The best reason to use social media is simple: it’s potentially a direct connection with your customer. But as disappointing as it may sound, your library’s social media activities might be a waste of time. The only way to know for sure is to take a proactive role in managing your social media, from setting specific goals to using analytics to measure effectiveness. In this issue of Library Technology Reports social media expert King shows the way, offering guidance on choosing the right social media channels for your library and managing your library’s outreach efforts. He provides

• Summaries of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and 10 other social media networks with advice on how they can fit typical library goals, citing specific examples from several different libraries
• Six key steps to take you from startup through an ongoing feedback loop
• Ways to use social media to extend traditional services such as answering questions, conversing with customers, promoting events, and performing outreach
• Tips for creating content that’s engaging and in tune with the channel
• Details of major platforms’ built-in analytics and the metrics to watch
• A model for creating teams to effectively divide the workload