The Use of Instagram as a Digital Marketing Tool by the Brazilian Library Councils in times of Covid-19

ABSTRACT

Within what we know as the "knowledge society", the growing use of social media has become a reality worldwide, both as a source of entertainment and of information. And the universe of Librarianship maintains its relevance and impact on the distribution of knowledge, especially in Covid-19 times, when people need lack more information to make daily decisions. In this scenario, two stereotypes are commonly confused with reality that the area of Librarianship concerns only the storage and loan of books in libraries and that social media, such as Instagram, can only be used for informal topics and of little relevance. The objective of this research is to recognize how the area of Library Science needs to explore more the spaces of social networks, with themes that bring society closer together, in order to demonstrate its ability to transmit information beyond the physical structures of libraries. For this purpose, through a qualitative research, a comparative analysis of the content produced in 2019 and 2020, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, was carried out by the Brazilian library councils. Such content, published in the councils Instagram profiles, was categorized by their themes and these categories were compared in the two scenarios. As a result, a significant change was observed in the content analyzed, signaling a closer approach to topics of general interest to society and, consequently, an approach between Librarianship with society itself through a greater use of Digital Marketing tools, such as Instagram. © 2020 ACM.