Libraries on Snapchat?

So we've already talked about library presence on Facebook and Twitter, some pretty expected places. But what about Snapchat? This article about why libraries should use Snapchat blew my mind, and sparked my curiosity - so I did some investigating about how effectively libraries are using Snapchat.

Finding library stories and accounts

How can you find a library story? Turns out it can be pretty difficult. There are two main ways to find libraries on Snapchat: as individual accounts ('Friends') with specific handles, and as publicly available stories in Discover.

Many libraries choose to create library Snapchat accounts as platforms for their library story. While I can see the potential benefit of this may lie in the ability for patrons to snap responses and questions in response to a story, it has the huge drawback of making that library insanely difficult to find on a whim. Patrons will need to know the library's exact handle in Snapchat to find it. One person attempted to make a directory of these (which was helpful in exploring), but it is a bit outdated.

Other libraries (8 exactly, as far as I could tell) have chosen to go another route, and make their library stories publicly available for people to find in the discover section of the app, just by searching the library name, or even just library. Then, if you want to keep up-to-date with library happenings, you just subscribe to the story in Discover. If you wanted to contribute to the story, all you'd need to is send a snap to the story.

Another kind of Discover story I happened upon is the global library story. There are two global library stories currently. There is a story about the topic of 'The Library,' and another that is a global 'Public Library' story.

What's the story?

Using that handy directory and exploring public stories, I discovered a few trends that reigned supreme, and some shining exceptions.

Library branch accounts with specific handles tend to be either abandoned or inconsistently posted to, often having no story at all. This is likely due to their frustrating lack of ease in casual discovery. Some accounts listed in the directory simply cease to exist! However, there were some library accounts that were clearly run by staff who knew how to use the app, and included fun features and animations, pictures of the schedule that day, and updates about goings-on and fun displays.

Some branch accounts were clearly made with teens in mind - it's right in the handle. While I admire the effort to appeal to teens, dedicating your only Snapchat account just to teens is a bit limiting. If other patrons see that it's made for teens in the handle, but they're adults, then they won't bother to follow or contribute. However, there were a few great exceptions to this. One in particular, the PPL teen account, was clearly run by the teen librarian, and was being used to get teens interested in programming and activities at the library. The PPL story included a teaser for a seek-and-find activity: if teens find a golden easter egg (in reference to all the Ready Player One hype), then they can win a prize! The very next segment of the story was a picture of a gift card for movie theater admission (presumably to see the movie).

The globally contributed-to Discovery stories were far more active and exciting to see. The Public Library story was informative, interesting, and fun. This seemed to be accomplished by the ability of both patrons and staff to post to the story. (The ratio of library staff posting to patrons was about 6:4).  The topical 'The Library' story was a bit different - mainly using patron contributions about weird and funny happenings at libraries. The 8 public library stories for some reason all seemed to be in Florida (perhaps a library system chose a different path?), were largely contributed to by patrons, and seemed to focus on local library and community happenings and events.

The academics have it!

This platform seems to be most widely and successfully used by academic libraries. This is likely due to the campus community atmosphere already present in such institutions, and the prevalence of young students who use Snapchat as their patron & staff base.

But what of the public?

While it seems like public libraries are struggling to succeed on this social media platform, I don't think that this means they should throw in the towel. Instead, they should pay attention to the successful accounts and adapt.

If public libraries switched their presence from account-based to Discovery story-based, they would be much more visible to the casual user who pulled up Snapchat in their library. They would also be able to generate a more consistent story this way, because then patrons could submit snaps (that would still required staff approval?) to supplement that story's content.

This really could be the next great platform for public libraries to shine, and reach their communities, they just need to modify their tactics. It will be worth it.