We all hear the terms on the street... Twitter, Facebook, Google+, MySpace (old), etc. etc. etc.

What is all this jazz about? It's called Social Networking, and it's the new way to communicate online it seems. 

A little background on social networking from my memory and experience. Way back in high school, about ten years ago (ugh!), the popular thing to do was start a MySpace page. This was different than the free web sites people were building such as Angel Fire, Geocities, etc (I am really dating myself here), which I was really into doing as I loved writing my own code and such. Anyways, when MySpace came about, it became a very fast craze. Everyone had to get their "space" on there. So I gave in. However, I was apprehensive towards it as I thought it was just a phase and put little effort into it. Turns out I was right with MySpace, wrong with Social Networking thing.

I have to friend who? Facebook? Eh?

Fast forward ten years. Now MySpace, though still active, has far fewer members than Facebook. Facebook now is not only a gateway into ones life, but a platform for businesses and associations to spread their products / missions, and so forth. I do have my own Facebook page (granted it's very limited to classmates and family only) and I enjoy being able to share photos of my kids to other family members, or see where my parents are, etc. I also enjoy some Facebook group pages such as WATVA, NASA's various pages, National Weather Service's pages and other geeky weather / fire fighting related pages.

As for an association, it's really a great tool to not only promote your missions but to show members and non members that you are actually active, that is, if you choose to keep it up to date. If you would take a look at WATVA's group page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wisconsin-ATV-Association-Inc/110943402259329) you will notice that about twice a week we try to post something. That's not to say we only commit two days to WATVA work (trust me, we do far more time), but we choose what we want to publish and not spam the feed. A quick glance at what our Facebook page looks like:

We post everything from upcoming meetings, to videos we produce about various things. I will also post trail closings, or political things that require membership support with, or random photos. Randy, WATVA President also posts right to WATVA's page. That's the nice part of Facebook pages, you can set multiple people to post on behalf of the association. 

This also allows other Facebook members to ask questions to the association. Usually Randy will answer them. Keeping an open line of communication to our members is very important. This is why we engage in all the social networking platforms.  

On the page, the middle portion really is the important part. It shows the status updates, comments on the status, etc. Mostly, everything else is not really important. This is where twitter comes in above facebook, it's less cluttered. Speaking of twitter...

What the heck is a tweet? 

To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to Twitter as my focus was more on Facebook and enjoying a non social internet experience. I always gave the tweeters a stereotype of a bunch of apple fan boys that say meaningless things. However, about six months ago I started exploring how to use twitter and really sat down and found some interesting things about it. 

Twitter is a social networking platform allowing someone to publish "tweets" or messages, in 250 characters or less which shows up on your followers home twitter page. A username in twitter always starts with the "@" character. So, WATVA's twitter account is @WATVA and mine is @skyz0rz. Here is a quick snapshot of my personal twitter page (WATVA's doesn't have much of anything on it, so let's use mine as an example):

So, the first thing in this screen shot is from a twitter account called "Sheboyganscan". This account monitors Sheboygan County emergency radio traffic and puts out short messages on what he hears. Honestly, I an unsure what this guy does for a living, but hey, it's a neat thing to have.

As I started to explore twitter, I found an account for @CarlileTrans which is the transportation company featured on the History Channels Ice Road Truckers. I found them from following Lisa Kelly's account (a female driver featured on the show). Once you start following one account, you tend to find accounts with similar interest and it just goes on and on.

On the right side of the screen, near the top it shows Following and Followers. Following is the accounts I choose to have published to my main page. Followers shows how many people "subscribed" or "follow" my posts. I don't actually push tweets all that often, so my 12 followers makes me laugh a little. In retrospect, Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) as 9,963,993 followers, and yes, I am one of them. I like Taylor's tweets as she usually tweets cell phone pictures from her phone. My daughters love to see that. On the right side of the screen, we also have a list of who else follows that account, and accounts similar to it. 

I could go on a little more about twitter, but perhaps that's another blog by itself.

Google steps up with Google+!

A new stream of social networking that's important to know about is Google+. Basically, they are taking the feel of facebook and cleaning it up for the better. I won't really get into Google+ now, but just know it's out there and picking up a little steam.

So, in the end, should your club have a facebook page? Yes. Should your club have a twitter account? Wouldn't hurt, but I wouldn't spend too much time on it. Should my club still have our own web site? YES. A lot of people still fail to see how having a web site is good for business. That too, is for another blog.