#Twitter

"If you haven't been bookmarked, retweeted and blogged /
You might as well not have existed"
-From The Twitter Song by Ben Walker

Have you seen Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake poking fun at the Hashtag phenomenon? Ever wondered what that was all about?

Time to start tweeting. #GetWithTheProgram

People have a misconception that Twitter is all about navel-gazing. Don't get me wrong, if you want to see people discuss the minutiae of their lives, you can. You can also watch your favourite stars self-destruct in a string of messages at 3:00 a.m. that are quickly deleted by their publicists. However, you can also find out about concerts, restaurant specials, events (#FredKidFair), and weather in real-time reports. No need to wait for the papers to roll off the press when something occurs in your community, although I'd still advise reading a newspaper for fuller, more nuanced coverage. And if you want to know what the road conditions are like during the next polar vortex, I guarantee many car passengers (hopefully not the drivers) have used their cell phones to post photos and updates on the very highways you hope to travel. #roadconditions

Twitter is also a place to find special extras, the kind that you used to have to join fan clubs to get. For instance, if you were one of the people following Sesame Street you would have had a sneak peek at the upcoming One Direction video made for the show. Almost 17,000 fans favourited the tweet. #Adorbs

Professionally, Twitter allows you to keep up-to-date on your favourite publishing houses and suppliers, see what titles they're touting, and be first in line to get their newest and most sought-after offerings, so that you can have them ready and waiting when people come through the doors looking for the next big thing. #50Shades

Twitter is a great place for connecting with your community. When we started the Fredericton Public Library Twitter account we found we were forming more substantial relationships with local businesses, local bloggers, City Departments, our Chamber of Commerce, Fredericton Tourism, the Fire Department, our local theatre, and our city councillors. We found more people thought of us as a community member because they saw us participating and engaged us in conversations we would not have had otherwise. #WeLoveLibraries

When we partnered with local businesses everyone was excited to cross-publicize related tweets. This was doubly great because once a message has been sent into the Twitter-sphere, followers of the person tweeting can choose to "re-tweet" to their followers, so that the message carries a farther reach than you would have had on your own, reaching out to only those people who have followed your account. For instance, on December 5th we tweeted that the Saint John String Quartet would be with us and five people chose to send that note out to their followers. The people who retweeted (FredKid, Brunswick Baby, Tim Sarty, Peter Cullen and Cheryl Norrad) had 421, 67, 128, 161, and 336 followers respectively, meaning that we could potentially reach 713 new people in addition to our regular followers (although obviously there will likely be some audience cross-over). #CompoundingAtWork

Another great example of Twitter at work during programming occurred when artist Donna Mulholland created a painting live in our lobby, and she tweeted time lapse photos of the live art event as well as tweeting the finished product. #PowerOfSocialMedia

It has been absolutely lovely getting to know our patrons on this platform. We have one regular visitor, a three-year-old named Isabelle, who writes about her library experiences with her daddy's help, including setting up her own library at home! And we would never have known that a very important summit occurred in the Children's Department if Jon Holt hadn't alerted us to the fact! It is a fun way to get feedback about programs directly from patrons as well, such as praise for cookie baking skills or the housewarming party we hosted to celebrate the newly renovated Children's space. #YouFolksAreAwesome

Twitter is also a useful tool for connecting with other libraries and librarians. We follow and are followed by libraries in our region, libraries from elsewhere in the province, libraries from other provinces, and libraries across North America. It is fascinating to glimpse their program offerings and see the messages communicated to and from the libraries and their patrons. #ProfessionalDevelopment

So I hope I've blown your mind discussing how Twitter can prove useful to you in your personal and professional life. It's not all narcissism...maybe only 70%. #TrustMe

P.S. Courtesy of Twitter: The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to categorize Tweets by  keywords or topics. People use the symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (no spaces) in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets and help them show more easily in Twitter Search.