Facebook 101: What Librarians Need to Know

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Facebook 101 What Librarians Need to Know

• Laurie M. Bridges, Business Economics Librarian
• Oregon State University, blog infodoodads.com

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• Should librarians
• be there??

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Why should librarians care?

• Popularity of the website
• Serving generation Y (now and in the future)
• Social aspects of information sharing
• Organization of information
• Outreach opportunities
• Advertising opportunities
• Virtual networking with librarians

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Its Popular!

• Facebook is the most popular website for young
  adults age 18-24. More popular than Google.
  (Anderson Analytics 2007)

Flickr Scott Beale/Laughing Squid
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Top 10 Websites
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Social Networking More Popular Among Women (18-24)
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More Stats

• Over 58 million active users and more than 1/2 of
  them return daily (Facebook)
• 85 of college/university students have a
  Facebook account (Facebook)
• Facebook is the 5th most trafficked website in
  the U.S. (Alexa, Dec 07)

Flickr castortroy520
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Social Networking Teens

• 55 of all teens, age 12-17, use online social
  networking sites (Pew/Internet, 2007)
• For girls social networking sites are places to
  reinforce pre-existing friendships (Pew/Internet
  2007)
• For boys social networking sites are places to
  maintain contact with friends and make new
  friends older boys who use social networking
  sites (29) to flirt (Pew/Internet, 2007)

flickr Feuillu
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Growth Reach

• Members, features, updates

May 24
Sept.
Feb. 04
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Facebook Usage

• Average user spends 20 minutes on Facebook per
  visit (Facebook)
• Average user visits 32 pages per visit (Alexa)
• Most Common Activities (Freiert, 2007)
• Browsing Profiles
• Interacting with Applications
• Browsing Pictures
• based on visits per month and time per visit

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What is Facebook?
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Why Do People Use Facebook?

• Keep in touch
• Network
• Make friends
• Date
• Reinforce
• relationships
• Etc.

Flickr james barnes
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Homepage (News Feed)
Flickr GeekPoke
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Whats in a Profile?
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Cont.
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Cont.
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• Applications

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Applications Most Active Users

• Fun Wall (2,146,258 daily active users)
• Super Wall (2,130,285 )
• Top Friends (1,971,734 )
• Movies (1,193,392 daily )
• Bumper Sticker (947,289 )
• Scrabulous (669,245 )
• SuperPoke (621,245 )
• Texas HoldEm Poker (609,416 )

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Applications for Libraries

• Notre Dame Library Search (2 active daily users)
• WorldCat (45 daily active users)
• JSTOR (20 daily active users)

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Groups Pages
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Groups Pages
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Groups vs. Pages

• Updates directly to user news feed
• Can add many applications
• Usage stats including visitors per day

• No updates
• No applications
• No usage stats

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Facebook Groups
Keyword search for library
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Save the British Library!
2,339 members
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Save the British Library! (cont.)
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Facebook Pages

• 164 Fans (after 6 months)
• Promoted on catalogs blog and library website

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Facebook Pages

• Charles B. Phillips Library, Aurora University
• Over 100 fans
• Promotion each new Fan entered to win two
  Phantom of the Opera Tickets

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Facebook Pages Stats
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Advertising
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Advertising on Facebook
UNC Chapel Hill Focus Group Recruitment
University of Calgary Increase usage of ebrary
and Refworks
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Cont.
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Buying an Ad

• CPM
• Set the price for 1,000 views

• CPC
• Set the price per click

Go to the bottom of any Facebook webpage and
click the Advertisers link. Create ad and tell
Facebook when to run it and who to target Pay for
the ad (credit card)
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Lingo

• Facebook Me/Friend Me
• Poke
• Wall

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• Questions??
• Slideshow www.slideshare.net/ilaurie

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References

• Freiert, Max. 14 Million people interacted with
  Facebook Applications in August. Compete.com.
  Sep 11, 2007. http//blog.compete.com/2007/09/14/f
  acebook-activity-breakdown-application/
• Anderson Analytics, 2007 http//www.marketingchar
  ts.com/interactive/college-students-facebook-top-s
  ite-social-networking-really-hot-1914/
• Facebook Stats http//facebook.com/press/info.php
  ?statistics
• Alexa http//alexa.com/
• Pew/Internet 2007 http//www.pewinternet.org/PPF/
  r/230/report_display.asp