Social Media Tips and Tricks

Social Media Tips and Tricks

Marketing & Communications / Social Media

Social media can be a tricky world to navigate but never fret we are here to help!

Best Practices 

Social media can be confusing to navigate, what platform should you be posting on? What time of day is best? How often should we be posting? There are so many questions to consider, so here are some helpful tips! 

  • Consistency is key — There is plenty of information out there on how many times you should post what time of day etc. but the most important thing to remember is to be consistent. We know that not everyone has a dedicated social media person and that is fine. Pick how many times to post a week and stick to it — this can be even one time a week. As long as you’re keeping your patrons engaged then you should start seeing growth in your pages. 
  • Use a professional tone — a library is a business, so make sure your tone is professional, friendly, and informative! 
  • You don’t need to have it all — managing social media accounts can be a full-time job and you don’t need to do it all. Pick the social media that works best for communicating with your patrons and stick with it! 
  • Note: If you have social media accounts you’re not using, get rid of them! You don’t want to confuse people with wrong information on an old page or leave patron questions unanswered. 
  • Treat your inbox and comments like a phone call or a patron coming in — When people realize your social media is more than just information, you’ll get more engagement. Responding to questions or comments can help create a community on your page! 
  • Note: Make sure this is within reason, you don’t need to be on 24/7, set boundaries and only respond when you’re in the office! 
  • Post about relevant items and information — New books, programs, things happening around the community, and other things that patrons can find or borrow in the library! 
  • Note: Sharing or commenting on other community pages or groups can create community engagement and bring more people to your page. 

The best way to start using these practices is to create a social media policy this way everyone is on the same page and if you hire new staff or get help from volunteers, they have a document they can reference. Learn more about social media guidelines and social media policy with these blogs from Hootsuite! 

If you’re a member library reach out to Parkland Regional Library System for help creating your social media policy and guidelines! 

Social Media for Libraries 

There is a great blog all about social media and marketing for libraries call Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion. Recently she came out with multiple blogs — The 2023 Guide to Social Media for Libraries for all the different social media — we suggest you check them out! 

Copyright Laws 

Copyright laws apply to more than just books and words. Photos and stock images on the internet also apply to copyright laws — this also applies to photos from people in the community — and it is important when using photos for any use that you use a stock image site or get permission from the owner of the photo! 

If you use a photo from someone in the community, — posting it as your own not sharing a post —make sure to give photo credits! This can be as simple as Photo Credits to @PRLSystem or Photo by @PRLSystem or 📸@PRLSystem or Photo by Parkland Regional Library System if they don’t have a social media account.  

Free Stock Photo Sites 

Here are some free stock photo sites where you can get photos from copywrite free! 

  • Flickr — Find photos from professional and budding photographers, please note people can turn off downloads of their photos meaning you can’t use them. 
  • Nappy.co — Nappy.co is the perfect site to use if you’re looking to add some diversity to your social media! 
  • Openverse.org — Find stock images, photos, and audio all for free! 
  • Unsplash.com — Free and paid options, make sure you’re picking photos without water markers! 
  • Shutterstock.com — Free but you’ll need to make an account to download photos 
  • Adobe Stock — photos and graphics! 

Looking for more? Check out this blog by Hootsuite to find more free stock photos and learn more about what photos you can and can not use! 

Making your Social Media Accessible 

In this digital age, everyone is using social media. There are simple things you can do to help everyone enjoy your page!  

  • Alt Text — Alternative text is a written description of what is in the photo which helps text reading be able to describe the photo to someone with a visual impairment. Check out disability.org to learn more about Alt text and how to add it on different social media platforms. 
  • Use easy-to-read font — There are websites where you can make fancy fonts for your social media post, however, text readers can not read them like the regular fonts on social media sites — the text reader will just read the code for the font instead of the words. 
  • Camel Case — This is when you use capital letters in a hashtag to help a text reader distinguish the words for example #ParklandRegionalLibrary 
  • Color Safe — Color Safe is a website that is designed to help companies create beautiful designs with accessible colour palettes based on the WCAG Guidelines for text and background contrast ratios. 
  • How Can See — is a similar website to Color Safe, you can type in a colour code and see how easy it is for people with visual impairments — Glaucoma, Tritanomaly, and Achromatopsia — to read. 

More Resources 

Already have the basics down? Check out these sites to help up your social media game! 

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