“They retweeted me once - it was quite exciting!”

Using Twitter in Information Services

By Joanne Casey, Senior Content Producer

In September 2009, I was leading a small communications team for IT Services, and I'd had my own Twitter account for 9 months. As a team we were reviewing our approach to communication and saw that other university services were starting to use Twitter, so we decided to create an account for IT Services. We saw it as a new way to keep people informed of new services, alert them to any downtime, and raise awareness of security issues - phishing attacks and the like. We seethed inwardly when an occasional colleague gleefully dismissed Twitter to our customers, even as we tried to promote it (“I'd never use that”), and eventually we seethed outwardly too, which seemed to put a stop to it…

Managing Twitter

In 2011, the Library, Archives, and IT Services converged to become Information Services, and my communications team gained an extra member and became the Communications and Marketing team for all three services. The Library also had a Twitter feed, which had been operating since September 2010. At this point the Library had limited resource available for marketing activities, so the account was run by a group of interested people from different teams. This didn't always work well - with no defined responsibility for the account, some queries went unanswered, and the posting rates on the account varied hugely from day to day. As part of a review of relationship management activities, responsibility for the Library twitter feed was passed to us in the Communications and Marketing team, leaving us with two Twitter feeds to play with.

(As an aside, it's worth noting that this semi-outsourced style of working may not have been the best choice for our Twitter feed, but can be very effective in other contexts, so shouldn't be dismissed; our Instagram account is populated by eager photographers from different Library groups, and as such offers a broader picture - pun intended - of our resources.)

Fairly naturally, we fell into different voices for the two accounts; what we had to say on the IT account (downtimes, phishing alerts, new services) wasn't as easy to have fun with as the more varied topics on the Library account. Inevitably, we often retweeted from the 'other' account, and yes, we started talking to ourselves…

In the early days, we took a fairly concerted approach to building followers; we announced the Twitter feeds in newsletters, news items on our websites, and via the student union newsletter - the latter was especially successful. We added our Twitter name to printed materials, and included it in our email signatures, and colleagues were encouraged to do the same. Nowadays, people expect us to have Twitter so we don't have to work so hard at promoting it. Our focus is very much on user engagement, and we try to respond to all tweets, including negative ones; it's an opportunity to improve someone's experience, and turn around their perception of our service. When we engage with our users, whether it's with a well-chosen gif, a light-hearted reply, or supplying exactly the right information, we get more interaction which in turn helps to build our following. Any tweets with a feedback element are favourited and pulled into our monthly feedback report.

In 2014, the Library Twitter feed was nominated for an award from our Student Union, and were awarded Highly Commended in the Unsung Heroes of Non-Academic Staff category. Nominations were made by two of our student followers, who commented on the speed and humour of our responses, with one of them adding “they retweeted me once and it was quite exciting”. It was a very proud moment, with the added joy of champagne at the award ceremony.

Just an extension of the help desk? 

We were clear from the offset, that we wouldn't be the digital wing of the IT Support Office or the Library help Desk. Our Twitter bios explain that we offer 'news and updates'. However, while it's easy to set your own parameters and guidelines for how the Twitter account will be used, but not so easy to persuade your followers to work within them. And that's understandable - if my supermarket make an error with my delivery, then tweeting them is quick and easy, and the same is true for anyone with a question or comment for us. In addition, Twitter acts as an early warning system; this is easiest to see with the IT feed where users alerting us to issues with wifi can be as quick as our own alerts, but it's there on the Library account too, letting us gauge the thermostat, both actual (“It's too hot in Fairhurst”) and metaphorical (“Why are there so many A level students in the Library? We need seats!”).

Knowing its value

One way and another, we spend quite a bit of time working on our social media, and it's a key part of our communication approach, so it's important to evaluate its success. We use Twitter analytics, to assess engagements and impressions, and we use Google analytics to examine the traffic to our websites. But on a day to day basis, just getting a feel for it works pretty well too.

Learning from others

We didn't know when we set up these accounts how they would develop.Twitter is all about sharing and learning; we've learnt from those around us, and grown in response to our followers. We follow and retweet other accounts in the University and the city, and we also follow lots of library accounts - they're often funny and interesting (and we can steal their good ideas). Particular favourites are Liverpool Uni Library and Warwick Uni Library and, like everyone else, we have just a hint of a crush on the Orkney Library Twitter account.

How do students really prefer to communicate? Part 2: VLE, Lecture Capture, and Social Media

By Ned Potter, Academic Liaison Librarian 

This is the second half of a two part post on how students like to hear from the central University. It's based on an audit conducted centrally at York, the results of which the Internal Communications Manager has kindly allowed me to share here. I'd recommend having a read of Part 1, focused on email as there's a lot of useful insights there.

This part will focus on the VLE, the popularity of lecture capture, use of social media and the University webpages. As with Part 1, I'll be using phrases like 'students prefer...' but of course the proviso is that I actually mean 'students at York prefer...' (and even more specifically, students who are prepared to sign up for a series of focus groups on internal comms in the first place). 

The surprising popularity of the VLE and the unsurprisingly popularity of Lecture Capture 

I must admit I was a little surprised to read that Blackboard was popular with the students. In actual fact they say it is difficult to navigate, but once mastered and if used well by their tutors, they are generally very positive about the VLE.

In particular the students liked the discussion forums where the lecturer takes the time to get involved. The opportunity to ask questions and clarify parts of the lecture they didn't understand is very much appreciated, and they highlighted the public availability of all the questions and answers - as opposed to a private conversation between student and lecturer which is seen as less fair and transparent.

The other things noted as positives were the email notifications when new content is added, and the posting of lecture materials and supporting information.

The most popular part of the VLE, however, was Replay, the lecture capture system that allows students to re-watch lectures (or catch-up if they were ill - lecture capture has been shown time and time again not to negatively impact on attendance, so it's not used as a way to avoid having to actually go to lectures...). To quote the report:

"At degree level they find it difficult to take in the level of detail and complexity in one sitting and so the opportunity to re-visit the lecture to listen and learn again, to take better notes and to revise is something they really, really value"

It is particularly valuable in conjunction with the discussion forums mentioned above, and reduces the need to seek out the tutor for extra guidance.

Not all students in the focus groups are on courses which use lecture capture extensively - when those that weren't heard from those that are, they made it clear they'd very much like this facility on their modules too.

You can read more about Replay on the E-Learning Development Team blog.

Students, social media and the University 

As mentioned in Part 1, the students would expect anything essential to be communicated by email. Social media can be used as well, but shouldn't ever be used exclusively for key info such as timetable changes and so on.

They're happy for Facebook to be used for 'fun stuff' but not serious stuff - they use it more than any other medium between themselves, but there's a mixed reaction to the University joining in. WhatsApp, Messenger and Snapchat are used a lot for peer-to-peer communication, and they really don't associate this kind of platform with the University and its communication channels at the moment. YikYak is known primarily as a place for cruelty and harm - students don't tend to use it unless there is a particular scandal they want to hear the gossip about.

Interestingly to me, Twitter is was reported as not being used abundantly and is considered as a tool for 'old people'. The main downside noted was about control, or the lack of control, over who sees what. At the Library we actually find Twitter to have quite high levels of engagement, the most of any social media platform we use, and the comms audit contradicting this chimes with other anecdotal evidence I've heard online of students being reluctant to really admitting they use Twitter but nevertheless using it anyway. It's also a lesson in trusting the stats, but interrogating the stats to make sure the engagement is actually coming from your users rather than your peers (and in our case, it is our actual users who interact with us and benefit from our Twitter account, predominantly).

Webpages and Google 

Students prefer to use Google to find information, even if it's info they know exists on the University website. I do this too - I Google my query plus the word 'York' even for stuff on the library website because it's quicker and more reliable. The students don't always trust the University's search function... They also don't expect news via the website - they feel they'll get any updates they need via email and social media. 

Perhaps the most interesting theme for me which came up in this section was one of relevance - students feel a lot of University comms are aimed at potential students, rather than at them, the current incumbents. There's an opportunity here for libraries: we are predominantly focused on existing users, and we can pull in other content for an internal audience, for example via Twitter, and share this with the students too.