Does your library engage a third-party analytic tool to track and inform your social media posts? SocialBee is just one of many available apps that assist an organization with planning, scheduling, and tracking of their social media content. However, the non-profit monthly price of $119 may be out of budget for most public libraries.
Money, schmoney, I know. Finances are tight all around, but the return on investment for purchasing a license may outweigh the costs. Think about it: do staff in your library post haphazardly without any marketing objective? We all know that social media metrics should be tied to an organization’s objectives, which result in key performance indicators. SMART objectives should be defined at your library. These include objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based (Sun, 2018, 8:02).
Is your staff curious to learn about reach, clickthroughs, or site stickiness? Without analysis and metrics, how does your library know which posts were successful and what to post next? SocialBee includes dimensions of engagement and gathers and summarizes metrics covering reach, engagement, and social listening. Some of the software’s key features include a social media calendar, scheduling, team collaboration, integration with Canva, and strategy planning, including posting time suggestions.
At the very least, libraries should be looking at social media data sources for tracking information. For example, SNS profile analytics can be found in Facebook’s and Instagram’s Insights. Here you will discover which posts are high performing, identify the best time of day to share posts, and learn about audience demographics.
Why not consider downloading a trial version of SocialBee? When a library takes a close look at its social media analytics, it is better able to identify what type of content to post, clarify its objectives and strategies for future information, and eventually improve community engagement.
References
Sun, Y. (2018, April 24). LIS503 Social Media Metrics. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plwd1rNqomE
Hi Maude, I think you pose some good points here. In the best interest of libraries and tight budgets, I like your suggestion of a free trial so the librarians get some practical experience making content calendars/using analytics. I think the best of both worlds would be for librarians to take notes during the SocialBee free trial, understand how it works, and then create their own version of it using tools like Canva, Excel, and Google Sheets and paying closer attention to who interacts with their posts.
ReplyDeleteHi Maude, thanks for offering another important and user-friendly online metric system that offers a free trial, and then recreating its "process" yourself! What a fantastic idea! Do you think there should even be some formalized Continuing Education class or ongoing series that offers the teaching of this skillset so that librarians don't have to learn yet another thing on their own? I sometimes wonder where the "next-generation" of CEU's will bring data analytics into the forefront of librarianship conversation. Thanks for your post!
ReplyDeleteI'm a big proponent of TRAINING. Librarians should be consistently trained on new software and releases! But we need to have directors who see the importance of learning and who set aside time for us to become involved.
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