most valuable items. The police visited 13 families whose outstanding balance totaled $2634.00 in library materials.” (from Charlton Public Library’s Facebook Page - also just added to the main page of the library’s website).

So good for them for using Facebook and their website to quickly respond to the story.

After I read the article, I first visited the library’s website and tried to find their fines and fees policy. Here’s all I found (until they updated the site and their Facebook Page):

Print and audio materials accrue a 10 cent daily overdue fine with a $3.00 maximum fine per item.
Dvd and video items accrue a $1.00 daily overdue fine with a maximum fine of $5.00 per item.
Patrons are responsible for the repair or replacement of lost or damaged items. Failure to pay fines or damages will result in the loss of borrowing privileges at C/WMARS libraries.
from their Library Services page

What’s missing here? Any information about the process, what happens if you don’t pay your late fees, etc – other than the “loss of borrowing privileges” info. That sounds VERY different than explanation from the library quoted above, doesn’t it?

How can this be improved? Simple – if you have a policy, a guideline, a process for fines and fees (or for anything else, for that matter) – put it on your website. Probably in a Library Policies section, or a link to appropriate places on your site. For example, the late fee policy/process could be added to your “get a library card” page.

Then, when the media calls asking why you’re sending police to a poor 5 year old child, you can explain … but you can also email them a link to the appropriate policy and process.

Question – if one of your library customers had a policy-type question, could that question be answered using your website?

Update button by Bigstock

Most Popular Posts and Videos of 2011

David Lee King — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 21:46:31 +0000

Here’s a list of some of my most popular content from 2011, including blog posts, videos, photos, and presentations. I hope you enjoy poking through this list, and more importantly, following along – reading, watching, viewing, etc – in 2012!

Most Popular Blog Posts of 2011:

Most Popular Videos of 2011:

i-microphone for the iphone – the Edutige EIM-001 (embedded below) – me testing out an iPhone microphone. Viewed 5574 times and counting, mainly because the US distributor put a link to my video on their website.
Testing out my RØDE VideoMic Pro – me testing out another microphone. Viewed 2617 times – proper use of keywords put my video in the first page of hits for “RØDE VideoMic Pro.”
Morphwiz – an iPad Music Creation App – me playing with an iPad synthesizer. Viewed 2134 times. Proper use of keywords and tags is the culprit again – this video appears in the first page of hits for “Morphwiz.”
OK, and my most popular video ever – Learning Blues Harp – viewed 63,469 times since 2007. Embarrassingly enough, I’m pretty certain it gets hit so much (and then gets some nasty comments) is because of my poor use of keywords! When I titled the video “Learning Blues harp,” I really meant “I’m just starting to learn blues harp.” Everyone else apparently clicks on the video, thinking “I’m going to learn HOW TO PLAY blues harp from an expert!” Oops.

Most Popular Presentation of 2011:

Seriously Social – Leveraging Social Media: Focus on Facebook – viewed 4686 times on Slideshare (and well attended a couple of times, too).

Most popular photos of 2011:

From Flickr: viewed 289 times…

… and my personal favorite from 2011 in Flickr – my family. Viewed only 16 times, which is actually sorta amazing:

And my most popular pic in Instagram from 2011 (I’m davidleeking on instagram – Instagram is VERY COOL):

Here’s to a great 2011, and to an even better 2012!

Embeddable Tweets – What do they do?

David Lee King — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:00:15 +0000

Just testing out Twitter’s new “Embed this Tweet” feature. It lets me embed a tweet within my blog post. Here’s my example:

Just testing out embeddable tweets – this will be posted to my blog tomorrow. Let’s see what happens with it!

— David Lee King (@davidleeking) December8, 2011

Interesting. It lets you:

See my Tweet in a more “twitter-like” format
follow me
reply, retweet, favorite

It’s sorta like you are on Twitter … outside of Twitter. Even cooler is this: since it’s not a screenshot, viewers/readers can actually click and follow/respond. It’s a simple way to prompt Twitter users to do that next step. Nice!

So – what do you think of Twitter’s new Embed this Tweet feature? Will you find ways to use it?

Focus on Youtube – Summary and Why?

David Lee King — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:00:08 +0000

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been writing and thinking about Youtube for awhile. Here’s a list of my recent Youtube posts:

Why have I been focused on Youtube? Well, a couple of reasons. One, I really needed to re-focus on Youtube a bit at work. Writing and thinking about this stuff really helps me figure out what I need to do next for my library’s Youtube account.

One more reason – Youtube is a social network, with subscribers, friends, content creators, comments, likes, and favorites. If you want friends, subscribers, comments … and more importantly, video viewers, you need to be there. You need to watch videos, leave comments, likes, favorites, share videos, etc. That gets you noticed by others in the Youtube community (and your local customers who use Youtube).

Try out some of my suggestions, and see if you can increase engagement in Youtube in 2012!

Community pic by Bigstock

Focus on Youtube – Use Annotations!

David Lee King — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:00:18 +0000

Youtube Annotations are cool. They’re an easy way to add in messages and links to a Youtube video without having to mess with fancy coding or weird additions within the video itself.

What are annotations? They are notes that can be placed within a video on Youtube. Annotations can contain links to other Youtube pages/videos/features or text.

Here’s a video I recently created (non-library video – it’s me telling the story of cracking my ankle. Pretty much all better now!). In the video, I use two annotations – check them out:

For libraries and other organizations, I can see three types of annotations being really useful:

subscribe button – ask people to subscribe to your Youtube channel
next/previous video – link to another video of yours – this keeps people watching your channel
Text annotation – use it to ask people to like the video, leave a comment, or subscribe…

Why do this? Easy. It’s an easy thing to add in to a video, and has the potential to be another way to help you connect to your customers. Ask customers to take a simple specific action (remember those calls to action mentioned in a previous post?) like subscribe to your youtube channel, like your video, or leave a comment. Doing this helps you increase viewership, engagement, and subscribers to your Youtube channel … and therefore to the cool stuff your organization does, too.

video camera pic from Bigstock

I was on the Bibliotech Podcast

David Lee King — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:00:54 +0000

Remember that Library Podcasts you Might Find Useful post of mine from a few weeks back? Well … I was just interviewed on one of them!

The Bibliotech podcast, one of the five podcasts from Dquarium, interviewed me. I chatted with Kayhan B., Erin Anderson, and Doug Mirams, and we had a fun, interesting chat about the social web, new media, and the importance of well-designed library websites and digital branches.

Here’s the embed of the show (or better yet, just go subscribe via iTunes):

Bibliotech 10: Digitized and Virtualized by dquarium

Not familiar with Bibliotech? Here’s what they say about their show: “Libraries have always been the backbone of any information society. Bibliotech is an audio podcast that discusses all things digital technology at our libraries. Hosted by Kayhan B., Erin Anderson and Doug Mirams (with occasional guests).”

So far, they’ve interviewed me, Michael Stephens, Sarah Houghton, Jan Dawson, and have talked about a variety of technology and web-related topics. Check it out!

David Lee King » social media

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