Rudaí23 thing#5: Getting to grips with social media

The librarian online or: how i learned to stop worrying and love Twitter

Thing#5 is all about how we interact online. Although there are lots and lots of social media options out there (either on a personal level or professionally) there is a huge dominance at the moment by the two big players, Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook

 

I signed up to Facebook sometime around 2009. After an initial flurry of interaction, I quickly became one of those dormant users (or ‘lurkers’, if you want to use a less appealing term). The Rudaí23 post introduced a lot of options for expanding my interaction on Facebook, particularly the use of Groups. Apparently there are a huge number of very specific library-related groups on Facebook. I was aware of Facebook Groups before today, but would always have been hesitant about joining them because I would have been concerned that my posts would inundate my friends' feeds. This article suggest that this isn't the case, and also has a lot more information about how to really utilise the Groups option. The whole thing is kind of making Facebook appealing again. What a scary thought.

Twitter 

Twitter, however, is different. I joined Twitter late, after some prodding from a friend on the MLIS course. I had always been sceptical about the appeal (and the near cult-like status it was gaining) and the arbitrary character limit seemed gimmicky, but I eventually capitulated. And then did nothing with it for a long time. I didn’t have a smartphone at the time, and I think this seriously hampered my interaction with the site. When I did log on, I was confronted with a torrent of information that felt overwhelming. 

I am now a relatively frequent user of Twitter, primarily for keeping up to date with developments in the library world, but also with regards to current affairs, music, literature, and friends. So what changed? Well, firstly, I got a smartphone. This meant that I could check Twitter more regularly and the information wasn’t so overwhelming. I think the best piece of advice I received about Twitter was to view it as a stream of information that you can dip your toe in when you feel like it. If you haven't been able to log on for a while, then don't feel like you're missing out or that you have to 'catch up'.

Another way of stemming that overwhelmed feeling is to create lists. I have a few lists, but definitely need to update them in order to get them working for me again. Siobhan’s post on Rudaí23 also suggested numerous lists that I could follow, which is very helpful, as well as a whole lot of librarians I didn’t know were online, so I will be updating those I follow as soon as possible.

As always with the Rudaí23 project, I started off doing some research on a topic that I assumed I knew everything there was to know, but found some interesting tips to increase my knowledge. I have some updating of my Twitter lists and people that I follow to do today and I will have a look at those Groups on Facebook. Who knows, maybe it will make me turn back to an active user again.