Using social media for student engagement: A study of two New Zealand academic libraries

Research Purpose: This research is an exploration of the content created for social media by two New Zealand academic libraries: Auckland University of Technology libraries and Massey University libraries. It analyses the content of the posts these libraries create for engaging students in conversations on Facebook and Instagram. The likes and comments on the posts are also analysed to better understand student engagement through social media. Methodology: A content analysis method was applied for this study. An inductive approach was applied to analyse the posts and comments. This was done in the form of coding to find themes that emerge from the posts and comments. Furthermore, likes and comments were recorded to understand the picture that Facebook and Instagram portray of engagement. All the data was analysed quantitatively and qualitatively to get an understanding of student engagement from the profiles of the above-mentioned academic libraries. Results: The posts data showed that both libraries are using social media for promotional purposes to engage students. AUT library had more thankful/complimentary comments despite having a lower number of comments compared to Massey University library because AUT Library are focused on forming connections with the AUT community. The results also shed light on the platform metrics as they don’t add value in our understanding of student engagement. Implications: Based on the findings of this study, this researcher discussed practical strategies for academic libraries to effectively use social media for facilitating student engagement.