Glut of Facebook Traffic

Wow! Since ACRL came and went, the listserv's and message boards have been going crazy with Web 2.0 talk -- in particular, Facebook.com has been getting a lot of buzz. I've received many "friend" requests from librarians around the country -- it's nice to be so connected!

I'd like to talk a little bit about how Facebook.com fits into the reference services I provide here at UM. It's less of an outreach and a 'first-contact' tool than it is another method of communicating with students. While there seem to be some functions of Facebook itself that would lead us to believe it could be useful as outreach, I'm not entirely convinced that it is useful for those purposes. Here are some outreach methods I've seen on Facebook:

• Sending individual methods through Facebook

This is probably the most effective way of 'first-contact' with students. At ACRL, Shannon Kealey presented a poster on outreach with Facebook. I forget now what the poster's title was, but it described the process of using Facebook Flyers (paid-for advertising banners displayed to users), a Facebook group (opt-in groupings of people that can be mass-messaged), and individual messages sent through Facebook.

Since groups are opt-in, and Facebook does not provide data on how many times a Flyer is clicked, the most important data Shannon presented was the rate of response to her messages. I forget the number, but I think it was in the 20%'s -- that's actually pretty good in my opinion, considering the amount of messaging she did -- she contacted everyone in the NYU network.

Wait? What?!? Everyone in the NYU network? Similarly, Brian Mathews did the same for his engineering student population at Georgia Tech (see Mathews, B. (2006). "Do you Facebook? Networking with students online." C&RL News 67(5). Link requires ALA authentication). Both described the amount of work it took to accomplish this task: a lot! Facebook's junk mail / mass mailing deterrents limit the amount of messages you can send in a period of time, and it will detect when you're sending the same message over and over again.

Both Shannon and Brian provide ways of coping with this: Shannon had three different messages she cut and pasted on a rotating basis to get around the "same message" trigger in Facebook, and Brian limited himself to a small amount per day.

While this outreach method seems to be the most effective, it requires a lot of work on the part of the librarian -- and it requires this task to be done for incoming students each semester (identifying newcomers to Facebook may be difficult).

• Creating a Library "Group" for students to join.

What's nice about a library "Group" is that you can send a mass message (as long as your group has 1000 members or less -- and if you have more than 1000 members, you're freaking amazing!). This makes it really easy to notify interested students in library activities - so for advertising your resources and events, it's phenomenal.

The problem is initiating first contact -- students must opt-in to the group. You could create a group, then do individual e-mails as described above, inviting students to join the group. The group itself can't be used to do outreach to students, though.

However, with Facebook's news feed, if you can get a few students to join, there might be a landslide of joiners afterwards, thanks to the "network" part of this social networking tool. When a someone sees that their friend joined a group, they, too, may click on and join the group.

• "Registering" for classes

One promising feature of Facebook is the ability to "register" for classes. You can enroll yourself in a class at the university, and when students peruse the list of facebook profiles enrolled in their courses, they will see you there!

Though it seems like this would be a great way to do outreach (it puts you in a place where students in classes you support will see you), I don't think it's altogether that effective. Some students are very loose when they choose who to "Friend" -- even if they don't know someone, they'll add them as a "Friend." Others are more conservative, and prefer to add only those people they actually know as "Friends." In either case, it's highly unlikely that a student will add you as a friend if they don't know you in person (or at least through e-mail or other modes of communication).

Even the most liberal friend-adders don't add everyone they come across in Facebook, and to be quite honest with you, unless you've already had a chance to interact with these students in a course-integrated instruction session or in other ways, you're just another random face out there in Facebook. If you've been reading this blog, you'll notice I've added the text "COMM STUDIES LIBRARIAN" directly to my picture so student who come across my mug will get an idea of who I am -- still, though, it's little incentive for students to add a librarian as a friend when they don't even know what a librarian does.

Content Matters

If you do start a group, send individual e-mails, or create a profile, put something useful in those spaces. Communicate to students what you do and how you can help them in very practical ways: helping them narrow their paper topics, helping them locate "scholarly" articles, helping them create bibliographies, etc. Tell them WHY they would want to contact you.

I don't recommend making your profile just another portal to library resources -- make sure they know that the purpose of the Facebook account or group is to provide another way of getting help with these resources (not just another way of getting to these resources).

Personality and Willingness to Return

So, how do I do my Facebook? I don't do outreach at all in Facebook itself. Instead, when I go out to teach a course-integrated library session, towards the end, I show them my facebook profile in class and encourage them to add me as a friend or message me with any questions. On any course-specific research guide I create, I make sure there's a link to my Facebook profile along with other means of contacting me (example).

If I'm a bad teacher, and I do poorly in this instruction session, I doubt people will think I'll be more helpful through facebook, e-mail or anything else. So, the best methods of getting students to see Facebook (or any other method, really) as a way of getting help with an assignment is by being a good teacher, by making myself accessible, and by being a welcoming individual when I do get the change to interact with them personally.

The tried and true lessons from the Willingness to Return study (see Durrance, J. (1995). "Factors that influence reference success: what makes questioners willing to return?" Reference Librarian 49/50, pp. 243-65.) apply in these situations as well.

When interacting with patrons over Facebook, any best practices from our history in digital reference in other forms apply as well.

This is my take on Facebook. I'm always scouring blogs and listserv's for more information, and I'm excited to see that there's a new blog devoted to this topic (see Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services), and I'm always changing my opinion on these things. Stay posted!

Eric