Adoption of social media platforms for user’s engagement, marketing of library services and dissemination of information in university libraries

The purpose of this paper is to expose librarians in academic libraries to the effective utilization of social media as an effective tool for user’s engagement, marketing of library services and dissemination of information, and to determine which library services the social media are used to render. The study showed that social media tools were being used by university libraries to communicate with users and to enhance library services, and disseminate information to users. Some social media tools identified in the literature were Facebook, Twitter, Instant messaging, wikis, blogs, Podcasts, YouTube, and WhatsApp. Social media tools like Facebook, YouTube Twitter and Podcasts, to mention a few, are used by libraries to reach out to users and to enhance library services. Concerns were raised about the use of social media tools. The act of creating relationships and having a conversation with patrons is immensely useful. The author believes that library staff can gain insights through these conversations into what their users want and need, and ultimately understand their users better.