ALA Kicks Off Task Force on Social Media

Last week a new staff task force on use of social media at ALA assembled, taking the first step toward moving ALA forward in the social media realm. The task force will address why to use social media in the first place and also how to use it to improve member engagement, promote ALA products and services, manage our brand, and better serve members, especially at conference. Associate Executive Director of Communications and Member Relations Cathleen Bourdon kicked off the meeting, noting ALA's deeply rooted drive as a non-profit to serve members–in social media as much as anywhere else. But she also noted the problem that's ever-present when new initiatives are laid out, especially in the non-profit world: "Our ideas are pretty large," she said, "but our budgets are pretty pathetic." Budgeted for or not, though, social media is clearly part of ALA's inevitable future. This task force, comprised of people from throughout ALA and its divisions, was created when ALA's Internet Development Specialist and Strategy Guide Jenny Levine pointed out to unit managers that at ALA Annual this year, there were at least 10,000 instances of the hashtag #ala2009 on Twitter, Flickr, blogs, and other social media spots. "It's not humanly possible to follow 10,000 tweets," said Bourdon. Well, that's not the point, I argued. The point, in my mind, is that if members are tweeting and blogging to this extent, then the social media present an opportunity to engage with them in a space where we're not currently engaging–at least not in a strategic, comprehensive way. The group understands that we can't control the flow of information and communication in these unofficial channels, but we can look at that flow as opportunities to further engage in conversations and address what customer-service needs do arise. The idea that we can't control the conversations but would be smart to engage in them is nothing new, but the fact that we're using bureaucratic means (a task force) to investigate the phenomenon, which is entirely non-bureaucratic at heart, seems to legitimize the role of social media in the association. However, Bourdon warned the group that some ALA unit managers were apprehensive about what we're doing. "They thought we would come up with unreasonable kinds of demands," she said. “To get unit heads to agree with this, you would have thought I was asking for first born babies.” Still, social media is a reality we'd be wise to embrace, and the task force is an important step in guiding that future. We'll be presenting recommendations and best practices for using social media by January 4–just in time for midwinter. In the meantime, I'll update our readers on our progress here.