Social media now offer a fresh opportunity to enliven the learning process. But to gain traction, they will have to prove their relevance. Librarians are quite vocal in advocating for the preservation of human interaction around digital media; one might say that it is their charge to be certain that the human factors within digital libraries are not lost. The challenge librarians face is to develop social media applications that will grab the attention of advanced students, increasing the prospects for fellowship and community, instead of operating as distractions. Graduate students learn effective research techniques from their advisors, and they must use widely divergent information resources--many of which are managed by the library. Yet social media are not fully mainstreamed into research portals, even though the liveliness that these media foster could vastly improve the basic research experience. In this article, the author suggests three strategies librarians might try to extend their reach as social media advances within the academy. He follows these with a recent "from the trenches" story that illustrates what librarians have to offer--and why they may find a place at the design table.