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Social media is not new. MySpace, an early social media channel, was created in 2003. Classmates, com (figure 1.1) was started in the early days of the web in 1995. Based on those two sites, social media is somewhere between eleven and nineteen years old. Based on the older date, social media appeared around the same time as DVD technology.
Even though DVDs are an important part of many libraries' collection plans, social media channels often are not. Either they're an afterthought or they are considered a secondary service the library uses to communicate with customers. Some library administrators still question the need for social media; they don't see the importance of it.
Before we get too far into ways to successfully use and manage social media channels in a library, we should answer that important question, Why use social media? The answer will provide a foundation for the rest of your library's social media operations.
Social Media Trends
Social media has captured the attention of the world. Here are some recent statistics about web and social media use in the United States.
According to The Web at 25 in the U.S., among American adults:
* 87 percent use the web
* 68 percent connect to the web with mobile devices
* 90 percent own a cell phone
* 58 percent own a smartphone1
In about twenty-three years (1991 being the beginning of the publicly available web2), web usage has morphed from a handful of academics and researchers to most of the United States.
The other important fact to note in the above statistics is the devices people use to connect to the web. The numbers show that a majority of Americans connect using mobile devices. Smartphones (58 percent ownership) make up the majority of those devices.
Mobile device use is important in a discussion about social media. Why? Because that's how most of us connect to our favorite social media channels. Mobile technology has provided us with a way to connect to the web and to social media pretty much anywhere, instead of only connecting via a desktop computer with a wired Internet connection.
How Many People Use Social Media?
As you might have guessed, there are also a lot of people using social...