A content analysis of Singapore public libraries’ Facebook posts

The burgeoning global popularity of social media is evident in several fields and communities, including the libraries and librarians. In the local context, digital traces of the Public Libraries Singapore (PLS), which is a network of 26 public library branches, can be found on three social media platforms. As of August 2018, the PLS Facebook page boasts the largest social media following in comparison to its Twitter and Instagram accounts. With an emphasis placed on the Facebook page administered by PLS, this exploratory study investigated the general characteristics of its posts and the user engagement of these features. The latter is measured and defined by the number of like, love, haha, wow, sad, angry, comments and share received from the audience. This research adopted a multi-pronged approach, which comprises human coding, computerised text analysis and statistical data processing, to examine the elements in the collected Facebook posts (N = 255). The descriptive statistics of the dataset show that the majority of the Facebook posts was published on weekdays and during the time slots 1201–1500 and 1801–2100. The text analysis indicates that the posts generally displayed a certain level of confidence, formal thinking and emotional tone, but were seemingly lacking in personal touch. In terms of the content presented, book-related recommendation appeared to be a common theme across the samples. The frequent inclusion of visual content in the Facebook posts was also observed. The multiple regression results reveal that certain features of the posts by PLS had statistically significant effects on the reactions garnered from its users. The Facebook posts published on Tuesdays and during 0901–1200 demonstrated a greater tendency to receive like, share and comments. The use of impersonal pronouns, negations and verbs possibly posed an impact on the number of wow gathered. Content types quiz and library design/facility exhibited positive relationships with some of the Facebook engagement indicators. However, the visual content incorporated in the posts did not display any apparent impact on the audience reactions, despite being widely regarded as an essential element to engage users. While this study seeks to offer useful observations from an external perspective, further investigation into the online behaviours of the audience using administrator-limited Facebook page insights is warranted. In addition, a survey on the users’ opinions about the current level of engagement by PLS’ Facebook posts can be conducted to gain a deeper insight into the ways to improve the local public libraries’ social media strategies. Master of Science (Information Studies)