Instagram, Facebook "Pages", and Twitter
We're all familiar with the big names of social media; Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. But have you considered one platform might be better than another, based on how you want your information to be perceived to your consumers? For example, you might be marketing your business, sharing family photos, contributing your political views, or simply forwarding witty memes to your friends. Whatever your weapon of choice, there's a perfect social media platform to fit your needs. Keep reading to meet your match!
Instagram is extremely popular amongst teenagers. They mainly use it to showcase their photography skills or share some type of art form with their online community. They also create bit.ly links that takes their viewers to a YouTube account that has tutorials or silly videos they've produced. You are only able to post links in the bio section of your profile, so you'll always come across the #linkinbio hashtag for promoting videos (or even blogs). Showcasing work through photos and videos is a great way to connect students with something they are learning to something they are acutely familiar with. You could always have students create a project or video and publish it through Instagram. Another great way to utilize Instagram for learning purposes is to reenact a scene from a book and show it through photography. To add to the fun, a feature you could teach your students is to add text or movement to their photos. Click HERE to view and example of text on a photo. Click HERE to view movement of a photo by utilizing the Boomarang feature within the Instagram app. Todays teens are considered digital natives and are adept at using social media for entertainment purposes and personal communication. Leveraging their digital talent and teaching them how to use professional skills on their social media will only equip your students with a more digitally savvy tool box. Think of it as opening up more boundaries for them with something they are already super familiar with. One disclaimer: you should always gain permission from parents if you are going to weave Instagram into your lessons. It is considered a public forum even if there's an option to create a private account.
Facebook. Ah yes, Old Faithful. Some people believe Facebook will be no longer in the coming years, while others believe it's here for the long haul. You won't find quite as many youngsters using Facebook as you will adults, but it can still be a useful tool within your library. If you type "school library" in the search bar, you'll find yourself with an array of library pages and posts to peruse through. You won't necessarily find student work, but more of librarian work. For example, you might see bulletin board ideas, a post about the latest in library news, different activities kids can do that go along with read alouds, grant writings, or even ideas for the new up and coming Makerspaces everyone is talking about. Some library pages that I follow are Future Ready Librarians, Library Influencers, Elementary Librarian Exchange, and Technology Teacher Tribe.
Twitter is considered a microblog, which is a short piece of content designed to give the audience a quick attention getter before they decide to click and read an entire article. You also have the option of re-tweeting their content to post on your wall. The one thing I like about Twitter is that it shows you who other people follow. That allows you to either market yourself more, or allows you to follow back other influencers who are interested in the same topics you are. To me, Twitter is by far the most useful tool when it comes to professional growth in your career and how you communicate with others. Here are some examples of tweets from the recent past that you will more than likely come across whilst scrolling. These are the ones I find insightful:
Instagram is extremely popular amongst teenagers. They mainly use it to showcase their photography skills or share some type of art form with their online community. They also create bit.ly links that takes their viewers to a YouTube account that has tutorials or silly videos they've produced. You are only able to post links in the bio section of your profile, so you'll always come across the #linkinbio hashtag for promoting videos (or even blogs). Showcasing work through photos and videos is a great way to connect students with something they are learning to something they are acutely familiar with. You could always have students create a project or video and publish it through Instagram. Another great way to utilize Instagram for learning purposes is to reenact a scene from a book and show it through photography. To add to the fun, a feature you could teach your students is to add text or movement to their photos. Click HERE to view and example of text on a photo. Click HERE to view movement of a photo by utilizing the Boomarang feature within the Instagram app. Todays teens are considered digital natives and are adept at using social media for entertainment purposes and personal communication. Leveraging their digital talent and teaching them how to use professional skills on their social media will only equip your students with a more digitally savvy tool box. Think of it as opening up more boundaries for them with something they are already super familiar with. One disclaimer: you should always gain permission from parents if you are going to weave Instagram into your lessons. It is considered a public forum even if there's an option to create a private account.
Facebook. Ah yes, Old Faithful. Some people believe Facebook will be no longer in the coming years, while others believe it's here for the long haul. You won't find quite as many youngsters using Facebook as you will adults, but it can still be a useful tool within your library. If you type "school library" in the search bar, you'll find yourself with an array of library pages and posts to peruse through. You won't necessarily find student work, but more of librarian work. For example, you might see bulletin board ideas, a post about the latest in library news, different activities kids can do that go along with read alouds, grant writings, or even ideas for the new up and coming Makerspaces everyone is talking about. Some library pages that I follow are Future Ready Librarians, Library Influencers, Elementary Librarian Exchange, and Technology Teacher Tribe.
Twitter is considered a microblog, which is a short piece of content designed to give the audience a quick attention getter before they decide to click and read an entire article. You also have the option of re-tweeting their content to post on your wall. The one thing I like about Twitter is that it shows you who other people follow. That allows you to either market yourself more, or allows you to follow back other influencers who are interested in the same topics you are. To me, Twitter is by far the most useful tool when it comes to professional growth in your career and how you communicate with others. Here are some examples of tweets from the recent past that you will more than likely come across whilst scrolling. These are the ones I find insightful:
1. Alan Gratz (@AlanGratz): A New York Times bestselling author of book for young readers tweeted, "The average American made twice as many trips to the library as trips to the movie theater in 2019, according to Gallup".
Gratz is using his platform in this tweet by sharing an article he found about Americans using the library more often than going to the movies. It shows he's interested in statistics of the American readers as well as praising the growth and accomplishments of the libraries.
2. KarinLibrarian (@kperry): Assoc. Professor, Aspiring Author, Letterer, Doodler, Sketchnoter, Avid Reader, Married, Owner of dog. Author of Sci Fi on the Fly and Sketchnoting in School
@kperry ALWAYS tweets this, and I love it. Not only is she motivating you to read so you can reply to her tweet, but it's also a great way to promote books to others. You can read others comments of books and figure out what type of book everyone else is reading, which allows for more opportunities to find a book you might not otherwise find.
3. John Schu (@MrSchuReads): Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic. Lecturer at Rutgers. 2014 Newbery Committee member. Writer. Represented by @Molly_ONeill. Opinions shared are mine.
If you don't follow Mr. Schu you really need to. He is great at giving book recommendations and is a huge advocate of reading to children and getting parents involved. You can also find a majority of his tweets traveling the country to different school libraries and attending book talks with young children. From what other librarians have said, he is a really great guy and makes reading fun.
In short, if you ask me, Instagram is to hook the youngster into fun learning opportunities. Facebook is more for the older crowd and is used to share ideas. And Twitter is used as a more professional platform that allows you to expand your knowledge within your content of interest, all while marketing yourself and others. I believe it's important to utilize all platforms because each one gives you a different outcome. BUT, if you had to only choose two...I would stick with Twitter and Instagram. You could easily navigate and share content in Instagram as you would Facebook, but the only hiccup would be you not reaching as many people as you would if you were utilizing all three. Good luck on your social media endeavors!!!
For reaching patrons I definitely see Twitter and Insta as my top picks as well, but for learning and growing in my profession I feel like Facebook has been the place to go. It may be my novice level Twitter and Insta use speaking but I see benefit in the FB groups I am part of and I hadn't heard of "Library Influencers", "Elementary Librarian Exchange", or "Technology Teacher Tribe" and that may be because for me the Facebook groups I am part of are still offering me quality relative ideas and resources to use in my library. Now don't get me wrong I will definitely look into the three I have not been a part of.
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