Hi,

Just got a note to "become a friend" of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania's page on Facebook: http://bit.ly/M66qP It is a well-done page and they are off to a nice start.

My paying clients have been keeping very busy this year, so I have not made any progress on my marketing for heritage railroads presentation now 12 months in development.

However, there is a lot of anecdotal information out there that shows a Facebook page may be the cheapest, easiest way to stay top of mind for your customers this summer. It does not replace your email strategy (which I hope everyone has) or your paid search strategy (which is worth considering) or your search optimization strategy for your own website, but it does give you a nice opportunity for "opt-in" pushes of information to people you know are interested what you are doing.

We'll see if Twitter helps fill the seats of the the mainline steam outfits using it... the jury is still out on that one. Facebook is more of a reliable play and is easy to use. With the Facebook demographic right in the heart of the "soccer mom" age group, it may prove to be a useful tool for outreach beyond railfans.

As with any communication tactic, its long-term impact will reflect how well it is managed and the messages it is used to convey.

I'd love to hear about who else is using Facebook.

Rob

We have not gone to Facebook, but our "Yahoo Group" forum has been extremely successful for our NRHS chapter. It is a "newsletter" only type of group, as experience has shown it is far too easy to cause a flap, either intended or not, with email/bulletin board posts than it is face-to-face in a monthly meeting.

In fact, our "Yahoo Group" population is more than double what our actual chapter membership is. And that's fine with us, it attracts people interested in our projects and has even drawn in a volunteer or two.

Not bad for a free service.

Matt Bumgarner
Alexander Chapter-NRHS

Facebook? FACEBOOK??

I'm still trying to get the one organization with which I work to upgrade their phone lines from two-wire phones to three-wire phone lines. Getting dial-up internet service would be about three steps after that.

This is not a joke, either.

Jump start them, ADM. You are online a lot, just set it up and go!

Facebook maybe - but Twitter? Isn't that just teens telling each other about the inane things thay are doing at the moment? Now, if that teen is working on a restoration project and can help speread the gospel of preservation, fine....other wise a isn't it a wasteland? I haven't been impressed so far.

dave

I have enjoyed #844 and #765 on Twitter, but I do like this site:

http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/

I'm not sure what I think of promoting railway preservation on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter etc. Maybe it would make more sense after you've done some more basic stuff, like had an active blog for awhile. I've been thinking that for a major restoration project, a blog makes sense. Follow along.



I agree. I work there, but still, I see Yahoo as a good choice because it's popular, so your audience is more likely to already have a Yahoo account. Which spares them the annoyance of signing up for a new account.

I also agree on the cautionary note about open online discussions among your volunteers. The internet brings out strong feelings, and in an official forum, well, it's hard to moderate that without hurting feelings.

And that will meet with about the same success as Rowland or anybody else just showing up at the B&O Museum with cans of paint.

The problem is a combination of hardware, money, and internal (infernal, really) personal politics. I'm an outsider. For reasons beyond our control, the available options are limited (think in terms of being on a road the Post Office won't send carriers up). I have experts ready to donate labor and looking out for surplus hardware, but getting the powers that be there to agree to even studying the options is butting heads, and replacement hardware will cost money. It's not quite like waiting for certain people to die so you can finally scrap the eyesore they donated, but it's in the same league, I understand.

LOL! Let me guess. Your organization is mainly made up of people 65 years and older. A huge problem for railroad organizations such as ours.

The CRHS is on Facebook, but we're not doing a whole lot.

I'm slowly wading into taking us into Twitter. I'm trying to come up with a compelling content idea before I jump in though.

The trick is to actually have something to say first.

I know the EBT is making some progress. Don't know about results yet, but I'm very curious to learn how it works out for them.

Oddly, the conflict is actually among "middle-aged" people. Including the guy who maintains the two-wire set-up and insists it is perfectly adequate, in spite of what the people actually using the phone network (multiple lines to multiple buildings) say (usually with obscenities).......

I hear you ADM. Unfortunately, especially in your neck of the woods, they are missing a golden opportunity. Online marketing is about the easiest and cheapest tbing one can do, even if the depot is up a dirt road the members most likely are not.

Nothing replaces having a good website, but the trick is to get the word out in multiple places.Facebook is becoming a legit option for a lot of niches, including trains. Beer is doing well, too.

Rob

That's funny. Only a few years ago BAERA finished wiring the whole campus with 25 pair bundles as thick as your thumb (our phone guy is really on it). Now he plans to convert it all to VoIP, which means you only need two wires :)

The facebook page for the RRMPA looks a lot like a blog site. How is facebook better than having a blog? I don't understand what facebook does that blogs and websites do not do.

A major difference between a blog/website and facebook is that a user must actively visit your blog/website to see your message.

With a proper facebook strategy, your message can be "inserted" into their existing attention stream.

That means you "push" content to them, instead of them "pulling" it from you.