Most organizations should just use Facebook
I've been working with student groups on campus (in leadership as well as technical positions) ever since my freshman year. One of the issues that has come up time and time again in every group I have worked with has been websites. Every organization could benefit from a web presence, but that doesn't mean they all do.
It doesn't matter how feature packed a website is; if your student organization isn't full of tech-geeks who spend all their time online, your website will be poorly underused. Take esc-cornell.org, for example, which I built for the Engineering Student Council (ESC) at Cornell. ESC is an organization that does a lot of work on campus, and the members are all tech-savvy. They are not all Internet addicts, though, and many of them don't use the website. If the president tells them to go online and download a form or submit a survey, they will do it, but most days the site is hardly used. The discussion board and calendar are never even touched; their just isn't any incentive for members to use them.
What's interesting is that in working with student organizations, I have always found that groups want fancy websites with lots of features. A discussion or planning for any organizational website will usually involve a laundry list of:
- News/blog
- Photo gallery
- Calendar
- Discussion board
… and while all of these things sound like things that are great for organizations to have, they are all pretty much unnecessary. I have seen these things work like fads; the student organization officers will use these features rather intensely for a couple weeks or months, and hardly after that, and a year later the site will be dead; no activity at all.
The problem is not that these organizations' members don't have any use for these features, or that these websites are not well made. The problem is that most students don't visit more than a few major sites; Facebook, Myspace, and YouTube to name a few. Moreover, there are many alternatives to the services that an organizational website can offer; e-mail is typically used for announcements and events, discussions are done in meetings, and calendars are distributed on paper. Websites for these organizations don't serve as the sole place for all this information, just as an option.
So what am I saying about all of this? Well, lately I've been wary about even offering features like these to student organizations; I can tell when they probably won't be necessary. Even more than that, I'm starting to wonder if some organizations don't need websites at all. They might need their basic "about us" site so there is at least a place for visitors to go to get information, but that's about it. To be honest, a lot of organizations would be better off moving the bulk of their site to Facebook.
But why?
For one thing, when it comes to college, there is no place that has a greater percentage of active students than Facebook. There's a pretty good chance that all of the students in an organization have an account, and even if they don't, there's no danger in them signing up for a simple account they can use just to join groups. There's no point in trying to get everyone to come to your website (pull) when you can just put the content where they are (push).
Facebook also has just about every feature a group could need, and for free. You have photo galleries and a discussion board. You can post news. You can create events and get members to RSVP. You can send messages to everyone in your group. You can have an unlimited number of members, you can add administrative users, upload as many photos as you want, etc. etc. etc. Everyone knows how to use the system and there are never any limitations.
And most importantly, you don't need a techie on your executive board to manage it all. I know a lot of organizations have had website problems in the past because they've had a year where they didn't have a technical chair and so the website went untouched. Sure, you could pay someone (like me) enough money to get a website that anyone can manage (like esc-cornell.org), but at Facebook you can have a site like that for free.
So what's the solution?
My thinking is that some organizations should stop using Facebook as a supplement to their main organizational website, and should turn the two around. The organizational website (the one that a freelancer like me would put together for a few hundred dollars) should just be an informational site that offers all the stuff that new visitors need, whereas all of the dynamic member features (calendar, news, gallery, forum) should be handled at Facebook where all the work has already been done. The main site could just have a link to the Facebook group which users can follow to join up and access all the dynamic stuff. I think this advice would be sound for a lot of student groups.
2 Comments
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About setting up a link in Facebook.
I am researching for a non-profit organization to make people more aware about this company. As a recent graduate, I understand the world of facebook well. This was a great way to stay intouch and hear many views from different people. Although there are groups that involve religion, political views, and even fan clubs. How would I attempt to link this non-profit group?
Do you mean, you are wondering how to make a group in Facebook?
Also, have you looked at MySpace and Virb.com? Those are great places for non-profits to promote themselves.