Although I would say I’m pretty much addicted to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, I’ve always had a hard time with the microblogging aspect of it.  Any time I’m about to tweet or update my status, I sit there, rethink it, and ultimately decide that my microblogging is unnecessary, and foolish.  I’m a little bit better at Twitter, likely because I only have five followers compared to hundreds of Facebook friends – the smaller audience helps make me a little bit more adventurous with my updates. 

With my hesitancy towards microblogging in mind, I really appreciated David Allen Kelly’s suggestions for library tweets.  I liked the idea of providing a link to the library’s catalogue record for a specific item in the collection (Kelly, 2009 July 29, p. 2-3).  Seems like something I’d be interested in clicking on as a patron, so makes sense to provide it as a tweeting librarian. 

I never really considered the tweeting that occurs during a television show as a “communal experience of group viewing without being physically together” (Wohn & Na, 2011, p. 2).  Thinking about all of the recent tweets that have occurred during my new favourite television show Duck Dynasty however, I can really see how this is the case.

Since I am already familiar with Twitter, I chose to check out HootSuite this week.  I had recently been told about it by a friend, and was interested in trying it for myself.  Interest quickly turned to fear when I had to provide my password information for the different social media platforms I wanted to add to my account.  I realize that for HootSuite to do what it does, it needs this information.  Recognizing this didn’t make it any easier to provide that information though.  After recently having my Pinterest account hacked, I am extra conscious these days about protecting my accounts and account information.  I was definitely impressed by what I saw while exploring and utilizing HootSuite.  Having the ability to schedule posts is clearly a fantastic option, especially for libraries and organizations that have a lot of stuff going on.  Having the ability to create reports might come in handy for the project we’re doing for this course, and is something I definitely intend to investigate further.  HootSuite proved that the things that people come up with and create these days, are exceptionally innovative!

References

Kelly, D.A.  (2009 July 29).  How Your Library May Not Be Using Twitter But Should.  kellydallen.  Retrieved from http://kellyd.com/2009/07/29/how-your-library-may-not-be-using-twitter-but-should/

Wohn, D.Y., & Na, E.K.  (2011).  Tweeting about TV: Sharing television viewing experiences via social media message streams.  First Monday, 16(3).  Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3368/2779