Library Hosted Social Media Forum

Panelists Dwight Hunter, Bo Baker, and Jon Moss

On Monday, January 14, and on Wednesday, January 16, the Chattanooga State Library social media team hosted a social media forum for area libraries and non-profits. The library’s social media team is Debora Ervin, Lori Warren, Susan Jennings, and Dwight Hunter.

               

Monday’s informational sessions were presentations from Dwight Hunter, Lori Warren, and Susan Jennings.

Dwight covered the basics of social media including the different platforms, the pros and cons of each platform, and what each platform looked like.  Lori covered her social media guide, which can be found at http://libguides.chattanoogastate.edu/socialmedia.  Susan covered how organizations can use social media for their marketing strategies.

After the presentations, three panelists shared their advice for organizations getting started in social media. The panelists were Chattanooga State’s Dale Grisso and Heidi Cawood; and Amy Donahue from RiverCity Company/Downtown Chattanooga.

The panelists advised the group to be selective as to what platform to use and to be pro-active with comments.

Wednesday’s events included presentations from Susan Jennings and Lori Warren. Susan presented information about mobile apps, and Lori discussed the use of images and some apps that would help with images. Audience members were invited to show their organizations’ Facebook pages, and how they used the Facebook platform.

Dwight Hunter, who is also a social media admin for Tennessee PTA, showed the Tennessee PTA Facebook page and discussed how the Facebook metrics helped with defining when to post. The Tennessee PTA scripted a two-week marketing campaign using separate scripts for Facebook and for Twitter. The campaign increased the Facebook page reach from about 800 unique views a week to almost 3,000 unique views a week.

The panelists for Wednesday were Dwight Hunter, Bo Baker from UTC, and Jon Moss of Moss Media Labs.  Some of the apps mentioned by the panel included Facebook Pages manager, Tweetbot, HootSuite, Buffer, LinkedIn, iLoader2, Google+, Podio, Flipboard, Tumblr, and Dropbox.

The panelists advised the group to find the organization’s voice; don’t use the same post message across the social media platforms; be aware that social media platforms are essentially “rented” space; don’t spend too much time writing a post; and evaluate your options for social media platforms—just because something works well for one organization does not necessarily mean it will work well for your organization. 

DDH