9. Discussion
9.1 Likes and comments
37 in mind, they can generate engaging comments such as suggestions and complimentary comments, giving the library a way to measure success of their social media activities.
The quantitative and qualitative analysis also showed that although one library may have had more ‘engagement’ over the other according to the metric system of the platforms, AUTL had a higher proportion of comments belonging to the complimentary/thankful and general information on library services categories despite having less posts and comments than MUL. The content analysis made the engagement metrics more meaningful and gave insight into the posts that generate feedback, information sharing and relevant discussions for academic libraries. Hence it can be concluded that platform metrics of engagement are not as useful or important as content of the posts for creating communities of practice.
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38 days of activity that happens on a post (Facebook Business, 2014). The same can be said for Instagram because it shows number of ‘interactions and discovery’. This stat is only
available if the profile is converted to a business profile (Instagram, n.d.). It simply shows whether a photo drew an individual to your personal feed or not. It has nothing to do with engagement in the sense of creating an online community. It doesn’t elaborate on the content that is valued by students which they express through their comments. Students might choose to “walk-away” (Oldford, 2018) if the content offers them no value because they are not obligated to engage in an online conversation.
Furthermore, the number of likes and comments don’t represent the student or staff who interact with the posts. It is the content of the comment which shows the person and their level of engagement with the library. In addition, Facebook and Instagram insights only show the numbers of likes and comments from the subscribed followers. The students who may not be following the library but chose to comment on the post will go unnoticed if the focus of the librarians is the platform metrics. Mon (2015) recommends that instead of the number of likes and comments, librarians should focus on the library’s agenda and the intended audience. These aspects can be used to influence the production of the content for social media.
Social media platforms offer limited customization for analysing the numbers likes and comments presented in insights. For this reason, academic libraries might end up investing in a social media management software to get better statistics. This can be a costly dent to the budget. If they chose to save on this cost, it might still end up costing in terms of staff’s time who may check on profiles to see if the metrics of the content posted are increasing.
According to Bunker (2017), libraries who choose to use management software for social media are disadvantaged. Facebook and Instagram reward those who post directly from their platforms by showing the posts to maximum number of followers. This is another reason why the content should be created and shared strategically with investment in staff to reach social media’s full potential for the library.
Facebook and Instagram metrics also don’t correlate the likes, comments and content of the posts. Hence the librarians will not be able to understand the role that content plays into the equation. To answer the first research question, comments and likes did not reveal a defining picture of engagement. It can be argued that it not a concrete way of. Measuring success on social media because it simply sums up the numbers of likes and comments.
Categorizing posts allows for more interaction and it is easier to track success if comments are read by librarians rather than counted. Categorising comments showed that AUTL has
39 more complimentary/thankful comments despite having a lower number of comments overall compared to MUL. AUTL has no suggestions or complaints in the comments. A huge portion of MUL’s comments fall in the general comments’ category, followed by
complimentary/thankful, friendship, funny/humour, general information on library services, suggestions and complaints. The results were significant in showing that the numbers provided by platforms cannot support libraries to have interactive online communities, but it is the content of the post that can make a difference.
9.1.1 Regional factors
AUTL had more likes and comments on Instagram while MUL had more on Facebook despite the fact that AUT has more students. This could be explained through the regional
differences between these academic libraries. Chen et al. (2012) noted that when libraries serve larger regions, the impact can be obvious in terms of the number of likes and
comments. But it does not necessarily mean that one library is more successful in using social media than the other.
Firstly, MUL enjoys a regional advantage as they are the main University library for
Manawatū. Given that they are the only choice for students in the area, they are more likely to interact with MUL both in the offline world and the online world. They have a wide variety of students from three major regions in New Zealand which helps them build rapport and engagement offline and online. As they are an older institution than AUTL, it is possible that they have more alumni students too, who would be fond of the familiar spaces like the libraries. The alumni students are likely to follow and join the library pages on social media because it has nostalgic values (Alhabash & Ma, 2017). As Massey has a renounced distance study programs (Massey University, n.d.) distance students are also likely to seek MUL on social media for information on services.
Auckland University of Technology has many competing factors because they are based in Auckland with University of Auckland, Massey University and Unitec being some of the main higher education choice for students. University of Auckland is the biggest university in Auckland and enjoys similar benefits to Massey University, being the largest and spread across six main campuses within Auckland (Times Higher Education, 2018). These
institutions also offer fully operational libraries and these libraries also have a presence on social media. Hence, AUTL has to strive for their space in the offline and online world. The analysis of posts suggests that AUTL is focused on the community within AUT because they don’t have the regional benefits like MUL or University of Auckland, despite having 3 campuses across Auckland with a library in each campus.
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40 It is clear from the quantitative analysis and results that regional factors play an important role in metrics of likes and comments. It has also been proven overseas, like in America that libraries end up having “to compete with each other for students’ [attention]” (Spalding &
Wang, 2006, p. 495) when they are based in smaller regions. Therefore, it was noticeable that AUTL shared posts that were related to the wider community of AUT such as gym classes and the AUT student association. AUTL also made an extra effort to follow people (1616 accounts) on Instagram to gain followers (1178) in return. Whereas MUL is only following 44 accounts and they have 542 followers without the effort being put into networking.
The connection strategy and networking seem to be working for AUTL, given that they have a higher proportion of complimentary/thankful comments compared to MUL. This is despite the fact that they do not have the same regional benefits as MUL. According to Mon (2015), lower level of meaningful interactivity will be observed if the library focuses only on posting its own content, which MUL has done on both platforms. Sharing, liking and following other pages relevant to the community, as AUTL is observed doing, will lead to consequential engagement (K.E. Anderson 2017; Mon, 2015).