CCC Forum

Hello everyone,

The time has come for the club to increase its social media presence. I would therefore like to promote the club by starting up a Facebook page to allow both members and non-members to follow the club’s activities. In addition, there could be the possibility of sharing interesting articles from other photographic communities and organisations on our page – there are plenty of them on Facebook! In time, we could also start a CCC Facebook group, which would allow members to post photos and articles, pose questions etc – all depending on what club members and followers want.

Our page will need a profile picture and a cover photo. For those of you not on Facebook, the profile picture is the small image that people see next to any posts that you make. We would use the club logo. A cover picture is a photo/image that runs across the top of the page, which people see when they visit your page. Facebook users tend to choose an image that represents what means a lot to them, with groups often tending to use an image from a recent event.

In order to represent Croydon Camera Club, it would be great if we could have for our cover photo a series of images of Croydon taken by our members – images that are recognisable as Croydon but go beyond the obvious. They would need to have been taken in the last year, as Croydon is a rapidly changing place. They would also need to be in landscape format. The suggested best image size is 820 pixels wide by 462 pixels tall. We would need a minimum of 4 images, so that we could change them at least every 3 months to give the page a refresh.

So, this is where you come in.
1. Have you taken any photos of Croydon (in landscape format) in the last year that you would like to put forward as a possible cover photo for our Facebook page? Obviously, you would need to be happy about your image being displayed on the internet. (Details of when and where to submit to will follow.)
2. Would you be able to give some time to look through the images submitted and help to choose the photos that we would like to use to represent the club and Croydon?
3. Are you already on Facebook and interested in helping to run the page as an administrator? This would be to add posts giving info about club events, or to add articles from other photography organisations. There wouldn’t be a lot of work involved.

If you can help with any of these that would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know your thoughts!

Rebecca

How about this. It's recognisable - at least until they pull the whole complex down!

rebeccaclark wrote:The time has come for the club to increase its social media presence. I would therefore like to promote the club by starting up a Facebook page to allow both members and non-members to follow the club’s activities. In addition, there could be the possibility of sharing interesting articles from other photographic communities and organisations on our page – there are plenty of them on Facebook! In time, we could also start a CCC Facebook group, which would allow members to post photos and articles, pose questions etc – all depending on what club members and followers want.

Hi Rebecca

I am all for anything which promotes the club, but I do wonder how many members are currently active on Facebook? Without wishing to stereotype, many of us date back to an age when social media did not exist and it does not form an essential part of our lives. Moreover, Facebook has not had the best publicity of late, which can only add to the suspicions of those who are wary of such new fangled things. An out of date Facebook page will not be a strong advertisement for the club, so someone will have to be responsible that new content is added on a reasonably regular basis.

So while I am interested, I would like to know more about how it is proposed to manage the club's page.

Hi Rebecca,

This is great idea. Will have a hunt through what croydon images I have.

Happy to help, and could organise a quick survey to assess what social media and communicate tools the members use. Happy to have a quick chat on Wednesday.

Hi David,

Thanks for your image. Please hold onto it until we let you know where you can send it!

Rebecca

I've held on to this image since the Club photographed the Whitgift Centre. I'm hardly likely to destroy it any time soon!

I am all for anything which promotes the club, but I do wonder how many members are currently active on Facebook? Without wishing to stereotype, many of us date back to an age when social media did not exist and it does not form an essential part of our lives. Moreover, Facebook has not had the best publicity of late, which can only add to the suspicions of those who are wary of such new fangled things. An out of date Facebook page will not be a strong advertisement for the club, so someone will have to be responsible that new content is added on a reasonably regular basis.

So while I am interested, I would like to know more about how it is proposed to manage the club's page.

Hi Mike,

The idea of the Facebook page is not just to inform the current members of the club who have a FB account, but also to make the club more visible to a wider audience with the prospect of encouraging new people to come along and have a look, and hopefully become members. Social media is such a well-established thing, with a such huge number of people of all ages engaged with it on a daily basis that not to tap into this would be to waste a great opportunity. We need to look to the future! With regard to being "wary of new fangled things", I think this is what has been said of anything new that has come along!

As for the page being out of date, the plan is to have 3 or 4 people who are the administrators for the page, posting regular updates. More than just myself, in case I get hit by a bus one day. I would imagine that updating a FB page takes significantly less time than updating a web page - 5 minutes at the most. We would post about the weekly meetings, events and meet-ups, and anything that the page followers might find useful or interesting.

Rebecca

Sarahrs wrote:Hi Rebecca,

This is great idea. Will have a hunt through what croydon images I have.

Happy to help, and could organise a quick survey to assess what social media and communicate tools the members use. Happy to have a quick chat on Wednesday.

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for your offer of help.
I won't be at the club this week, but am happy to talk to you about this another time soon.

Rebecca

Thanks for the response, Rebecca. As I said, I welcome the introduction of Facebook and want to ensure that those responsible are aware of all the issues as well as the benefits. Facebook might claim to have 2 billion accounts, but I do wonder how many people actually use social media on a regular basis. A presence on Facebook will not necessarily have new members flocking to the club. Do you know how many current members have an active presence on Facebook? That, surely, has to be a prerequisite especially if one of the functions is to act as a forum to ask and and answer questions. Although I have had a FB account for quite some time, I have never had any contact from anyone I know in real life.

While I have not looked at Facebook's T&Cs in respect of intellectual property, I would be reluctant to upload any of my better images especially as I believe it still strips copyright information. That, I understand, is something it shares with other social media sites. I have also heard that Facebook applies some processing to uploaded images which means that they do not always look their best.

There is also the question of what will happen if someone posts anything unsuitable, such as a negative comment about the club as just one example. Will there be moderation? Will we block users?

Finally, if the club is serious about using social media to generate publicity, are there any plans for other well known outlets such as Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest?

Mike Farley wrote:Facebook might claim to have 2 billion accounts, but I do wonder how many people actually use social media on a regular basis. ?

That 2 Billion figure relates to active users, which is defined as users logging on at least once in the last month. Social media is a huge industry now, allowing anyone to engage with lots of people like never before. Its something we should be pushing more. Ive personally never used Instagram or Snapchat but doubt these platforms cover the demographic of prospective members (i.e. 18+ and live in local area). I dont believe Twitter would be of use and Pinterest essentially harvests its images from various sources on the internet so not relevant.

I will put my hand up as a potential admin for the group if/when it goes ahead. We could include low-res photos each week from recent top scorers from print & DPI. And maybe a snap of the room from the back when the lights are on before a talk. We could also post upcoming evenings with links to the presenters own website?