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What can you do with a Facebook Page?

by davidleeking on October 9, 2008

My library has a Facebook Page, and I’ve been experimenting with it lately. I have loosely broken down what I’ve done into three sections - Basic Info, Facebook Functionality, and Social Stuff:

Basic Info:

  • photo of the library
  • basic library info, like our address, phone number, and hours of operation
  • shared our website’s URL

Facebook Functionality:

  • YouTube app - showing some recent YouTube videos
  • a couple fan photos of books
  • Facebook fans - 192 of em so far

Social Stuff:

  • RSS feeds - sending my website’s main RSS feed to the Facebook page via Simply RSS (doesn’t appear to be working today - drat)
  • Favorited other Topeka-area Facebook pages (local sports team, the performing arts center, a local church, etc.)
  • I make sure to thank people when they write something on our wall
  • I sent one “Update to Fans” broadcast message - no direct responses, but more people favorited us after the message went out
  • Started one discussion board topic - “What would you like to see here?” (no one has commented on it yet :-)

I also asked my twitter friends for input - what were they doing with Facebook Pages, and what other innovative library Facebook Pages have they found. Here’s what they said:

  • bmljenny - we use the “Blog RSS Feed Reader” app to post our blog feed on our page. Seems to sync OK.
  • sharon370 - I like Purchase College Library’s space on fb - Bookshare, Events, RSS feed from lib blog, OCLC app
  • fabi_k - i like the fb page of the UoM graduate library: http://tinyurl.com/6bw87u - esp. the “ask us” and catalog search feature
  • debrouillard - student program and event advertising mostly
  • amylibrarian - I use facebook to promote the CiteMe application.
  • shelitwits - found it! do you send out event notices or just use the feed to include events? i think sending FB updates to fans helps a bit

Another person said this, via a Facebook message: “One thing I would like to see happen here, is spreading out control of the page. I wish we had someone from each department who would post events and contribute to updating fans. Like, if reference has a new database, they can send out a notice that way … or if reader’s service has a cool new recommendation they can do the same. I would like to see that happen w/ our Myspace page as well. We have WAY more friends on Myspace than FB. We have a bunch of feeds sent to FB, but that only works if our fans are coming to our page.”

Things I still need to add:

  • Library catalog search app (need to talk to my web developer about this)
  • Flickr app - so we can display our Flickr photos in Facebook

What other ideas do you have? Are you doing something cool in Facebook or on a Facebook Page that’s not listed here? Please share!

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