UK academic libraries on Twitter: what are they doing and does it work?

1. UK academic libraries on Twitter:what are they doing and does it work? Michael O’Hagan

2. Overview • Research warrant: why study Twitter? • Research questions. • Overview of research approach. • Discussion of results. • Conclusions and implications for libraries using Twitter.

3. Disclaimer! • Limitations of this type of study: • Purely a content and statistical analysis of available data. • Only measuring visible interaction ignores other kinds of value. • Differences in institutional characteristics, student populations, etc. • Your library’s (positive!) experience is what really matters… …though some extra thoughts and ideas never hurt.

4. Why study Twitter? • An abundance of literature on using Twitter for organisational benefit in for-profit and not-for-profit sectors… …extols the virtues of Twitter as a marketing and stakeholder engagement tool.

5. Why study Twitter? • Libraries are getting stuck in as well…

6. Why study Twitter? • Existing studies: • Anecdotal reports of success. • Generally focus on a single institution. • Little in-depth quantitative/qualitative analysis. • In particular, no studies: • Examine specifically UK academic libraries. • Provide an analysis of follower interaction with content. • And: • Concerns about privacy and forced use (JISC report, 2009). • “I’m honestly kindacreeped out.” – response of a US student to being retweeted.

7. Why study Twitter? • There’s a dissertation in this ... Few in-depth studies Controversial viewpoints + 

8. Research questions • For what purposes do UK academic libraries use Twitter? …how do the trends observed relate to the ideas in the literature? • How, and to what extent, is Twitter used as a conversation tool between libraries and their followers? …and are they happy about it? • What trends exist in follower retweeting dynamics and how is this affected by use of the tools available on Twitter? …can any suggestions for good practice be made?

9. Research approach • Content analysis coupled with statistical analysis… • Sampling: • Stratified sample of UK higher education institutions. • 2 x one-week periods of activity selected. • Harvest: • 440 tweets from 23 academic libraries. • Tweet content. • Associated statistics (retweets, pictures, links, etc.)

10. Research approach • Content analysis coupled with statistical analysis... • Coding: • Developed schemes using a combination of existing literature and induction. • Schemes to code content of the tweets and accounts interacting with them. • Analysis: • Excel Pivot Tables. • Statistical tests where appropriate.

11. RQ1 – Purpose

12. RQ1 – Purpose • Scope for increased focus on other academic-related information for users: • Would demonstrate the library is in touch with wider issues. • Marketing/branding value of retweets by related organisations.

13. RQ1 – Purpose • Why are parent organisations and academic staff not tweeting about their libraries? • Or are libraries just not retweeting this content?

14. RQ2 – Conversation • Users are actively engaging with the library presence on twitter to ask questions or moan! • Opportunities to deliver information literacy advice, market resources. • Respond to issues that matter.

15. RQ2 – Conversation • Can this be explained… • By marketing strategy? • By resourcing of the service?

16. RQ2 – Conversation • “Listening in” to followers… • Only 10 directed tweets found not prompted by a direct mention: • Need to: • Adopt a better “who-to-follow” strategy. • Develop techniques to discover relevant tweets.

17. RQ3 – Retweeting • Securing retweets is identified as beneficial throughout the literature: • Shows you’ve been read. • Increases the audience of tweets across social networks. • Acts as an endorsement of content or service.

18. RQ3 – Retweeting • Promising evidence that content is valued by users. • Good to see internal organisations retweeting library content.

19. RQ3 – Retweeting • Effect of a range of Twitter features on retweet propensity: • Include more pictures and links!

20. Conclusions and implications • Demonstrable success in the following areas: • Providing library-related information. • Opportunity for library and users to engage in dialogue: • Evidence: 46 tweets (approx. 1 in 10) represent conversations with library users. • Opportunity for parent organisation to demonstrate the relevance and importance of the library: • Evidence: 39% retweets from internal organisations.

21. Conclusions and implications • But to improve... • Increased focus required on information relevant to users other than library-related: • Evidence: only 2% of tweets about institutional (non-library) news. • Better techniques to “listen in” to Twitter are needed: • Evidence: only ten non direct-mention tweets were replied to by libraries. • Strategies should be developed to better encourage organisations and faculties to engage with the library on Twitter: • Evidence: few tweets from internal organisations and none from faculty members retweeted.

22. Thank you for your attention • Acknowledgements • Dr Robert Stephens • Alena Ptak-Danchak • Music Faculty Library staff • Questions?