1. and other tips for adding value
to your library’s Twitter presence
Emily Lloyd

2. Why follow your patrons? Twitter gives libraries
the opportunity to not just announce what we do,
but to do what we do.
Don’t wait for questions addressed directly to your Twitter account or
mentions of monitored keywords to guide people to resources.
Follow your patrons. It’s a bit like roving reference. Notice what
interests them. Notice any difficulties they might be having.
Create…

3. serendipity When you sign into
Twitter, scan through the
last hour of your library’s
tweetstream to see
what your patrons have
been tweeting about and
if there’s anything you
might help with.
This patron didn’t mention
@hclib, or use any
keywords (library,
Hennepin, etc) that the
library might have been
monitoring. Following
his tweets made this
moment of serendipity
possible.

4. To quickly review
what your patrons
have been tweeting
about (and skip over
what every library,
business, or local
organization you follow
has been tweeting
about), make private
lists of your patron
followers, and just skim
those lists.
Each list holds 500.
I named @hclib’s
patron lists “Individuals
1,” “Individuals 2,” etc.,
and added each new
local individual that
followed @hclib to one
of these lists.

8. Why? Because liking an organization on
Facebook is far less of a commitment than
following an organization on Twitter.
When you “like” an organization on Facebook, that’s often a terminal
act:
You’ve shown your support.
The organization’s posts may or may not--not’s more likely--show up
in your news feed.
You may or may not visit their page ever again.

9. When you follow an organization on Twitter,
their tweets will show up in your tweetstream.
If an organization’s tweets do not add value to your experience of
Twitter—
if, instead, they seem to keep getting in the way, interrupting the flow
of tweets that are more relevant to you—
you will unfollow them (even if you still like them as an organization).
“Unfollowing”—the word itself—doesn’t feel as hostile as “unliking”. You
are simply trying to make your tweetstream more useful to you by
weeding out messages you can’t use (TIP: tweet tweets patrons can use.
Here’s how…)

10. Share…
tips on how to
get the most out
of the library’s
website and
other library
resources.

11. Share…
tips on how to get
the most out of the
web itself.

12. Share…
practical
local
information.

13. Add value: in
addition to
creating private
Twitter lists of
your patrons,
maintain public
lists on local
resources or
other relevant
topics to help
your patrons find
accounts to
follow.

14. on trending Resist the urge to comment on every trending topic.
topics
Particularly: consider whether you really want to use a
celebrity death to market your collection.
( “RIP _______, who passed away today. Revisit
his genius with one of our DVDs: [link to catalog]”)

15. Prescheduling tweets may seem convenient, but it misses
one of the main points of social media for libraries (and
companies): to be there. After you tweet, keep your eye on
Twitter for a while—even if only for 20 minutes in one tab—
in case patrons have any immediate responses that need
against attention.
prescheduled
tweets Never forget that people use Twitter for news during
national and world crises. Prescheduled tweets come off
as, at best, insensitive and, at worst, cruel during these
times.
The above was tweeted immediately following the Colorado
movie theater shooting in July 2012 that killed twelve people.

16. Thanks. Have fun!
Emily Lloyd
@poesygalore
http://about.me/elloyd74