Facebook Fever

After two meetings last week and two scheduled for this week, I am starting to get the feeling that Facebook fever has hit. A number of departments, looking for ways to stretch their dollar, and reach out to untapped audiences, have decided that Facebook is a good place to start.

I agree.

I think Facebook is a logical place to put lots of our content. Because it is a social site, and not managed by the institution, some thought needs to go into how we stay consistent and credible in this arena, yet let multiple content owners handle their content in a way that works for their audience and content. I equate it to something my mom used to say whenever I would go to a sleep over or out with a friends' family "House rules... You are representing your family".

What is done so far to help establish the house rules

• I am on draft 5 (or 6) of the Social media news distribution plan. It includes development of Facebook for news distribution, and beyond. I present it for approval on Friday. I guess I better finish it soon!
  
  
• I put draft 1 of the Facebook development guidelines on paper. The next step is to get my early adopters into one room to make sure I cover all of our basis with the final document.
  
  
• I found a guinea pig. Cancerwise has a closed access group in Facebook. Here Darcy is building things out to see how they may work.

Because of the number of groups anxious to start using Facebook. I anticipate that development of this will all happen very quickly. Have questions about where we are going with this Facebook stuff? Post your questions to the blog.