We’re doing a bit of thinking about ‘re-launch’ and comms etc in Australia, and wondering about use of social media channels
We are currently really only using facebook (@openfoodnet) but while is used as both, it probably is more an aus than global channel.
Twitter is chronically neglected from our end . . seems to get a few mentions etc but I’m not actually sure who (if anyone) is actively using / monitoring?
Do international groups have your own social media channels? How could we use fb and twitter better?
We’re wondering about ‘switching’ the current facebook page to an ‘OFN aus’ and each international group having their own ‘OFN XX’ page … then we just make sure we ping each other when it is content that other groups may want to share?
Or do we still want / need a distinct OFN overall channel?
We have UK Twitter and FB setup now. More input needed to start using them more actively.
Regarding global accounts, how much does using them help to grow a global community around OFN?
I’d say this is basically up to you, as you’re in control of the OpenFoodNet account. I dont think having various people around the world contributing to it works too well.
@mags has set up the OFN UK FB page and Sam has set up our Twitter and has lots of experience of setting up and managing social media so might be worth adding him to this discussion.
My (inexperienced) opinion is that we probably don’t need an international FB or Twitter channel
My ideal would be that we do have an international stream that every instance could post things relevant to the international community on. This would be useful as every instance in turn could then set up automatic posting from the international stream. This would then allow for a collaborative approach to SM content and still allowing the regional instances to communicate specifically with their news.
Not sure of a clever way to set this up, so this is merely me in dream land
Having a single FB account will connect all friends together getting connected. FB rule is to have a person for creating a FB account. With a FB account created, it can create multipage page, UK page, Norway page, etc, which can be administered by different people assigned by the FB account holder. With that in place, this will tie up OFN together so people outside the OFN network can have link to different OFN pages without the need to do different search.
For Twitter, I do not know. More channel = more administrative work…
I see how the current OFN page is best suited with Aus content.
We have a FB page for OFN Scandinavia. I try to hashtag #openfoodnetwork on most of my posts, such that we are easy to pick up by anyone else in the community who is interested and looking.
If a global page is needed/wanted, one could decide on a hashtag and create ‘recipes’ on http://ifttt.com to repost any tagged stuff to that page. It could also gather the info to a global twitter feed/public ‘list’ or connect a multitude of other social media solutions including wordpress blogs etc… not sure what kind of permissions would be needed. Anyone know more details or other solutions to make the SM solution as seamless as possible?
From the experience we have in OuiShare, we have bother local groups and some global groups, national in a local language or international. I have been managing the OuiShare Oslo FB page, and there are lots of interesting stuff that I actually got from the international page I was following. I think it’s great to keep that global awareness of what is OFN within the community so that we can spread and pollinate each other.
Maybe we could have a global “group” for the OFN community (OFN global community group), where we share with each other articles, news, etc. Inspire each other in a much “quick and social way” than in discourse (more for deep discussions) or Slack (more close to the active team and the #random channel doesn’t work so well). So I see that group a bit like we manage OuiShare groups, like not secret but closed, and anyone who request to join the group we ask him/her to introduce himself in a few words. Or we could choose to keep it public but then we loose the “personal connexion” aspect…
And then each local project has its own facebook page/group to communicate with their local community. We can use a #openfoodnet for example that we can use when relevantso that people searching for info on ofn globally on facebook can find them.
For Twitter I would say that every local community has its own twitter @account and we use a #openfoodnet for example on any post so that people can filter all what is about open food network as a whole.
Glad for this discussion, in Canada we’ve been trying to figure this out too. We now have a fb and twitter page here - and I follow the global page and most other instances. I think having a global flavour to the local is really important. For me this is one key thing that makes OFN different from other food hub/market logistics platforms. Being locally relevant but globally linked is important. So I like to give local people the sense of being part of something global. I am intrigued by @Spencer’s idea - if there is a way to do a multiple paged FB account that could be good. I’m also intrigued by @CynthiaReynolds 's idea of recipees . So - I support a way forward that combines the best of local and global (if that makes sense).
so @Spencer are you suggesting that we create a fake ‘person’ that is then the central admin for all the fb pages etc? not sure that i understand this, or how it would work in the context of the stuff already created?
I really like @MyriamBoure’s idea of the group, which could work like the p2p or next edge groups i.e. for broader group of people interested in ‘open food’ discussions to share content etc, and then easily reshare onto their local pages . . we could boost a post about this from the ofn page so that everyone sees it and can join the group if they want?
is there anywhere that all these local fb / twitter links are listed? or this is / should be part of the global site update?
question then is whether fb/openfoodnet is confusing as aus page or we should create new fb/ofnaus page?
@sstead@serenity - any opinions? do you know if it’s possible to create another handle / page name? or change the handle? or would that be a bad idea?
I think it’s important that we have our own FB page for OFN Aus. Page stats show that the majority of followers are located in Australia, so it makes most sense to convert the existing @OpenFoodNet page to the Aus page. You can change both the title of the page, and the @ handle in the page settings. This might cause some dead links for people/hyperlinks using the old @OpenFoodNet URL, but I can’t imagine this would be major, and we can update links.
I support having both local FB pages and a global one. Convert the existing ‘global’ one to AUS and create a new for the global community. There’s no need to create another FB account, that’s just messy. The person creating the page can add others as admins/moderators, so one could imagine a global ‘communication team’ that manages the global page with contributors coming through the Contributors’ Mill This of course requires some extra effort with coordinating this page and team so it depends on if we have the resources available.
I also support a global FB group. Please make this Closed and not Public. We have a local group for the legal entity behind OFN Scandinavia, not very active atm but useful to quickly share interesting articles etc.
can i suggest that first activity on the fb group be everyone posting links to their local facebook pages, websites etc so that we as individuals and local pages can all follow each other?!
hi folks, just checking in on how we feel about this a year and a half on. I think having local facebook pages is working well, but I don’t think the global facebook group is functioning as it was suggested it might here, and it seems (to me) like it’s not really serving much of a purpose and is just adding to the issue of having a lot of channels to use for staying in touch.
I’m also aware that now that OFN Aus has changed its facebook handle it has left ‘Open Food Network’ unclaimed as a page (I’ve just claimed it again). But to keep it claimed we would need to have some content there.
What do people think of having one facebook admin from each instance be made an admin for a global facebook page, and to just each commit to sharing posts from each OFN instance on that page ? I don’t think we need a great deal of content, or to necessarily be attempting to build a large audience there, but just so that when people search Open Food Network there is one central point. If others are keen on this idea I’d suggest that we develop a quick ‘ask yourself’ criteria posting but otherwise don’t put too much more energy into a content strategy.
Okay folks, taking the STOP ME IF YOU DISAGREE approach on this following lack of response.
I think we should have a global Open Food Network facebook page that only reposts content from Open Food Network instances around the world, to showcase the breadth of Open Food Network internationally.
I propose it should only follow/like the international instances in order to create an easier feed to pull reposting content from.
I suggest that one key admin from each international instance be added as an admin on the global facebook page, and is responsible for immediately resharing significant posts from their own instance (not proposing it needs to be all). No need for translation. One pinned post at the top linking to all international instances so people can head straight to those if that’s what they’re looking for.
We did have a look for an IFTTT applet that could automate this but weren’t able to find one. If others know of one that exists please do suggest it. I suppose the criteria would be reposting from a selected number of approved pages (i.e. all international instances) whenever they post using a particular hashtag. We wouldn’t want a page that just reposted whenever anyone posted using the the hashtag.
Hi @Jen sorry sometimes I don’t read the discussion where I’m not pinned so just saw your new post
I’m happy with what you propose, I think from my experience that you also need some form of a curator for this global page, like to remind people to post things if nothing happened for a while. Or maybe have a global OFN google agenda where we put reminders to people on some tasks, like the global hangouts, the devs hangouts, the “post something on globale facebook page” like every week or every other week, etc. We do have that in OuiShare it’s pretty useful; but it requires to add new contributor on this agenda a the time. Else each one of us can just create that reminder. Or we can use the communication slack channel to send reminders. But still having a clear curator role is needed IMHO… do you want to be our curator @Jen ?
Sorry @Jen - I also neglected to respond. I like the idea of a global OFN fb page that shares content from OFN around the world. I agree that an admin from each instance should take on re-sharing significant posts – and I’ll do this for Canada for now.
@Jen I agree, thanks for doing such great work on this. I will see if I can find or make a IFTTT to help make it easier but otherwise, this all sounds great!
Just starting to set this up now and have added various admins that were easy to ID. @Ewan I wasn’t able to see which profile is yours on facebook, so haven’t yet added you. will do so once you like the page.
@MyriamBoure yes, I can attempt to curate/prod people to get us started I’ll probably just use slack to prompt people to re-post
@CynthiaReynolds if you are able to find an applet/IFTT to automate then that would be so fantastic!
Does anyone have access to the page https://www.facebook.com/openfoodnetwork? It looks like perhaps a previous USA iteration from around 2014 - @eric do you have access to that page?
