Network like Revere, Dawes, and Prescott for April 17/18

[caseyblane]

You have the ability to inform an exponential network of people about upcoming Appleseed events using online social networking. For quite a while I thought Myspace, Facebook, etc were all for teenagers. Since, I've gotten on Facebook and found that more of my family, friends, and co-workers are on it than not. "Tech journalists" say that social networking is replacing email, especially among the high school to college group.

In late January, I created a Facebook event page for the Saint Augustine April 17/18 event. I've chronicled the success of that promotion in another thread. Here's the low down: with $50 of Facebook advertising, 8 people have committed to coming to the event, 22 people say they might come, many more have clicked on the ad and been exposed to the idea of Appleseed.

This afternoon, I created a Facebook fan page called Florida Appleseed Project. It is a page where event information, pictures, updates, etc can be posted about what is going on in Florida. It links to all the upcoming events and www.appleseedinfo.org.

Here is a link to the page:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Florida-Appleseed-Project/373725884911?ref=ts

Here is how you can use social networking like the April 18th riders used the system of dispatch riders in colonial Massachusetts: I can suggest to my Facebook friends that they become fans of the Florida Appleseed Project page (If they become fans they are updated automatically about any new events or other information). When they become fans, all of their Facebook friends see that they are fans and have the ability to become fans, then their friends see that they have become fans and have the opportunity to do so also, and it goes on and on in the ever expanding network of Facebook friends. Since creating the Florida Appleseed Project page this afternoon, 14 of my friends have become fans and are following the page, 7 people, who I have no idea who they are, have also become fans of the page. This was all free, though ads can also be run to further promote the page.

Here's what you can do:
1. Get on Facebook and become a fan of the Florida Appleseed Project page. Then you can start sharing the page with your friends, and friends of your friends, and friends of their friends, etc. Join me as a dispatch rider, riding the internet to share the message of Appleseed.

2. I can also make you an administrator of the page and you can pay Facebook to run ads for the events of your choice, like I did above with the St. Augustine event.

3. Get on Twitter, Myspace, Ning, etc and duplicate this same effort.

[Fred]

   Let's hear more about this.

   Plus, let's hear more about more ASers helping out with this.

   Is this something every state should be doing?

   Is this something 'echo' states - states whose boards on our site tend to have an 'echo' - should be doing, as a 'kick-start' to get the ball rolling in those states?

   Is this something YOUR state is doing?

   Just askin...

[caseyblane]

   Let's hear more about this.

   

Well, two days later Florida Appleseed Project on facebook has 53 fans, 18 of these are people not associated with the program that I didn't invite, they found the program through the "network".

It doesn't appear that anyone new as RSVP for any of the FL events that are linked from the page. However, I found through my experience promoting the St. Augustine event that it really started picking up traffic after I ran the ad.

$50 for the ad cost me less than all the flyers I copied and spread around NE FL for the past events.

      Is this something 'echo' states - states whose boards on our site tend to have an 'echo' - should be doing, as a 'kick-start' to get the ball rolling in those states?

   

What do you mean by "echo"?

I'll be glad to do what I can to help anybody else out with this kind of promotion. I would also encourage folks to get on their LOCAL gun, patriot, tea party, etc forums and talk about Appleseed too. There are a lot of people out there that want and need Appleseed, they just don't know it yet.

[Fred]

    "Echo" refers to the sound you hear when you're in a large, empty room...

[caseyblane]

 

[PHenry]

Casey,
I have been adamantly resistant to the facebook fad, over privacy concerns resulting from seeing one of my high-end customers nearly lose everything he owned because of a breech from a similar type of site, but this does place a new light on it for me.

I am willing to lose everything I own if it will help the program - so I will get rolling with this ASAP. I will contact ItsanSKS right now as well.

Kudos to you sir for your efforts and what you have brung to the program - I knew you were a peach from the minute I met you at St. Aug and I'll never say diffrnt.

Your brother in Liberty,
PH

[PHenry]

It is done. The term "Leap of Faith" comes to mind.

[caseyblane]

It is done. The term "Leap of Faith" comes to mind.

I was slow coming to the social networking world too and am still pretty cautious with my privacy settings and who I will befriend. I understand the concern. However, I agree and I have decided to go with it because I thought its power outweighed the danger. A calculated risk I guess you could say. Thanks for your kind words. Wish I could do more. 

[Johnnyappleseed]

Good job Casey + PH
Thanx for the info ,I will check it out because of your efforts .
Sounds promising 
JA