The application of social media in outreach of academic libraries’ resources and services. A case study on WeChat

Pages615-624
Published date21 November 2016
Date21 November 2016
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-05-2016-0055
AuthorQiandong Zhu
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information user studies,Metadata,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet
The application of social media
in outreach of academic libraries
resources and services
A case study on WeChat
Qiandong Zhu
Library, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the implementation of the official WeChat
account, the most popular mobile social media site in China, to share Jinan University Library
collections and services to students, faculty and staff. The implementation, experience and issues have
implications for academic libraries and other institutions to run and improve social media tools.
Design/methodology/approach This pa per is a case study, which elaborates on the
implementation process of the official WeChat account, including project group establishment,
account application and management, usersneeds analysis, WeChat secondary development and
model of development.
Findings The official WeChat account has already engaged a population of followers who are able
to directly access library resources and service via their mobile device. The social media tool is an
effective approach to promote library services and to enhance relationships between the library and its
users. The issues appear during the process of WeChat implementation and promotion, which requires
WeChats provider, third-party application vendors and the library to work together to solve.
Originality/value The implementation of official WeChat account has practical implications for
academic libraries and other institutions to conduct it and similar social media tools, such as Sina
Weibo, Facebook and Line. In particular, it is beneficial for academic libraries outside China which
desire to use WeChat to engage Chinese international students. Additionally, it provides insight into
the future effort on social media promotion, secondary development and cooperation within the social
networking industry.
Keywords Marketing, Academic libraries, Sina Weibo, Official WeChat account,
Resources and services, Social media tool
Paper type Case study
1. Introduction
WeChat, launched by Tencentin January 2011, is the most popular social media tool
in China. It offers a free instant messaging application service for smartphones and
enables voice, text, pictures, videos and location information exchange via mobile
phones (Xu et al., 2015). It is mainly a personal social media app for instant information
exchange between friends. As an update version for organizationsone-to-many
information dissemination, the product of official WeChat account was released by
Tencentin August 2012. It is like a service platform and its subscribers can receive
different information and service for reading, storage, sharing and retweeting.
Government officials, companies, universities and other organizations across the
country are resorting to the platform to promote their information and service.
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 34 No. 4, 2016
pp. 615-624
©Emerald Group Publis hing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/LHT-05-2016-0055
Received 19 May 2016
Revised 17 August 2016
5 September 2016
Accepted 16 September 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
The author is grateful to Ziqi Wang and Yuntao Huang for their collection on the use of the
authors official WeChat account. The author acknowledges the anonymous reviewers for their
constructive comments and suggestions.
615
Case study
on WeChat

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