Instagram, or, Showing Off

This Pinterest board photography apps page is just chock-full of good stuff - thanks again 23 mobile things! After following a link to a page about 10 interesting ways to use Instagram for your library, I was inspired to do some showing off...

#1 Show off your books

Instagram in combination with a library Twitter post would be perfect for showing off our new books as, sadly, we don't really have much space for a new book display.

#2 Show off your events and services

A bit boring, but could be effective? At least the message is clear!

#3 Go behind the scenes, or, above the scenes

#4 Show off your patrons (patron photos)

I know this isn't what is meant by showing off your patron photos... but as this is all theoretical at the moment...

#5 Give a sneak peek

Big book sale coming! Start getting excited!

#6 Share your office (or, Library Technician in her natural habitat)

#7 Take your patrons with you

Didn't have anything for this one, so here's how we're using QR codes instead :)

#8 Introduce your librarians

Hi!

#9 Show off your library space, or, your remaining print journals with 2 skeletons in the background

#10 Turn print marketing materials into digital ones

Lesson learned - Instagram doesn't connect nicely with Blogger. The best blog platform to connect with Instagram is Tumblr, for sure. On a pc there is very little you can do with Instagram. It's truly a mobile tool. Other sharing tools that Instagram works nicely with are Facebook, Email, Flickr, Twitter and Foursquare. For this post I had to use screenshots, too time-consuming :(

I use a pc or laptop to write my blog and that is a conscious choice because I want to take time and whenever possible, go into a bit of depth. Phones are not ideal for that - yet! But check out this awesome movie that I spotted on YouTube. Reality? Not yet, but who knows in the future...


I'll finish with a comment about why I use the Blogger platform. I've had a personal blog on the Blogger platform since 2003 that I've updated regularly and had a lot of fun with. I like to play with the HTML code for my blog, change the code around and learn it. I've got a long way to go with code though, and HTML is definately no longer the flavour of the month as far as code goes. But it's easy and I like it.

Found a great document here called "Is your library ready for a social media librarian?'

23 mobile things - Instagram

23 Mobile Thing 2: Instagram - I've had it for a long time but rarely used it, and not at all for social or work purposes. I only thought about the cool editing effects that could be created! Too much editing is not always a good thing though - I'm pretty sick of washed out-looking sixties-style photos... 

I would agree 100% with the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. We are visual beings. We recognise and respond to pictures so much faster than to text (I think I remember learning that in psych at uni...). I read Kim's great introductory post on taking a photo with a mobile device, but when I got to the thinking points none of them jumped out as relevant for my library. So it was with curiosity that I watched the short movie Bond University produced about how they used their Instagram account to 'highlight the library as an integral part of the student experience'.

It got me thinking, could we use Instagram for example to take awesome photos of the library and integrate them into our marketing materials to promote the 'student experience'? Could we use Instagram to take photos to promote our database of the month, our new books, our friendly staff? Could we run some sort of competition? Would there be a chance that the managers would approve any of it? 

Next step - to have a look at Flickr (I've joined the anz 23 mthings Flickr pool) and Snapchat in more depth.