The Info and Library Industry Tweet-Up:- aka the power of social media

A few of us on Twitter: myself (@genebrarian), @seanfish , @catatonichic and @kowhaiAnne , had been discussing the possibility of a bit of a Tweet-Up, just to chat about the exciting changes in our professional lives, brainstorm new ways of using social media, and oh a whole heap of things we were excited about.

This idea has grown to a general more inclusive, but much broader invite to all who might be interested.

Event: Tweetup / MeetUp / We’re not eliteup
Venue: Auckland Domain, near the Band Rotunda. See number 24 on this map:
Date: Waitangi Day, Sunday, February 6
Time: 12 noon
Bring: yourselves, a picnic, a blanket, a musical instrument (if you are keen to join the jam session) . Its a family day, so partners and kids also welcome
Enquiries to: aucklibstweetup@gmail.com or follow #aucklibtweetup on Twitter
Agenda: Fun, socialising, (food?), a bit of "shop-talk", music - and a group visit to the Museum about 2pm for those interested

The only requirement for attendance is an interest in the information and library sector. You don't even have to be an Aucklander, just be able to get to Auckland Domain on that day. You don't even have to have had an official invitation, just see the event publicised somewhere.

What I find interesting about this process, is that each of the organisers have been using their own individual streams of social media to send the word out.

It started on Twitter: #aucklibtweetup and is being re-tweeted.

More info is available on @seanfish's blog here: http://banjosinthestacks.wordpress.com/aucklibtweetup/ and its being blogged here -and I've seen it being re-blogged elsewhere already!

A Facebook invitation has been sent out, with the idea that people being invited, "pay it forward" to others already not invited that are in their circle of FB friends. The FB invite also links to @seanfish's blog.

And its been announced on LinkedIn on my profile page  with links to the Facebook invite.

Hopefully, it will be a good day - with an opportunity to meet loads of my social media "friends" IRL (in real life).

I am looking forward to it!

Using Social Media

Why do you use social media? (you are here, so you do - whether you realise it or not!)  People use social media for all sorts of different reasons.

Some use it to converse and interact with people that they know very well. Either professionally or socially.

Some people use it to network with mere acquaintances. Some with people they do not know at all. Sometimes peoples motives for using social media aren't apparent.

The reasons I use social media are wide and varied. I use my personal Facebook account to converse and share with family and friends. I also use it to create Groups pages for my personal family history interests. I've had quite a few previously unknown family members and/or fellow researchers contact me as a result.

I manage a professional Facebook account (Auckland Research Centre) I use to promote my specialist subject and collection (family history) and my library.

My personal Facebook account has strict security controls, so that I can control who sees what exactly. The professional account has very few security controls - I want as many people to find and interact with us as possible.

I use my Twitter account (@genebrarian) for the widest reasons: to converse with friends and colleagues, network with professionals, to promote my library and collection and for my learning. There's an amazing amount to be learned by clicking on someone's link. I also follow people "for the hell of it". Their "Tweets" interest and inspire me.

I manage and write for the Kintalk blog for work, and I've just started this blog.

LinkedIn is still relatively new for me, I'm dabbling to see what I can get out of it.
I suspect I can learn alot from it, as well as network.

My personal and professional interests are not just family history and libraries,
they are also graphic design and print (my old career), marketing, digital preservation/digitisation, internet and the web, and yes social media. So I hook up with as many contacts on there as I can.

I also use delicious to store the many hundreds of useful bookmarks I find when trawling the internet. They are portable, I can access them from any computer any time, and I can share them with people - I can "follow" others with similar interests as me, so I can share their bookmarks too.

Its great how you can link with people from one Social Media account to another. Someone you follow on Twitter, you feel you get to know them, so you then feel you can follow them on LinkedIn etc.

I think the Social Media explosion is definitely a boon for us family historians - as evidenced by the amount of blogging (and microblogging) being done out there!