Illustrations by Tom Nick Cocotos

Barbra Streisand had it right. We do need one another, as much online as off. At its heart, social media has less to do with technology or a particular application than forging connections with others. How one creates those connections is the question we posed to some insightful social media users. From a publisher of multiplatform books and a passionate educator to an Internet pioneer and a children’s book author, our contributors share how social media works for them.—@kishizuka

 

Kat Meyer: All a-Twitter about books “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”—A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh That, in a much more adorable and precise way than I could ever phrase it, sums up what social media represents to me. It’s simply a virtual way for each of us in the book community to leave our own corners of the forest, find one another, and connect in meaningful ways. Twitter reignited my passion for book marketing. Why? Because Twitter enables connection—and more importantly, conversation—across the social and professional borders of “real” life. On Twitter, it’s not uncommon to find best-selling authors conversing with readers who’ve never heard of them or to see the CEO of a major publishing house tweet a restaurant recommendation to an indie bookseller visiting NYC for the first time. Yes, I gush about Twitter—because it works for me. I have friends who are equally passionate about Facebook or LinkedIn. Even more are actively engaging fellow readers on solely bookish sites such as GoodReads and LibraryThing. In some ways, it’s sort of a social networking Wild West out there now. And authors and publicists are trying to figure out the social media silver bullet that will make their title a best seller. Well, there isn’t one. Each and every social platform is only as good as the relationships that are built via it. Those relationships take time. My best advice for social media success is this: go slowly. Listen. Contribute. Social media will have an even bigger impact on the book world as we move forward, as more and more people connect on nichey, vertical social networking sites. I think those authors and publishers who forego attempting to control their marketing message, and instead opt to engage in conversations and listen to readers and reader advocates, will gain the most. Book publishing veteran Kat Meyer is currently chief content wrangler for Next Chapter Communications, where she revels in two of her favorite pastimes: all things bookish, and all things social media. Will Richardson: Name your passion The “secret” to social media is pretty easy: passion. Whatever you love to do, there’s a global conversation out there just waiting for you. I think often about a teacher who shared his passion for mountain biking on a unicycle—and how I had a hard time creating a picture of that in my head that wasn’t filled with broken bones and lots of blood. Turns out there’s a whole group of folks who happen to love that sport; they’re called “municyclists.”And they actually live to share their exploits online with others of their ilk from all over the world. What a concept. Passion, ultimately, is what drives us to connect. It always has, and now, given the 1.7 billion people who are using the Web today, the potential for those connections, for those shared passions, is huge. Sure, there are all sorts of participation skills that are required to make good, healthy use of that opportunity, but none of them matter without a love for the interaction, the dialogue, and, most importantly, the learning. Passion is what makes us start a blog, create a YouTube video, or tweet our thoughts of the moment because we want to share with others. And because we can. So what’s your passion? And once you name it, are you going to share the love? There’s a world of people out there just waiting to learn from you and with you; that’s no longer a secret. Will Richardson is a parent, blogger, educator, and speaker on all things Web-learning related. Cofounder of the Powerful Learning Practice, he is a national advisory board member for the George Lucas Education Foundation. Paula Chase Hyman: Celebrating books by people of color Social networking is essential to our very existence. Not only does it keep us in touch with the kid-lit community, it gives us credibility there. The Brown Bookshelf’s mission to highlight both under-the-radar titles and trailblazers among brown children’s books would be more difficult if it weren’t for Twitter, writer forums like the Blueboard, and fellow book blogs like Color Online and ReaderGirlz. Our group is six members strong, with different levels of social media interaction. Tameka F. Brown, one of our newest members, is perhaps the least tethered, but her forte is blogging about the picture-book industry. The rest of us are all Facebooked down and Twittered up, and we use our circles to spread the word about great books, causes we’re supporting, and, of course, our flagship initiative, 28 Days Later, which highlights African-American kids’ books in February. The relationships we’ve built have often led to personal appearances, invites to sit on panels, and book sales. Most importantly, it’s resulted in making great books more visible among a very important audience—librarians, parents, and teachers. Paula Chase Hyman is the founder of The Brown Bookshelf, a blog that promotes African-American books for young readers Kaleb Nation: Establish your personal brand One of the most important things I’ve learned about social media is to treat your own work in the same way major corporations treat their brands. A brand is a distinctive overall image that’s implemented in unique ways by every leading company in the world. Dell’s slanted “E” is a trademark for computers; and McDonald’s golden arches are known worldwide. It sets them apart from every other computer and burger producer vying for market attention. As someone entering an already bustling social media landscape, I realized in order to be noticed, I would need to follow the example of these successful companies and apply their techniques to my own, albeit much smaller, brand. As an individual, whether a writer or anyone trying to establish a social media presence, your name is usually your best asset—it is something unique to you, to center your brand around. Keeping your brand consistent is crucial: I am Twitter.com/KalebNation; YouTube.com/KalebNation; same goes for Facebook and so on. Anyone can take advantage simply by looking at our predecessors in successful branding. There are thousands of burger joints, but there is only one McDonald’s. There are thousands of bloggers, too, but there’s just one who can write in the same exact way that you do. It’s a matter of showing the world just how different you are from the rest of the crowd. Blogger Kaleb Nation (www.kalebnation.com) wrote his first novel, Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse (Sourcebooks, 2009) while a teenager. His other blog, TwilightGuy.com, about the Stephenie Meyer novel series, was featured in Entertainment Weekly and on MTV. Nation’s two YouTube channels have logged 10 million plays. Mitali Perkins: Toasting new titles on Twitter The release of a new book is something to celebrate, right? But these days the cheering seems to rely heavily on a single voice—the author’s. How can we share our good news without feeling like we’re boasting? Twitter Book Birthday Parties seemed like the perfect way to integrate several free new media tools and share the joy of announcing an individual’s publication news to the community. So how does it work? To sign up, an author or illustrator of a newly releasing traditionally published children’s or YA book joins Twitter, follows @bookbday (aka, me), and sends me a direct message on Twitter in this format: TITLE | @twittername | genre (Genre key: PB = Picture Book, CB = Chapter Book, MG = Middle Grade, YA = Young Adult, NF = Nonfiction) | publisher | ISBN He or she also agrees to tweet the other book parties, either manually or automatically, using Twitterfeed (for instructions, visit www.twitterbookparties.com). Any Twitter user can sign up to auto-party; you don’t need to be an author or illustrator to celebrate. Using Blogger’s ability to schedule posts, I periodically add brief announcements that include the book’s title, the author’s Twitter handle, the term “#bookbday,” with a link leading to the book on IndieBound.com. Each post looks something like this: THE UNFINISHED ANGEL | @ciaobellacreech | MG | HarperCollins | http://bit.ly/anAxP #bookbday Blogger automatically posts the announcement on the publication date, pouring the RSS feed into the Twitter streams of 150-plus authors, bloggers, booksellers, and other supporters. You can track the “party” by clicking on “#bookbday.” We send hundreds of visitors to IndieBound, and the announcement, we hope, gets the news out to the circles around each party goer. The response from authors and illustrators has been heartening. Mary Pearson, author of The Miles Between (Holt, 2009), says, “Usually pub day is pretty quiet. But with #bookbday I felt like a brass band had shown up at my door to help me celebrate. I’m still smiling.” Mitali Perkins is the author of several novels for young readers, including the forthcoming Bamboo People (Charlesbridge, September 2010). She survives winters in Massachusetts thanks to social media, and dreams of science discovering the health benefits of tweeting while eating chocolate. Michael Porter and David Lee King: The lowdown on Library 101 If you’ve heard about the Library 101 Project, chances are it’s because of social media. At its core, the online initiative asks “What do libraries do well now and what do we need to change in order to remain vibrant and indispensable?” The project is comprised of a video, two Web pages, one with 23 essays on the future of libraries by industry thought leaders, and another that lists 101 hyperlinked Resources and Things to Know (or RTK). We knew that online tools would be critical to getting the word out. Since we both have fairly well-read blogs, we posted about the project there, soliciting more than 500 participants. We also broadcast to our Twitter followers, as well as on Facebook and Friendfeed. During its official launch at the Internet Librarian conference in October 2009, broadcast via Ustream, attendees blogged and tweeted about Library 101. To date, the Library 101 pages have been viewed more than 50,000 times, the video has received 18,000 views, and there are 4,000 Facebook fans. Many have read and commented on each of the 23 essays, too. The Library 101 Project has inspired 130 related blog posts, including one on Boing Boing. And what didn’t work? Frankly, seven minutes of video with two middle-aged dudes randomly goofing off was a bit too long. Also, the song (a bit on the garage rock side) was perhaps not to everyone’s taste. It was apparently a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing. And, in hindsight, we feel that a comment box isn’t the best place to hold an extended discussion on the future of libraries. We are rethinking that for our next project, too. Michael Porter, the communications manager at WebJunction, and David Lee King, the digital branch and services manager at the Topeka and Shawnee County (KS) Public Library, created the Library 101 Project. Lisa Holton: Letting readers run with the story We’ve been amazed by the response to The Amanda Project. Contributors (primarily girls ages 11–17) have formed an enthusiastic, supportive community within a fictional world. More than just writing stories or comments in the voice of the characters they’ve created (more than 4,000, thus far), they’ve fully embraced collaborative storytelling. In fact, they’ve turned it into a game. Each week, we publish a serialized story—usually part of a mini-mystery. They jump in, run with it, and often take it to places we never dreamed of, usually working together. (For example, one girl saw a ticket stub on the site and suggested that Amanda had been in Paris—because “ARR” on the ticket must have meant 'Arrondissement’—and then several girls, in character, started planning a trip to Paris to find her.) We then incorporate the best of their ideas into subsequent stories. The first book was published in the fall, so the connections between the online mini-mysteries and the overarching story unfolding in the books are just beginning to reveal themselves. The series continues with subsequent books (the second book is coming out in June, and the third in December), so the stage is set for an exciting—and unpredictable—reading and writing adventure in the coming year. While Amanda is still in her infancy, we’ve learned an enormous amount, which is informing our future projects—both in terms of the creative work as well as the technology that supports it. The digital framework we’ve created is incredibly flexible—we can use it to extend existing books and series, and to create new projects, both fiction and nonfiction. While no one knows what the future holds, we have learned that our readers are ready and willing to marry their digital lives and their physical lives—and they love it when we try to meet them in this brave new world. Lisa Holton is founder and CEO of Fourth Story Media, creator of the multiplatform novel The Amanda Project. Formerly the head of Scholastic Trade Publishing and Disney Global Children’s Books, Holton started her career at St. Martin’s Press where, among other things, she was in charge of the microfiche and enjoyed using the telex machine. Steven W. Anderson: A technologist gets social I had virtually no presence online 18 months ago. Not a Facebook page, blog, Ning membership, Twitter account, nothing. And I work in technology. Like many others, I had dismissed social media as a fad, something the kids did. Now I talk to teachers and show them just how meaningful it can be, how it changes you and your classroom. Because of Twitter, for example, I was able to connect a class of our fifth graders with students in South Africa via Skype. Twitter also enabled me to help start the weekly conversation “edchat,” where hundreds of educators gather to discuss major issues. Where else would teachers get to debate anti-homework advocate Alfie Kohn one on one? Social media gives me access to the movers and shakers in education. It allows me to share amazing resources with educators all over the globe, to try out new ideas, and grow as a professional. It gives me a voice. Steven W. Anderson is an instructional technologist at Clemmons Middle School in Winston Salem, NC. He presented on Twitter in education at the 140 Characters Conference in Los Angeles in October 2009. Howard Rheingold: Participatory media literacy Twittermania is definitely sliding down the backlash slope of the hype cycle. Nielsen recently noted that more than 60 percent of new Twitter users fail to return the following month. To me, this represents a perfect example of a media literacy issue: Twitter is one of a growing breed of part-technological, part-social communication media that require some skills to use productively. Sure, Twitter is banal and trivial, full of self-promotion and outright spam. So is the Internet. The difference between seeing Twitter as a waste of time or as a powerful new community amplifier depends entirely on how you look at it—and on knowing how to look at it. The use of Twitter to build personal learning networks and communities of practice involves more than one literacy. The business about tuning and feeding, trust and reciprocity, and social capital is a form of network literacy that we discuss in my classes. Knowing that Twitter is a flow, not a queue like your email inbox, to be sampled judiciously is only one part of attention literacy; knowing that it takes 10 to 20 minutes to regain full focus when returning to a task that requires concentrated attention; learning to recognize what to pluck from the flow right now because it is valuable enough to pay attention to now, what to open in a new tab for later today, what to bookmark and get out of my way, and what to pass over with no more than a glance are all aspects of attention literacy that effective use of Twitter requires. My students who learn about the presentation of self and construction of identity in the psychology and sociology literature see the theories they are reading come to life on the Twitter stage every day—an essential foundation for participatory media literacy. Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs (Basic Books, 2002) and founding editor of HotWired, is a visiting lecturer in Stanford University’s Department of Communication. Sarah Chauncey: Social media for the very young Working with students in grades K–3 is a joy. They are fearless, creative, and willing to put on a show for their friends or the world—no audience is too small or too big. Over the past five years, we’ve blogged, used wikis, podcasted, and vodcasted. I want students to experience the tools, process, and excitement of sharing their work while ensuring that their identities are protected. This early experience also introduces social media etiquette. Children must learn that the in-person behavior that comprises “good manners” toward our friends and families also applies when communicating with an online audience. Podcasting and vodcasting are among our favorite media as they allow all children to express themselves. Startup costs to create a multimedia studio are no longer prohibitive; all you need is a digital camcorder, a still camera, microphone, webcams, a scanner, and some free, Web-based applications. Start with simple projects that can be completed and shared quickly. One of my earliest was a round-robin recording of what students already knew about whales before we began a research unit. I published the audio file to the library site so they could share it with their families that night. Whatever medium you choose, start simple and grow your skills. Allow your students to enjoy the work of others and teach them to contribute responsibly to the conversation. Sarah Chauncey is a K–3 library media specialist at Grandview Elementary School in the East Ramapo School District, Rockland County, NY. For 25 years she was a systems analyst and technical consultant in New York. Joe Murphy: Going mobile A major trend in technology is the confluence of mobile and social applications. Location-based gaming programs such as Foursquare and Gowalla bring social connection to mobile tools. QR codes and augmented reality provide a bridge between the physical and digital worlds, enhancing both, and the role of SMS, mobile apps, and mobile Web pages continues to evolve. The skills for utilizing emerging applications, to me, are vital to any information professional. A willingness to embrace both the opportunities and challenges presented by social/mobile technologies helps me reconcile these advances with their impact on communication, culture, and information engagement. Adapting my habits to the tech trends—and not expecting the reverse—makes it easier for me to bend and flow with the constant changes and stay relevant in a quickly shifting information world. Though it may be counter to our training, I try to welcome emerging technologies in my life with a focus on ‘play’ and informal testing as a user rather than a service provider. The first question I ask, for example, isn’t “How can my library use this?” It’s “How can I use this?” Then I consider the potential application in my library. This is my secret as a social media user: focus on your personal experience to better understand the tools and stay rooted in real-world needs. Every shift in technology challenges our comfort zones, but also presents opportunity, including the potential to meet shifting user expectations. Our dialog within and across disciplines—most notably through Twitter—is our greatest strength for meeting these changing needs. A librarian in the Yale Science Libraries, Joe Murphy has lectured on library services and mobile and social technology. A 2009 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, Murphy earned a Masters degree in Library & Information Science from the University of Hawaii in 2006.