Lindy Liedl from the Rice Lake Public Library returns with her monthly column on all things virtual to help you connect with your patrons!
Passive programs on your social media are a great way to engage patrons and keep people excited for your next post. These could be shared on whichever social media platform your patrons respond to the most. I mostly share them on our Discord server for teens to keep it active while they’re busy during the summer. (Check my previous post about Discord for libraries!) 
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
For this time, our passive virtual program is Writing Prompts.
You might be surprised how many writers come out of the woodwork when they’re encouraged. Writing prompts can be shared as image posts, a sentence, or a beginning paragraph. If you’re not a writer yourself, like me, some good prompt sources are Pinterest, or doing a Google search for “writing prompt image”, or this handy blog: https://promptuarium.
First, it might be worth considering whether your patrons need some incentive to respond to prompts. You could offer to repost their writing on your socials, or to display them on wall space in your library–This worked really well for National Poetry Month. We then had a Community Poetry Wall for visitors to view, and all ages got into it!
Instagram writing prompts: Since Instagram stories don’t really allow for long responses, I would share writing prompts as a post and ask patrons to comment. You could invite them to message you instead if they’d rather be anonymous.
Facebook writing prompts: A weekly/monthly post would work well on Facebook too. Invite patrons to respond in the comments, or message you. You could reshare responses once a month too.
Discord writing prompts: Share a prompt image or sentence to a writing channel, and teens can post their responses right there.
You might have to specify guidelines for the content patrons share if you want them to keep things PG. My teens asked if it was okay to share writing containing swear words, and we decided on using Discord’s censoring feature to block out certain words unless the reader is comfortable viewing them. Other platforms don’t have this tool, so you could state right away that you’d prefer not to receive writing containing profanity, gore, etc. But don’t let this scare you! People are generally respectful knowing that they’re posting to a library space.
Be sure to encourage each person who posts or messages you their writing since it’s a pretty vulnerable thing! Afterall, what’s the point in sharing their writing if they’re going to be ignored? For good measure, I like to point out specific things I like about what our teens share. This gets them even more confident to share again. If you’re really lucky, these passive posts could connect fellow writers and get them chatting together which could develop into a group! But even if not, it’s a really fun way to engage your community online, and to see some hidden talent.
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