The word has been out for awhile now that social neworking sites provide a creative and easy way to connect with people. Libraries, businesses, publishers, musicians, politicians, radio stations, you name it, the question is not so much “do you have a MySpace?” but “who does not have a MySpace?”.

One of the first things librarians often do when they create their MySpace (or Facebook) profile is search out well known YA authors and add them as friends. The purpose is mainly to help introduce book titles to visiting teens and to promote books and the joy of reading in general. Besides, who wouldn’t want Meg Cabot on their friend list. How cool is that?

Publishers have caught on and many have started automatically creating MySpace and Facebook profiles for their authors as soon as their books come out. However, after reading an article in the October issue of Publishers Weekly, it would appear that some publishers are becoming weary of this practice for two reasons. First of all, maintaining author profiles can be time consuming. Second, a publishers ultimate goal is to sell books and it’s difficult to find verifiable statistics proving that social networking sites actually do increase book sells. “We have tangible results that blog postings and website features sell books. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of social networks” says Fauzia Burke, President of FSB Associates. Granted, the people interviewed for this particular article mainly publish for an adult audience, so it would be interesting to see what HarperCollins would say about the effectiveness of author profiles when it comes to selling their books.

Nevertheless, this article intrigued me since a librarys’ motivation for creating social networking profiles are in a sense similar to that of a publisher. We’re trying to connect, to direct viewers to our physical and virtual locations. So if publishers are having a hard time getting tangible results from them then how are librarians doing? Is it possible to be able to prove that a MySpace is getting viewed and more importantly, directing viewers to our resources? I believe it is, at least with MySpace. (Keep in mind that I am only 75% techie so if someone out there knows a better way please share). I noticed recently that the “new skin” on MySpace has a new site tracker so you can see how often your profile is being viewed. If you want to know whether your profile is leading viewers to your website or blog then you can use free applications like Blog Tracker and Google Analytics which show you how viewers interact with your site and how they got there in the first place (keywords, referring sites, etc.).

There does, however, seem to be an interesting movement away from traditional social networking sites. Anna Zelenka of Wordpress wrote a post mentioning how some well known bloggers have always seen the whole MySpace/Facebook thing to be pretty much a waste of time and found blogging to be much more effective in reaching readers (the focus of the discussion on these posts has more to do with the OpenID movement, a concept I’m still trying to wrap my pretty blond head around). She also points to a fascinating post by Dana Boyd who uses the term ephemeral profile to describe a particular behavior that I’ve also witnessed with the teens at my library. They have this tricky habit of loosing or forgeting their passwords. However, rather than hunt down the password or having it emailed to them (which is what I and probably most adults do), teens are more apt to just start over again, beginning with an entirely new email address, creating an entirely new profile and possibly even moving to a completely different social networking site (since they do seem to be in abundance lately).

Boyd notes that this behavior is indicative of teens who are all about creating and recreating their identity. What better way to do this than with social networking sites. Create a new profile, a new you and meet completely new friends. She has an interesting quote, “I should note that I don’t think that the answer is “help teens remember passwords.” I actually think that this tendency to shed is advantageous in the way that we shed clothes every year because the “old me” is no longer relevant. Technology is a bit too obsessed with remembering; there’s a lot of value in forgetting.”

So, where does this leave teen librarians? It’s a hazard of the occupation I guess and all the more reason why we need to remain on our toes.