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Facebook Group
We have an ITP group on the web based social network site Facebook, there is a link on the homepage of our website. On Facebook you can ask questions, post news and comments etc. all of which can be useful.
For those who have yet to try it, there is an ITP Discussion Forum, also linked from our front page. Why you may ask, is that required instead of Facebook? Both can host questions, news and comments. The software used to produce a web forum is better suited to long answers than a Facebook page, topics are divided into sensible categories and there is a better feeling of engagement with participants. There is also a danger with Facebook that people will associate it with the banalities that seem so common there, yet some people like the everyday connection on Facebook with others in a similar predicament to themselves, to have a web based communication that is lighter in tone than the forum, more immediate.
Then there is Twitter. Why choose Facebook against Twitter? Wikipedia (if you can trust it!) lists nearly 200 social networking sites so there are plenty to choose from, link 4. The answer lies in the fickle world fashion and popularity. Not so long ago, the site Myspace was all the rage, that has now faded in fashion terms after the rise of Facebook. Then Twitter came along and "everyone was talking about it", but whilst a claimed 43% of the population have heard of it, only 7% or less actually use it.
Try as I might, I cannot see the point of Twitter. It may be owing to my advancing years but I doubt it, I have a reputation as an "early adopter", when good things come out I usually have a go straight away. But this is limited to good things. So for me, Twitter seems well named. On link 1 it says "Your friends can even be notified on their phones in real time about your pearls of wisdom or inexorable banalities". Well bully for them, but will it help us run the Association, to lend support to our members? I doubt it, but on links 2 and 3, there is enthusiastic support for charities to use Twitter.
So here is the challenge, how should this Association use Twitter, if at all? Any suggestions gratefully received, (although not as yet, on Twitter!).
Happy surfing
Howard
Link 1: http://flux.futurelab.org.uk/2007/05/09/what-use-is-twitter/
Link 2:- http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/social-business/2010/05/how-can-a-charity-use-twitter.html
Link 3:- http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/3258-should-more-charities-be-making-use-of-twitter
Link 4:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites