Social Media: Adding New Wings for Promotion to Shanghai University Library

Abstract

As the most popular social media in China today, WeChat brings powerful opportunities as well as challenges to academic libraries. This paper describes a case study that how Shanghai University Library implemented a WeChat app for promoting library services. The results show the benefits that the WeChat app brings to the end users with more convenient, easy and quick access to library collections and other services. It also brings the benefits to the Library through creating a new channel for branding and marketing, managing online competitions and exhibitions. The results demonstrate that WeChat has become a new powerful platform for marketing library services and providing online references. It has become a mobile library on users’ palms, an important channel for library to maintain relationship with patrons. And it appears as a new growth pole for library innovation.