Challenge 11: Family History Month Facebook Activity

Family History Month Facebook Activity is challenge number 11 for me. Here we are asked to “Visit the NFHM Facebook page for updates throughout August.  Have you Liked our page yet?”.

I was going up to the Family History Centre in Nambour today but the rain is so bad on the Sunshine Coast, YES Sunshine Coast, that I decided it was safer to stay home. I am finding it really hard to fit in all the challenges between work and trips. Then the weather is against me. I am learning and enjoying the new things I am trying out on the activities list so I will continue after the end of the month with some of the other activities.

About Facebook and Me

So to Facebook.  I have a love-hate affair with Facebook. As with my post on  What Type of Tweeter Are You?, I am not interested in a number of the items that are posted on Facebook except when I am interested. For example, nieces and nephews’ pictures of presentations, that first smile, a pretty dress and anything that features me I did not know had been posted! Facebook has give me the opportunity to be more involved with a family that lives overseas.

There is a problem for Facebook when they decide what posts from what pages, to feed you.  They need to feed you enough to keep you interested while balancing that with not too much so that as many as possible page owners pay for posts. They are looking to meet their profit goals.

Family History Month Facebook Activity

I have been following the NFHM Facebook page after liking it earlier in the month. I just about always LIKE pages when my friends and acquaintances ask me to LIKE.  However, this does not mean you will see the items the page posts on your wall. If you really want to get the feed from a particular page then also click the get notifications link from the LIKE drop-down arrow. See image next if that is not clear.  This way you will hopefully get notified when an item is posted.

Notifications is the little red button with the number in it by the globe in the Facebook menu bar. Click this and see the notifications.

You can also control the types of notifications you get. I am interested if anyone adds me in a post, tags me in images or writes about or too me in comments. I include these in my notifications.  Here is an example of what the notification editing page can look like. It will vary depending on your own Facebook situation.

For example, if I want to see if terrible pictures of me have been posted so Tags is set to everyone. However, Birthdays are off – I always seemed to miss them not being a minute-by-minute user of Facebook so I found it better not to be frustrated by knowing about birthdays too late in the day or next week.

I am never sure if notifications give me all the feed so I also go to the actual page to check it out. This is what I have been doing every few days with the NFHM page.

My Facebook Activity for TravelGenee

So that is the story about me the follower. Then there is the other side, as a page owner. My Facebook page for this blog is TravelGenee. Feel free to LIKE. You may not be aware but for LIKEs to count on Facebook pages, you need to LIKE with your personal account. Any LIKEs by pages do not add to the LIKE numbers.  If you want me to LIKE your page, leave a comment below with the page address and I will follow with my personal account so you increase your LIKEs.

I have a strategic plan covering all the social media I have elected to use and Facebook is one part of this plan. (Gets back onto chair after rolling around the floor laughing.) Who am I kidding? Participating in social media takes you away from the other work you need to be doing. Problem is I enjoy reading others blogs. And how do you find these blogs? Via social media.

Actively growing a tribe is even more time consuming as you need to create content. The plan I do have for social media is about me trying to be a tribe builder. A few details are on the Twitter Post.

Creating a Social Media Presence

I found a Social Media Checklist posted and traced it back to the original publisher, HeroX. While really for companies, it gives you an indication of the amount of work having social media pages can create for page owners. As noted by HeroX, these are the types of actions you should take to build “your company’s social performance into community manager greatness”.

As usual I got a bit of the topic of national family history month Facebook stuff however I hope my thoughts and tips are helpful if you are just starting to use social media sites like Facebook. As a reward for reading so far down my post here are 5 ways Facebook has helped me grow my family tree:

1. 1. Renewed contact with cousins provides info you never knew.
   2. Easy sharing of photos to put in my tree.
   3. Links to Webinars, blogs, database updates and more material on family history.

1. Keep you going when you need some genea-comedy.
2. Find out about free days on places like Ancestry or other websites.

So join in on the national family history month challenge 11 – check out the  NFHM Facebook page.  Leave comments, write on the wall , share posts to your community and use the like button as this will help promote the page to show more on others pages.

Thank you if you Tweet this post or read my other Family History Month Challenges.

I’d love you to leave a comment if you have tried out the National Family History Month Facebook page.  Do you have a Facebook Page? Leave a comment and I will try to follow you.