I’m involved in a couple of other project rights now which is (as you may have noticed) cutting into my blogging time here. This is a temporary situation, have no fear. But, someone raised a question in one of those venues that I think all of you might be able to help answer. When do you find the time to engage in social media for your archives?
This brings up a question I have been wondering about. Blogging/FBing/Twittering archivists: are they composing and publishing during working hours, or are these projects they engage in outside of work? The archivists I’ve spoken to in person all do so outside of the office even when the account is officially sanctioned. Any thoughts?
Vote in the poll below (and add a comment too, if you want to explain your answer), sharing whether you participate in social media on behalf of your archives within working hours, after hours, or both.
Both at home and at work, depending on the “media.” It’s best to tweet during business hours, to be in touch with folks on the spot. But tweeting can easily be done outside after hours with data phones. Composing blog posts is best to do out of the office–kinda like reading articles during your commute. You aren’t getting paid to do it but you know it’s worth your time.
Our corporate blog is filled both in and out office time. We also use YouTube, we Twitter (but that is automatically from blogs, YouTube), we use Delicious and Flickr.
All of these are part of the job, not something outside of our organisation. Only then can you really participate and not be depenedankt on who wants to spent time outside office hours.
I think when you start engaging in social media you have to adjust to the hours our customers are most active. We are in a period of big transitions and the working hourse we are accustomed to, will eventually change and shift. Just as we all expect other services to be available when we like them to be available.
I agree with (the other) Jennifer regarding Twitter. However, since I am usually blogging about primary materials, I always do so in the office.
All the scanning and work on Flickr is done within work hours and likewise with scanning for blog posts. However blog posts themselves are written outwith work hours, through my own choice as it’s still hard to think of it as ‘work’, even though I know it’s promoting the collections and increasing accessibility.
As I’m only ‘in work’ one day a week and only for six hours, I spent a small but worthwhile amount of time outside of my official hours responding to comments/contact requests on Flickr and composing blog posts. If something relevant comes up then I’ll tweet it, regardless of whether I’m at work or not. It doesn’t take up much time and the end result (a responsive service to the public) is worth it.