Assemble a Team

[Some] ALCTS-associated twitter accounts appear to be pretty defunct. It’s not clear how much coordination there is between them?

— Survey Respondent

Organizations who want to get the best out of social media dedicate time and effort in planning their strategy. In order for this to happen, there needs to be dedicated individuals who are monitoring and posting content to social media. We recommend that ALCTS create a group or committee to be specifically in charge of managing their social media presence to serve a minimum of one year terms. The committee should be a small group of about 3 members, and the group would follow social media policies established by the organization.

Their responsibilities include:

• setting guidelines for content and posting;
• managing effective ways to save passwords and track account information;
• creating documentation for succession planning so new committee members can roll onto the next year;
• saving relevant posts or tweets for the organization, which can become valuable resources for reports and future posts;
• keeping up with new social media trends, benchmarks, and policies;
• evaluating ALCTS’ social media presence to measure effectiveness;
• responding to members comments and questions on social media.

Good candidates for the committee would be LIS students, newer professionals looking for a chance to contribute, or volunteers who are passionate about social media. This would be a good opportunity for those who want to gain more experience with ALA Divisions and online marketing. The Social Media Committee would report to the ALCTS Executive Board and should be a cross-functional team that will strategically work with other ALCTS committees to build more effective membership engagement. It is essential that the committee create social media guidelines and strategies in correlation with association’s objectives as a whole. Having a strong social media team will help ALCTS better engage their audience online, and potentially recruit new members.

Key Takeaways

• Create a group or committee (of about 3 members) to be specifically in charge of managing the social media presence.
• Consider LIS students, newer professionals, or volunteers who are passionate about social media as members of the committee.
• The committee should work in correlation with ALCTS policies, guidelines, and objectives.