Social media is considered a function of web 2.

0 and is something that libraries and other

institutions are taking advantage of. Due to the fact that users are using and creating content
within social media platforms at such a high rate and organizations are taking advantage of these
platforms for marketing, communicating events and other information to their users and
generating more traffic, it would certainly be a wise move for libraries to use these innovated
mediums of communication. From a standpoint of information seeking behaviors, social media is
a game changer. We can see that many people are seeking information on social media platforms
and therefore can adapt our own means of providing information to compensate for these
behaviors. This isnt to say we should change the way rigorous intellectual information is created
and stored but we can now connect users in ways that we never could before.
Considering the scope of social media and the ability to provide and share various forms of
content from user to user, between institutions, between institutions and their employees and
between institutions and users, social media is an invaluable tool in communicating and
developing relationships. The Annual Horizon Report (2014) provides an article, Growing
Ubiquity of Social Media, which highlights the point:
Relationships are ultimately the lifeblood of social media as people share information
about themselves, find out what their peers and favorite organizations think about topics
of interest, and exchange messages. The experience augments already-established
relationships while providing spaces for people who are separated by physical distance or
other barriers to connect with each other. This helps institutions to garner broader
audiences while communicating with existing one. (p. 8).
Management within library environments should, if they havent already, consider utilizing
social media platforms both for communicating with employees and with users. They are
powerful tools that people can interact with in non-static ways, which makes the potential for
learning, development of relationships, connecting with the user and successful marketing that
much more approachable. Evans and Alire (2013) noted that libraries are using social media
platforms at an increasing rate and pointed to blogs as an example. Essentially, the authors
highlighted the fact that users generally can express their idea on blogs, which makes them ideal
for understanding and connecting to the user point of view (p.196).

References
Evans, G.E., & Alire, C.A. (2013). Management basics for information
professionals (3rd ed.). New York: Neal-Schuman
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., Freeman, A. (2014). NMC
Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: The New
Media Consortium.