Face-to-Face with Social Media: One Archivist's Approach to Engagement

Abstract

Inspired by the findings in Julianna Maiorano’s thesis “Engagement Levels on Social Media: A Case Study of Sojourner Truth Library’s Instagram”, the College Archivist Librarian at SUNY Oswego followed recommendations to increase engagement with distinct communities (internal campus members and external researchers) through the official social media accounts of Penfield Library. Julianna’s primary findings showed posts that including faces in photographs on social media indeed increase engagement, and that libraries should increase featuring faces in social media posts to increase engagement with patrons. Posts on Twitter and Instagram created by the College Archivist Librarian during 2021 were tracked, statistics were pulled from the respective platforms, and means were established to measure two groups (face/no face, human/no human) against the total post average. Poster information includes engagement strategies, data from the social media platforms, and low-to-no cost recommendations for increasing the social media presence of an archive.