Social Media: What People Think I Do vs. What I Actually Do

Have you seen that meme/graphic widely shared on the internet which depicts what other people think of your profession as opposed to what you do all day long? This year we will be featuring content on our blog using that format to describe what the RWU Law Librarians do all day long. Today we are talking about the library’s social media presence.

The stereotype of someone who works with social media is of an influencer. You may be thinking that all who work with social media are fashionable people with product placement deals, collaborations with make-up brands, LED ring lights, and filters. You may think of your favorite TikTok star or YouTube personality.

The work that the library does with social media is far less glamorous, but just as fun. One part of the work we do on social media is maintaining accounts across platforms. The Law Library has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Each of these platforms is a little different and the posts on each of the platforms have different photo and text requirements. They each have a different vibe, too! 

The focus of the social media work of the law library is to communicate information to patrons.  This may be:

• information about changes to our hours (think snow days);
• information about our services (like our Roger That series);
• features about our collection (our e-book of the month feature);
• featuring our amazing student workers (when we post pictures of them!);
• highlighting our work with student groups (our recent holiday card drive); and
• sometimes we post about news or events in the life of the law school and the law librarians. 

While that describes why we work with social media it does not exactly describe what that work is like. At the law library, most of the social media work is shared by Lucinda, Nicole, and Jessica, with help from other librarians. Each of these team members works to produce, write, edit, create, and approve content for our different channels. For example, the e-book of the month feature idea was conceived by the library staff. The social media team created a list of possible books. Jessica created digital signage to use to promote the idea. Nicole created language to be used in the promotion. All of this was then presented to our library director for approval. Often there are edits and changes made before the final product is seen on social media, to ensure that we are sharing quality and timely information. 

Some say that teamwork makes the dream work, and that proverb perfectly describes the library’s social media presence and content!