“I Despise It, But It Works”: Social Media Outreach in Special Collections

Nikki Lynn Thomas; Colleen Theisen; Juli McLoone; Sean Heyliger

doi:10.17723/2327-9702-88.2.404

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“I Despise It, But It Works”: Social Media Outreach in Special Collections

Journal article

Peer reviewed

“I Despise It, But It Works”: Social Media Outreach in Special Collections

Nikki Lynn Thomas, Colleen Theisen, Juli McLoone and Sean Heyliger

The American archivist, Vol.88(2), pp.404-440

12/01/2025

DOI: 10.17723/2327-9702-88.2.404

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Abstract

Primary source repositories’ use of social media has gone from an exciting experiment to an ordinary part of staff workloads. This article discusses the results of a survey of social media adoption, content, and labor conducted in 2023. It discusses institutional goals for social media, positive and negative experiences shared by survey respondents, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and burnout. The survey was conducted as a follow-up to, but not an exact replication of, a 2012 survey by the same authors. Institutional goals, audiences, and content remained constant between 2012 and 2023. However, there were some dramatic changes, including the reduced importance of long-form content in the form of blogs and the emergence of Instagram as a popular social media platform, along with the rise in popularity and algorithmic support for photo and video content. At the same time, behind the scenes, there were shifts in who creates content and posts to social media, including increased involvement from communications and marketing departments. Additionally, free text responses to the 2023 survey revealed concerns with stress and burnout from social media and articulated anxiety about whether the impact was worth the effort. Respondents also shared negative interactions on social media and expressed concerns about the impact on their wellbeing.

Details

Title: Subtitle: “I Despise It, But It Works”: Social Media Outreach in Special Collections
Creators: Nikki Lynn Thomas - The University of Texas at San Antonio
Colleen Theisen
Juli McLoone - University of Michigan
Sean Heyliger - The University of Texas at San Antonio
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: The American archivist, Vol.88(2), pp.404-440
DOI: 10.17723/2327-9702-88.2.404
ISSN: 0360-9081
eISSN: 2327-9702
Number of pages: 37
Language: English
Date published: 12/01/2025
Academic Unit: School of Library and Information Science
Record Identifier: 9985121483802771

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