Pennsylvnia Federation of College Republicans

I’m willing to bet that no less than 96 percent of those reading this article are on facebook at least once a day. And even further, I am willing to bet that of those 96 percent, at least 99 percent end up leaving facebook groups that send persistent messages to the group repeatedly. I know that I have, and will in the future if they continue. This becomes a problem for chapter chairmen (and chair women) when we try to mobilize our members. Facebook is the quickest and easiest way to do so, but it must be done in a way that will not overwhelm members.

So how is this done? Carefully. You must work to attract members to your group, and to keep them coming back. If you haven’t noticed, when you click on the ‘groups’ link in the nav bar on the left, you come across the groups with the most activity. That’s where you want your group to be. You want to be at the top of that list at all times. This is what will cause your members to return to the group page. And, it will cause potential members to check it out.

There are particular parts of a group that you must always keep updated. First, is the news section. You should always have something relevant in the news section in an organized manner. It should be up to date with the current events of your group. Maybe one of your members had a post on the pacr blog - put a link to it there. Maybe another time, your group went door to door (or is planning to go door to door) with a congressional candidate. Any events that your organization had, or will have, should be on the news section. It should also be written clearly and should be concise. ALSO - make sure to take the news items out of the list when they are out of date.

Another way is to keep posting links. If you make the local paper, or a blog, post the link in the ‘posts’ section. Write a comment about it that may generate some conversation. Or, if nothing has been going on lately, find a controversial political article and post that. At least have one post per week in the posts section. It could be as simple as the latest political commercials. Direct any discussion of the posts to the discussion boards.

There is also a space to post your events. Post all events, and keep that section updated. This becomes a form of information for members, while also showing potential members that you are active and actually do things other than just having a facebook group.

There is no limit to the activity that you can have on a facebook page, but make sure you keep it organized, and creative. Keep everything up to date, and limit mass messages. It will only hurt you. When used the correct way, facebook can be a great tool for all CR Chapters!

What has worked for your chapter? What hasn’t?

Tags: Facebook, Internet, Mike Ubbens, PACR

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 8:10 am by Michael Ubbens and is filed under Viewpoint. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.