Engaging Students Through Social Media

Abstract

Students use social media to seek out, collaborate, and obtain information from their classmates and academic peers. Even if students are not currently interacting with the library using social media, they are open to doing so. Social media sites also have uses for organizing research and sharing it with others. Enabling and fostering that use is an ideal role for libraries. However, social media is not considered an appropriate information source for research. In this day and age of oversaturation of marketing messages on social networking sites, it could be worthwhile for a library to explore smaller social networks. Survey: Undergraduate and Graduate Student Use of Social Media Social media is such an intrinsic part of the way students interact, it is natural that academic libraries would consider making services available through these communication channels. For the benefit of academic libraries, ProQuest commissioned a study by Hanover Research to gauge the current and potential uses of social media for academic research. We present the findings here, along with some top-line recommendations to assist libraries in executing an effective social media strategy. The survey was conducted online in August 2012. It reached 600 students at degree-granting universities both large and small, representing a broad mix of academic disciplines. Approximately 300 students each were enrolled at Canadian and American universities, respectively, with a nearly equal mix of undergraduate and graduate students (54% undergraduate, 46% graduate). The study segmented the students in several different ways, in order to uncover potential differences that might guide libraries in devising a targeted, maximally effective strategy. Among universities based in the US and Canada, there are relatively few differences that are statistically significant enough to mandate a different approach for academic libraries in either country. Likewise, there are few differences when looking at students pursuing various academic disciplines. The most significant gaps in acceptance of social media are between undergraduate students and those pursuing graduate degrees, and, for that reason, much of this paper presents those statistics separately. Overall, there are more similarities than there are differences between the two groups; but the differences are such that we present some special recommendations for engaging graduate students via social media. Students use social media to seek out, collaborate, and obtain information from their classmates and academic peers. Even if students are not currently interacting with the library using social media, they are open to doing so. Social media sites also have uses for organizing research and sharing it with others. Enabling and fostering that use is an ideal role for libraries. However, social media is not considered an appropriate information source for research. Use of Social Media in General Nearly 30% reported visiting social media sites 4– 6 times per day, and undergraduate students are generally more likely than graduate students to be heavier users of social media. Virtually all students, both graduates and undergraduates, use Facebook. Half of all undergraduates and somewhat fewer graduates