Thing 6: Tracking Your Library

Before we even try to track anything, let's define what Google Alerts, Social Mention and Addictomatic are and how to get them:

• Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:
• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on an industry
• getting the latest on an event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams, librarians, politicians, authors and more.
• Social Mention allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about your library, your school, your newest additions to your collection, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.
• And Addictomatic searches the best live sites on the web for the latest news, blog posts, videos and images. It's the perfect tool to keep your patrons up with the hottest topics at your school library.

Now, let's sign up for a Google Alerts which is the same as creating an alert to follow. Head over to Google Alerts to create or follow a Google Alert. You'll need to sign-in to your google account; if you do not have one, create one. Google accounts are free and can be accessed from any computer. Once you have signed in, this is the page that you will see:

You can enter a specific search term, such as Chicago Public Library. The screen looks like:

You can edit the way you receive information about Chicago Public Library; each area has a pull-down menu with the following options:

• Type includes: News, Blogs, Videos, Discussions and Everything.
• Frequency is either Once a day or Once a week
• Email length is Up to 20 results or Up to 50 results
• Deliver to: Email or Feed

The Chicago Public Library Google Alert appears in your mailbox and looks like this:

Now, how do you use Social Mention? Let's sign up for an account which is exactly like Google Alerts but for social media. Head over to Social Mention to the home screen which looks like this

You need to choose either to Create an alert or Get the widget. If you choose an alert, the following screen is what appears:

As you can see, the type of feed you receive ranges Blogs to Q&A to All. If you want to add a widget to your site or blog, the screen that appears is:

Adding a widget is easy too, just follow the simple directions.

And finally, Addictomatic which instantly creates a custom page with the latest buzz on any topic. You can follow your library and the page that is created looks like:

If you don't like how the page is displayed, you can customize it. Bookmark it and you're done.

Some things to think about:

• Could this type of tracking affect grants libraries might apply for?
• How could these kinds of statistics inform new library services or marketing approaches?
• Could these sites be included in a library staff member's job description?