Comparing the Twitter presence of the ALA and ALIA
I thought it would be interesting to compare the Twitter presence of two similar organisations which have the same fundamental purpose. The American Library Association (ALA) and Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) are both organisations that provide leadership and support to library staff through the provision of professional development opportunities and the sharing of relevant information. Both organisations actively accomplish this through their websites and social media platforms, including Twitter.
Both organisations have held Twitter accounts since 2009 with the ALA joining only four months before ALIA. Understandably, due to broader demographics, ALA has a larger number of followers with over 200,000 (ALA, n.d.) compared to ALIA which has approximately 11,000 (ALIA, n.d.). Interestingly, however, ALIA (n.d.) has Tweeted over 40,000 times as opposed to ALA (n.d.) which has only produced approximately 28,000 Tweets. Both organisations tweet regularly (at least once a day) which is important because regularly engaging with the audience ensures interest is maintained (Li et al., 2020).
Organisations need to understand the intention of a social media platform and identify who the target audience is and their motivations for viewing the site (Li et al., 2020). These Twitter profiles are both directed toward information professionals, or anyone interested in the library field. The information being shared by ALA includes event advertising, merchandise advertising, recaps of past events, and library-related news. There are regular Tweets about book banning in libraries which is a topic that users actively engage with. ALIA shares similar information, with a focus on professional development opportunities for library professionals, merchandise advertising for special events (e.g., National Simultaneous Storytime), advertising conferences, highlighting libraries, and general information about libraries. Both profiles regularly provide current information while also re-tweeting prevalent information such as upcoming events.
Both profiles are successfully reaching the intended audience with many Tweets being “liked” and “retweeted” with occasional comments throughout. This indicates that people are engaging with the organisations and the information being shared is relevant and of interest to the target audience (Heggde and Shainesh, 2018). Both ALA and ALIA are sharing important resources for professional development and providing a way for people to make connections with like-minded peers where they can further engage and build a professional network (Singaraju et al., 2016). Although there are few lengthy comments from users, I still believe these Twitter profiles to be a success. Microblogging is designed for quick, short posts with valuable, relevant information. Both ALA and ALIA are successfully achieving this by providing relevant, meaningful information to their target audience which can encourage further discussion and collaboration.
References
Altmann, G. (n.d.). Twitter [Image]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/twitter-social-media-icon-social-3319619/
American Library Association. (n.d.). Tweets [Twitter profile]. Twitter. Retrieved March 28, 2022, from American Library Association (@ALALibrary) / Twitter
Australian Library and Information Association. (n.d.). Tweets [Twitter profile]. Twitter. Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://twitter.com/alianational
Borup, J. (n.d.). Twitter [Image]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/vectors/twitter-social-media-icon-social-2430933/
Heggde, G., & Shainesh, G. (Eds.). (2018). Social media marketing: emerging concepts and applications. Palgrave Macmillan.
Li, F., Larimo, J., & Leonidou, L. C. (2020). Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 49(1), 51-70. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1007/s11747-020-00733-3
Singaraju, S. P., Quan, Nguyen, Q. A., Niininen, O., & Sullivan-Mort, G. (2016). Social media and value co-creation in multi-stakeholder systems: a resource integration approach. Industrial Marketing Management, 54, 44-55. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1016/j.indmarman.2015.12.009