Social Media, like it or not, has now become a standard for communictation, both on a personal basis, as well as for businesses and professionals. This includes non-profits and volunteer organizations. Any Rotary club should consider taking advantage of the free and extended reach Facebook pages offer. Put away the fears of technology and get in the swing of things!

The article below assumes you have a personal facebook page. The person creating the page should have permission from the club President or Board before developing any public area for the club.

Scroll to the bottom of your own Facebook page and click on the Create a Page link, or simply browse to www.facebook.com/page. Both routes take you to the 'Create a Page' screen where you are offered six options for the kind of page you wish to create.

This customizes the information which you supply so that it is appropriate for a local business, a product brand or a public figure.

A good option for a Rotary Club is: 'Company, organization or institution'. This option asks you to:

Choose a category - select 'Non-profit organization'

Enter the Name of your organization - for example: 'XYZ Rotary Club'

Click the checkbox to agree to Facebook Pages terms.

Click the 'Get Started' button

Your page is immediately created with a temporary address such as:

www.facebook.com/pages/XYZ-Rotary-Club/1234567891234567

The 'Get Started' page comes up with suggested things to do, and top of the list is 'Add an image'. There are links to upload an image from your computer or to grab one from your website. This image becomes your logo, displayed in the top left hand corner of the page and used as an icon to brand your updates. A simple choice is a standard Rotary Wheel (downloaded from www.rotary.org) or you can design your own graphic. The default image is 180 pix wide x 115 pix high but you can use different dimensions which will be scaled to fit the width.

Facebook's checklist now suggests how to get people to visit your page, but first you need to get it ready for visitors. From the 'Get Started' page click the 'Edit Page' button. In the left margin of whichever page opens you will see several options - 'tabs' that open additional editing pages:

Your settings - do you want email notifications etc. Remember that this is a communications tool, so set things so that you will be aware when someone is communicating with you!

Manage permissions - whether users can post content on the Wall. Again, its suggested that you allow people to interact with your page. You don't have to, but you're disabling some of the functionality if you don't.

Basic Information - who you are, where you meet. Be sure that information you post is already approved for general publication. Avoid publishing phone numbers or addresses of club members unless they have given specific approval to do so.

Manage admins - add other Facebook users as 'Admins' for the page. It is a good idea to have several people assigned as admins, so the work is not always on one person's shoulders. Obviously, these should be club members, and/or a club secretary if the club has one hired. Admins must have Facebook accounts themselves.

These tabs and others such as Resources, Apps, Insights and Help are how you manage the page. Apart from adding the Basic Information, your most important job should be to Manage permissions. Most clubs use a club page to broadcast news and photos of their activities to the local community, with content being posted by club member 'Admins'. If you allow other users to add comments, photos or videos you may get inappropriate content on the page. The Facebook default is to allow users to upload content, so you probably want to visit the permissions page and untick the relevant boxes. Again, remember a balance. If the page is strictly a one way street for communications, it will not be accomplishing its full potential.

Finally provide some content by posting news of club activities, upload some photos and you are ready for your visitors.

Facebook suggests that you invite friends to visit your page, in the hope that they will click the 'Like' button at the top by the title. This is quite important because you need to collect 25 people who like you (fans) to get a username such as 'ExampleRC'. That in turn gives your page a permanent address at: www.facebook.com/examplerc . Get your club members, families, Facebook friends and anyone you can think of to visit the page and click the 'Like' button.

When you reach the target go to your page and from the Get started tab click the Edit Page button and select the Basic Information tab. The third option on that page is 'Username' . Once you get 25 fans there will be a message that you can select a username. Enter your choice of username for the page, but take care to get it right because you CANNOT change it. Facebook will check that the name has not been used by someone else and doesn't breach their guidelines. If everything is correct FB will confirm that your page has the chosen username and anyone on the web can now see your page.

Don't forget to add links to your club's Facebook page from your club website, and even consider putting it on any published materials you have. Your club now has an enterprise level marketing engine to use for promotion of its events and public service efforts, as well as to recruit new members, and educate the world about what Rotary does!

This article was adapted from the ICUFR webpage at http://www.icufr.org/index.php?option=com_content&;view=article&id=1864&Item_id=59

Written by :

Eric R. Lewis