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Groups

I am a big believer in social media, as most of you already know. We had good success last week launching the new InfoComm Community. We leveraged our exisiting Facebook and LinkedIn groups to help the launch. Upon checking our Facebook group today, I looked on the right side to see "Related groups" and found one called:

If you can't fix it with Gaffa tape, you haven't used enough.

If you are an AV person of any sort, this is kind of like duct tape for AV people. What I couldn't believe was that 55,000 people were members of this group. Now granted, I think this is the European view similar to ours of duct tape, but 55,000 members. Unreal.

My question is, would an association do better with a Facebook group for their association, or starting a bunch on several specific topics/products and bringing in outsiders? Could be a good membership recruitment thing.

Comments

Cindy Butts said…
I believe the answer is a bunch of topic area groups. There's really nothing about Facebook that says to please consolidate everything into one single place. My association is experimenting with specific topics as separate Facebook Groups (and allowing public or members to join) but the real problem has been getting a larger percent of members to at least try Facebook. The public is already there.
June 26, 2008 at 7:06 PM
Ben Martin, CAE said…
It might be a good recruitment tool for some associations, but it reminds me of the question brought on by Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everyone: Now that forming groups is ridiculously easy, what's the point of "professional group organizers" like association professionals?
June 26, 2008 at 8:40 PM
Lindy Dreyer said…
I think it depends on your reason for being on Facebook in the first place. If you're there to build interest in your industry and your topic areas, then using only your association brand is a mistake...it doesn't pass the "who cares" test in the Facebook context. But if you're there as an outpost for your members who are on Facebook, then an association-branded page is a good plan.
July 1, 2008 at 9:45 AM
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