Updating Your Library’s Social Media Strategy for 2026

We all know about TikTok. But should your library post on Reddit?

Posted on January 14, 2026 in Blog Posts

Authors:

Daniel Pfeiffer
Young people who have been reached by their library's social media strategy

The end of the year has long been recognized as a time for reflection. In the past, this reflection likely drew on qualitative assessments of one’s well-being over the past year and goals for the coming year. Of course, in our increasingly data-driven world, this reflection now draws on hard numbers, from body fat percentages to “mindful minutes” to sleep scores. It isn’t always clear what to do with all these data (my Fitbit tells me that my “readiness score” is only a 35 today, so you may have to bear with me), but there is some value in taking stock of trends from the past year and seeing what we can learn from them. 

To that end, I was eager, as ever, to read the social media reports from Pew Research. Pew publishes these reports at the end of every year, offering insight into the ubiquitous yet unseen world of other people’s phones. Pew published two reports, one on American adults (n = 5,022) and the other on American youth (ages 13–17, n = 1,458), conducted in 2025. The results aren’t altogether surprising, but they offer some guidance on social media strategy for library outreach, advocacy, and promotion for the coming year. 

Below are the findings that stood out to me. 

🗣️ Facebook may be culturally passé, but it’s still kicking. 

In recent years, Facebook has become almost a punchline among internet users: it’s where your relatives go to have AI slop convince them that the US Postal Service is a terrorist organization. The youth appeal it had a generation ago has largely vanished, with younger people gravitating toward platforms that their parents and grandparents are less likely to use, such as Snapchat and TikTok. While the latter is true (more on that in a bit), we maybe shouldn’t write off Facebook entirely. 

Here are the data points: 

  • Among adults, 71 percent use Facebook; 52 percent check it at least once daily, with 37 percent checking it several times a day. 
  • Among teens, 31 percent use Facebook; 20 percent check it at least once daily, with 12 percent checking it several times a day. 

Obviously, this represents a significant disparity between age demographics, but it has instructional value for higher ed professionals.  

For one, it serves as a reality check: for you and your professional network, Facebook may still be very salient, but you would be mistaken to assume that it carries the same relevance to teenagers and college students. At the same time, it’s wrong to dismiss Facebook altogether. Other text-based social media apps, such as X (Twitter), rank far lower among teens (only 16 percent of teens use X). What we know of X alternatives, such as Bluesky and Threads, suggests that their use rate is even lower.  

My takeaway is that Facebook shouldn’t be the sole social media platform that your library bases its content strategy around, but you should also soften your assumption that “young people don’t use Facebook.” If your library doesn’t have the resources to create images/videos for Instagram, then Facebook remains a decent option. 

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🎥 No surprises here: Video-dominant platforms reign supreme. 

According to the Pew reports, YouTube remains the most widely used social media platform among adults and teens. (To cavil: Is YouTube really “social media”?) Among teens, there is a sharp drop-off in platform use between image/video-heavy platforms—YouTube (92 percent), TikTok (68 percent), Instagram (63 percent), and Snapchat (55 percent)—and everything else. Interestingly, Pew found that Black and Hispanic teens significantly prefer Instagram over their white counterparts (82 percent and 69 percent, respectively, versus 55 percent). More than half of users visit these platforms on a daily basis. 

On the one hand, given their vast and active user base, libraries can’t exclude these platforms from their content strategy. On the other hand, the way that short-form video platforms algorithmically operate can make them tricky to use. To riff on LTI contributor Beth Carpenter’s observation about TikTok, your library might create a video promoting a speaker event and receive thousands of views, but it’s also possible that zero of those views come from students at your university.  

Libraries that choose to use TikTok should build their content strategy around this expectation. TikTok can’t be relied on to promote events or outreach for your specific library. However, if you have the resources and the will to start a public education initiative, contribute to larger discussions about, say, book bans, or share research with a general audience, then TikTok deserves consideration.

Among these image-heavy platforms, Instagram stands out as the best option for libraries. It has comparable use rates to TikTok and is popular across demographics (race, gender, and income). Stories and timeline images are effective ways to reach students at your university. TikTok can be a lot of fun for libraries—who doesn’t want to go viral (for a good reason)?—but its trade-offs do not make it a good general-purpose communication app. 

🤓 Hot take: Give Reddit a try. 

Like Facebook, Reddit has also become a punchline among internet users for its corny and conformist user base, but I think there’s a good reason for libraries to consider using it for outreach. On the surface, its numbers aren’t great. Only about 17 percent of teens report using Reddit (again, compared to 31 percent on Facebook and 16 percent on X), so it doesn’t have the same reach as Instagram and TikTok. 

However, what makes Reddit unique is who it reaches. Among teens, Pew found a notable gender disparity in Reddit’s use (21 percent of boys vs. 12 percent of girls). (Girls are more likely to use Instagram, but the disparity there is less salient.) Given the perennial reports about their declining academic performance, boys make a good target audience for libraries to try to reach, and Reddit is a great place to reach them with offerings tailored to their needs. 

Your university almost certainly has its own subreddit. Check it out, see its activity level, and consider making a post that advertises an event or service at your library. It’s much easier than creating an Instagram post, and its impact may surprise you. 

😈 Also try LinkedIn. 

Although only those with dark triad personalities like using it, LinkedIn is conspicuously absent from Pew’s surveys. Of course, young people under the age of 18 probably don’t have LinkedIn accounts, but LinkedIn also doesn’t appear in the adult survey, so we can’t infer what its use rates might be among college students.  

However, I think this gap in the survey is worth flagging. If your library offers any kind of services or resources dedicated to career prep—or even spaces to practice or take interviews—I would experiment with incorporating LinkedIn into your content strategy because advanced students, particularly those applying for internships or preparing to go on the job market, will likely be on LinkedIn regularly and could benefit from your library’s offerings. 

If you’re unsure whether to commit the time and resources to operating a LinkedIn page for your library, you might try reaching out to your university’s social media team to see if they would be willing to promote an event or service on its official account. 

💬 Teens are already using AI chatbots. 

As we begin to incorporate AI literacy into library instruction, we need to acknowledge that we have moved past the “blank slate” stage of education. We might wish we could imprint students with values and considerations about AI well before they begin to experiment with it, but more realistically, they have already started using AI chatbots. Indeed, Pew found that 64 percent of teens have used an AI chatbot, with Black and Hispanic teens reporting slightly higher numbers, and about 28 percent of teens use a chatbot daily. ChatGPT is the most frequently used. 

The takeaway for instructors is that students enter AI literacy sessions with preconceived notions and assumptions about AI shaped by their own encounters with it. College education across disciplines always incorporates some amount of unlearning, but we would also do well to listen to students and create opportunities in the classroom where they can express their feelings and experiences. 

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