Social Networking Slideshow

This past February, time spent on social networking sites surpassed that for e-mail for the first time (http://bit.ly/gq0Sy.) What does this mean for libraries? If you are relying on e-mail as your primary means of communicating electronically with users, you are missing an opportunity to connect with many users in their preferred venue.

Social Networking sites are sites where you can connect with family, friends and colleagues. You can publicly or privately post messages to your friends, share calendars, spotlight your favorite music, or play games. Some people may use social networking sites primarily with their professional colleagues, using it as a means to share ideas with others. Other people may just use them to maintain connections with high school and college friends. And others may use them to communicate with all of these people. Some people maintain one profile for professional use and another for personal use.

If social networking is all about connecting with friends, why should libraries be involved? These sites have become a major online destination for a large segment of the population. The average Facebook visitor spent nearly 17 minutes on the site per visit in January 2009, while the average MySpace visit lasted for about nine-and-a-half minutes (Compete.com). How much time do users spend on your Web site? It's not that everyone in your community using Facebook will want to become a fan of your library's Facebook page, but many might. And if you make the search box for your library's catalog available to Facebook users, they maytjust embed it in their profile. Take a look at some of these statistics from Facebook to get an idea of the amount of use this social networking platform is getting.

Even if your library never intends to build a presence on My Space or Facebook, this week's exercise will give you an opportunity to see why so many people are using these sites. It's a chance to have some fun with Facebook and see if you already have friends who are using it.