In AAUW communications, you’ve been hearing mention of “twitter,” “facebook,” “youtube,” and more. Twitter has taken off in the last few months (Oprah joined this spring, there was an article in Time) and Facebook now has more than 250,000,000 participants. AAUW NC has been using both of those tools for some time. Here’s some information on how we’ve taken advantage of them.
There’s a page on aauwnc.org that summarizes the public policy efforts –
https://history.aauwnc.org/about/aauw-nc-public-policy-priorities/
with the “short address”: http://bit.ly/a4HD6. It’s also the first link on the “Documents” section of the web site.
Now the problem with that page is that its information can change quickly as bills move through the legislature. In the weeks leading up to cross over and since then, I’ve taken advantage of the information streams from our coalition partners (e.g. @ppcnc and @equalitync) and posted updates as I hear about them. The page gets updated when there’s something significant and persistent, but I’ve posted to Facebook and Twitter when there’s something time critical (a committee vote, for instance). The Facebook and Twitter links can be found at the top of the page and also are on the right-hand column of most of the pages on www.aauwnc.org.
The bottom line is that if you are a “follower” of AAUW NC on twitter or a “fan” of AAUW NC on Facebook, you get “notifications” about the messages that AAUW NC posts through those systems. You can choose to get these sent to your phone via a text message, or you can login via the web and check your messages online. Your first reaction may be that “I don’t need another way for people to contact me,” but if you are interested in AAUW NC announcements, you may want to get them right away, not 2-3 weeks later in the e-newsletter. You may be surprised at how this new way of “gathering news” actually helps manage information rather than adding more confusion. Of course, AAUW NC may not be the reason you want to get set up with Facebook or twitter — but consider connecting with family members, friends you’ve lost track of, professional colleagues, local sources of information. Once you’re “there,” consider adding AAUW NC to the mix.
Twitter was also used to get the word out about what was happening in St. Louis (see my July 2 post at http://change.bbvx.org – “What a difference two years makes”), but unless you’re already using text messaging to contact folks, Facebook may be more accessible. I gave a talk on Facebook in St. Louis. You can find the slides and handout at wiki.bbvx.org. If you’d like to learn more (maybe a webinar, maybe a talk to your branch), please contact me.
-Nancy, member of the AAUW NC communications committee (contact info at change.bbvx.org or wiki.bbvx.org)