Creating my Facebook page is No easy task


Let me share the story behind the scenes that led to the launch of my "Learning Together" Facebook page this weekend.

I am not that new to using various social media to complement my communication in my personal and professional life. 

I host one blog - this one- and that is just about what I can cope with and which I enjoy thoroughly. This blog is meant to cover all my ramblings in my various spaces. If you are a regular reader, then you will know by now that the posts give you a snapshot of just about anything.  So, the blog serves as my outlet and it provides entertainment, a reflective space or learning nuggets for both the readers and me. 

Now here is the rub. I am in the education sector and often I find interesting websites, blogs or articles I would like to share with the teacher fraternity I serve.  My dilemma was: if I place all the links on my blog, it may lose its three dimensional flavour. Judging by the popularity of posts that  are predominantly about human affairs, this would not have been a wise decision. My readers should be respected and the blog intent was to share reflections - a smorgasbord of sorts. 

The next social medium which could help me share resources widely and be most effective, would be Twitter. But, many of the school heads, school management team members and teachers I serve, don't have twitter accounts. As an aside, I am definitely going to promote this platform this year because the world of tweeting is a key communication tool for most organizations. 

This then brings me to Facebook. I am Facebook friends with many school heads and teachers, a relationship which we nurture.  We use the Facebook medium to great effect to share personal and professional stories. But, again, the blend of personal-professional and the menagerie of posts from all the friends - outside this circle-  do not really favour such specialist feeds. You may not be reaching your target group or, the target group may not even see the respective post in the ever changing newsfeed.

And, I have no inclination to start a specialist blog. I have established social media contacts and just needed to find the ideal platform to create the niche focus of sharing educational resources. No long posts- just a brief post like a twitter feed, directing the reader to the resource link. 

Then I decided to explore the Facebook page option. This looked so easy. I dived straight into it, researching how to set up my page and how to invite friends. I researched a few educational Facebook pages and was I impressed and bowled over!  The next few hours were devoted to my newfound passion. 

I found the name for my page, "Learning Together", set up my page, found two key website links, invited my Facebook friends and hit the "Publish" button. I went "live" and within minutes I posted the announcement on my Facebook timeline. There I was, super chuffed with myself.

As with any new venture, one finds the honeymoon period has a reality-check date that stomps in quickly. Needless to say, I have now discovered that my initial research has been just that- an introduction to a completely new platform with its own upsides and downsides. I have a whole lot of researching to do to make the "Learning Together" Facebook page live up to its mission. I have started that online self study journey again today. 

I liked the initial interest in "Learning Together" page, but let me tell you, it's going to be much more challenging to keep the interest high. Facebook  uses it's own algorithms to determine which posts can get into the newsfeed. See, I have already learned something useful about newsfeeds which I didn't even think about before starting the Facebook page. 

It's going to be a looooong time before I attempt going the YouTube route! 

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