I recently came across a social media report on the Music Library Association’s website and thought I would make it the subject of a blog post.

Links to the Report

MLA website

PDF

Highlights

The report describes the work of the MLA task force and its look at creating a social media strategy. According to the report, “the charge of the task force is to explore existing and emerging social media tools in order to develop a comprehensive plan for their utilization.” The report states that the resulting recommendations were due to the board in December 2013.

The main motivations for using social media are listed as “communication, education, outreach, and advocacy,” which supplement the goals of the association’s strategic plan.

The document identifies ideal social media channels, comparable organizations on social media, and background research. It concludes with a paragraph on strategies for moving forward, with some great ideas for effective online engagement and the requirements to put the plan in motion.

Personal Reflection

Getting an insider look at the MLA’s social media plan was very interesting for me. There is only one problem: despite the report calling for a 2013 submission, it doesn’t appear that much of this has come to fruition.

I found one of the most interesting points of the report to be its recommendation of which Facebook account to model:

I Fucking Love Science [https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience]

This can be the model for the MLA Facebook page–over 5.5 million likes and for many it is the only science page with which they interact.

The MLA does have a Facebook page, but the similarities end there. I Fucking Love Science’s page submits up to ten posts each day and they have minimal text, attractive visuals, and catchy headlines. In contrast, MLA’s page has no cover photo, submits a post about two times per month on average, and posts content that has lengthy passages of text with no visuals.

Also, the association doesn’t appear to have a Twitter account, even though a bunch of great Twitter strategies are listed in the document. I did discover this account: @MLAplacement. It’s an absolutely fantastic resource for music librarians in the job market; however, it doesn’t do anything to encourage interaction with the association. Moreover, with only 251 followers at the time of this post, it seems to be largely under-promoted.

It is a bit of shame that there is so much untapped potential here. My guess is that the association probably lacks the time and financial resources to have one or more staff members constantly maintaining its social media presence. Regardless, I think the report would be a very useful reference point for any similar organization venturing into the social media landscape.

I’ve decided to give this blog a theme of music within the context of social media and librarianship. To kick it off, I figured I would use my first non-introductory post to take a look at the performance of three prominent North American academic music libraries on Twitter.

The Music and Performing Arts Library (MPAL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) @mpalillinois

Out of the three accounts I explored, this was the first one to join Twitter (April 2009) and, with 681 followers at the time this post was written, is the least popular. Tweets occur several times per day on average and retweets are rare. The content of the postings is quite wide ranging; there are links to a variety of general music library related news stories, UIUC information, news related to the MPAL library itself, study tips, and so forth.

The Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard University @harvardmusiclib

The Leob Music Library’s account was created in October 2009 and has a decent following of 1,172 twitterers (is that a word?). The frequency of the tweets is slightly more sporadic than the MPAL account, as they appear to come in a flurry over a couple days each week. Another difference is this account’s reliance on retweeting to produce most of its content. There are original posts mixed in, but they are much fewer and far between. Like MPAL’s account, the Leob Music Library posts on a fairly broad range of topics. Most tweets are campus or library related, such as building closures, featured exhibits, collection news, and music events.

The Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University @yalemusiclib

The first thing I noticed on the Gilmore Music Library’s page is the absence of a background photo. With 2,242 followers, this deficiency doesn’t seem to be affecting their popularity too much. The Twitter account was created in September 2009, and I spotted one celebrity follower: Steve Reich (one of my favorite composers). This account was a little bit different from the others in that it does not appear to post any retweets. Also, while they do tweet approximately twice per day, each post either links to specific items in the collection or directs users to a [music library blog type page] that the university runs.

Personal Reflection

So what did I learn from this? Good question. Really, it is tough to gauge the true success of these accounts without knowing how much traffic they are driving to the websites of their respective libraries. Similarly, with followers, it is hard to judge any of the accounts without knowing how much time/effort/resources each of the libraries puts into their promotion. The next step would be to contact the librarians in charge to inquire further.

Something I did notice in all three accounts was very little interaction from users in the form of of favorites and retweets. I wonder if some of this might be due to a complete lack of hashtags in any tweets. In my opinion, this is a missed opportunity for an effective and easy way to reach a wider audience. Tweeting about new Stravinsky acquisitions? #stravinsky. Tweeting about the latest post in the library’s blog? #musicblog. etc.

Probably the most interesting aspect of my observation was the delivery of the tweets. There were some different approaches here, with the Gilmore Library being quite focused in its approach while the other two posted on a greater range of topics. Which method is the most effective very engaging in driving traffic? If I were tasked with running a library’s Twitter account, this is probably the first question I would address. Personally, I like MPAL’s approach: covering a large scope of relevant topics while keeping the messages more direct and personal by not relying too heavily on retweets.