Reflections on #SLAYLG17 Part 1: Top Tips for Twitter & Beyond!

The first session I attended at the #SLAYLG17 Conference in Harrogate was “Top Tips for Twitter & Beyond” by the great Bev Humphrey @LibWithAtttiude).

Below are some of the great tips she shared and some of my own that I have found useful being a School Librarian.

Hashtags

Using hashtags not only allows you to follow trends and events in the school library world, you can also make your own to promote your library and the things you do.

twitter Hashtags you might find useful to follow as a school librarian:

#uklibchat

#tlchat

#librarylife

#librarydisplays

#ukyachat

#edtech  

 

In my own experience, I have created a hashtag for the school to promote our love of reading that I attach to every social media post. I work at Glenthorne High School so I created #GHSReads and use that to ensure parents, students and other professionals can see what we do here and hopefully it will generate a conversation.

Hashtags have also been successful in promoting library programs like our monthly Twitter chat with authors. Our student book club call themselves The Booklings and #booklingschat was born! When we take part in the online chat with authors, we all attach the hashtag to every question so others can follow along.
 

Live Tweeting can also be an effective way of promoting your school library and reaching new people. When we have author events I will often live-tweet what is being said or asked by the students. By including the authors’ twitter handle and the #GHSReads hashtag to the live-tweet it ensures that everyone can take part and see what is happening.

Lists

Bev went into detail about the power of creating lists on Twitter. Not only does it allow you to “follow” what other people are tweeting about, you can add someone to a list without actually following them. This means your home page on Twitter will not be flooded with tweets, rather you can examine your lists when you want to see what has been tweeted to the people on there. Bev has an extensive section of lists on her Twitter page which you can view here

Tweetdeck

I use Tweetdeck on a daily basis and for me it is the best way to organise who I follow on Twitter and what I want to say. Tweetdeck is free and allows you to see your lists in different columns and also lets you create new columns for specific hashtags that you want to follow.

In addition, it lets you schedule your tweets to whatever time or day you want. This way, if you have some spare time (hahahahaha) you can schedule a few tweets to ensure they are spread out over the course of a day rather than bunched together at 8:00 am in the morning.

When using something like Tweetdeck, be very wary of inappropriate language from the people you follow as from my experience some authors that we all love do not have a filter and will say things  on twitter that KS3 students should probably not be seeing.

 

Another great app that I have started to use recently for scheduling tweets and monitoring followers is Crowdfire. It’s free with some paid upgrades. I use it to find library-related articles, see who I follow who hasn’t tweeted in several months and schedule tweets as Crowdfire uses an algorithm that will calculate when the best time for you to tweet is based on who your followers are.

Instagram

Instagram has been a very popular tool for me. As Bev mentioned in her discussion, hashtags are the key with Instagram. Using Instagram and relevant hashtags has allowed me to connect with students and parents in a way that I did not anticipate.

For instance, I decided to snap a photo of the books that have been returned to the library in the morning before school starts. I slapped a #bookdroplife hashtag on it after searching around and seeing that it hadn’t been used before.

What I have noticed is that students will approach me in the library and say things like “You know that pile of books you put on Instagram? Do you have that one with the blue cover?” I have also had other librarians around the world use #bookdroplife to highlight their book returns and share resources.

 

You can also take short videos with Instagram and of course highlight your collection and programs in a cool way that students identify with.

 

Youtube

Bev talked about creating a YouTube account for your school library which I think is an awesome idea and something I am slightly behind on. For a lot of teachers & librarians, having students inadvertenly see inappropriate ads while waiting for the YouTube video is a big issue. Bev suggested using ViewPure. ViewPure filters out the adverts so you only watch what you want.

Using a YouTube channel to create book trailers, film library events and live-stream programs is an awesome idea and I can’t wait to get started on it.

I’m sure I’m missing something, it was a session jam-packed with ideas. Be sure to visit Bev’s web site here or follow her on Twitter to make sure you’re up to speed on all of the great things she does!