UK ACADEMIC LIBRARIES ON TWITTER: WHAT ARE THEY DOING AND DOES IT WORK? Michael O’Hagan

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

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.

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.

Why study Twitter?  Libraries are getting stuck in as well…

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 kinda creeped out.” – response of a US student to being retweeted.

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

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?

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.)

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.

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. News about the library Collections74 Services62 Events52 General/other26

 Why are parent organisations and academic staff not tweeting about their libraries?  Or are libraries just not retweeting this content? RQ1 – Purpose Origin of library-related retweets Internal organisation5 Internal librarian4 External account9

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.

RQ2 – Conversation  Can this be explained…  By marketing strategy?  By resourcing of the service?

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. Not prompted by direct mention Answer question1 Respond to complaint5 Other4

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Thank you for your attention  Acknowledgements  Dr Robert Stephens  Alena Ptak-Danchak  Music Faculty Library staff  Questions?