How do I best use Facebook to connect with young people?

[Josh MacDonald]

Hello everyone, good to join the network, thanks for having me!

Quick one really - I'm managing the South Leeds Youth Hub development, part of the national myplace programme. I've been thinking about how to start a web-based conversation with young people from the area to raise awareness and get their thoughts and input; I started out on Twitter, but then realise that young people are not currently using Twitter to the same degree as other mediums (see previous discussion threads/blog posts), and those that are are hard to find from specific areas/interest groups.

Facebook seems like the best option - but how to go about it? It seems there are 3 options - profile, page or group - but how to do so as an organisation/professional rather than just socially? The pages scared me off - they were different to what I was used to - but the profile seems tricky in terms of anonymity, safety of young people, use of profiles by professional organisations etc...

Has anyone got any experience or thoughts they could share? Thanks very much!

Josh

[Tim Davies]

Hey John

Welcome to the network. As a quick reply:

My instinct would be to say pages are probably the best way to go for an organisational entity like the South Leeds Hub. You avoid having young people's personal details revealed to you - and you can feed content in and out of Facebook via pages.

They are slightly diferent to profiles - but they're getting increasingly similar - so I would encourage trying to set one up and seeing if you can get it to work for you just as a trial...

[DK]

Just to add to Tim's good advice - check out other sectors and focus on their model of use - here's some articles to check out:

http://mashable.com/2009/05/27/facebook-page-vs-group/
http://www.marketingvox.com/branding-on-facebook-groups-or-fan-page...
http://mashable.com/2009/08/14/facebook-networking/

I would also challenge you about your use of Facebook - usually the reasons why young people are on these platforms are not the reasons why adults want to engage with them through it ;-)

Peace and good luck

[Tim Howell]

Hi Josh,

My view, which probably wont be shared by many, is that if you want it to WORK for you I suggest you create a professional profile making the information about you clearly stating your role and purpose for being on line. Personally I would call yourself something like Southleeds Youthhub instead of Josh Smith or no young peiople will add you until they know you well. This is against facebook's rules but consider it temporary. Then encourage your group to add you as a friend and once established, create a fans page and invite your friends to become fans of that page and you can do all your work through that page. Once people add you I would suggest you re-iterate your role so they are clearly and positively choose to interact with you on line.

Once there, share videos and photos, create events and invite people to it and use messages (facebook email) and instant messaging to further your objectives.

Next explore the applications and try and create something consultation - like to enable your friends to give their views on myplace.

Ensure none of your real friends add you or you them- this profile is exclusively for professional interaction. - if you add local leeds based groups doing the dame thing this will give you more credibility, and help the young people feel safer.

in terms of young people's safety, depending on your role you may give advice about their profiles and the information they share but unless you have major concerns I wouldn't get involved. if they are sensible they will have privacy controls keeping you out of most of their life; if they are not you might suggest it; but as your role appears quite narrow and your profile is exclusively professional you do not need to put ANY personal information up there - although links to how to get in touch with you are useful e.g. website etc....

This approach I recommend may seem a little controversial. Find Make A Difference Milton Keynes to see how it can work. They use facebook to promote events as their main source with excellent results. Before you start check with your manager - policy first and then play or the other way around? If you do call your profile an organisation and facebook notice they will shut you down straight away. I think that is a risk worth taking.

The better site to do this on - especially for research purposes (much better ability for online surveys with results you can use) is bebo, but not many people over 14 use it these days.

Good luck!

[Tim Davies]

Hey Tim

I'm curious as to why in your case above you suggest adding young people as friends against a professional profile and only then setting up a page?

I would agree professionals should always manage all their interaction with Facebook through a work (rather than personal profile) - but I'd tend to suggest (a) that the profile should still belong to a named person; and (b) friend requests / connections should mainly be used where you have an existing youth work relationship with a young person.

Tim

[Duncan Hodgson]

In Blackpool we have gone down the route of having a Facebook page which I rather like. However one of the things I am struggling with at the moment is the best way to plug Plings data into the page. If anyone has any experience of this that would be handy!

With regards to promoting your page you can create a widget (see www.rubothered.co.uk at the bottom) to go on your external site which will point people to your page. Also the widget can show how many people are fans and also can show wall posts (iirc).

The pages definately seem to be the way to go rather than having a separate profile!

[mas]

"how to start a web-based conversation with young people from the area to raise awareness and get their thoughts and input"

Achieving that won't be the same as creating a facebook page (or profile) where you may well get lots of fans/friends but not necessarily provoke any kind of discussion - in fact there are many many examples of exactly that. I'd first put more energy into what kinds of conversation you want to have, why young people would want to have that conversation and then explore ways to make it easy for them to have that conversation with you. Facebook could well be a good way to reach out to young people but simply creating a page or a profile isn't likely to be enough on its own.

Agree with Tim that a named person is important not least because conversations tend to work better between people.

It'll be interesting to see how facebook uses friendfeed now (having taken it over) and whether that will help with promoting discussions which friendfeed seems pretty good for.

[Josh MacDonald]

Hello everyone

Thanks so much for your helpful and instructive comment and links.

I've had a much more careful think about the wider rationale behind Facebook and my desire to engage young people in the Hub project going forward, and also how I might use Facebook and structure my approach. I'm convinced that Facebook is an excellent opportunity for young people to link in with the project and make themselves aware of developments and opportunities to get involved; I went to the local youth club on Monday and young people were insistent that they wanted Facebook at the new centre, and that they used it regularly. I've no doubt they'd be up for connecting to it in a familiar, exciting virtual way, perhaps even more so thant they would practically.

I completely accept that a page or any social media presence on its/their own wouldn't be enough. We're working hard at some more tangible, face-to-face participatory work which is very exciting. Facebook would I think be raising the profile and getting a simple message out, rather than using out as a sole communicative channel to young people about the Hub.

It seems like a page might be the best way forward - I'm very interested by Tim's Bradford page here - but it's come to the crunch and the bottom line is that my council gateway/firewall/filter/whatever doesn't like Facebook and whenever I try to click certain links denies me access. I might have to have a word...! Anyone else face this?

Finally, I'm also looking to link with Breeze Leeds and in particular their innovative social-media style 'Follow Alex' campagin... Need to use what's their and not reinvent!

Thanks very much again - have a great weekend.

Josh