Rita,
I love your facebook page and - fair warning - I'm going to steal much of it. <SMILE>
Actually, I am not very savvy about facebook. I’m a new user, and I am just stumbling my way through, but already it is proving to be a wonderful tool for us. I'm working with an archaeological park, rather than an active excavation, so my experiences may, or may not, interest you. Here's how we are using FB:
1. BROADING OUR APPEAL.
We are trying to raise awareness and funds in order to preserve a very large archaeological site. So, we don't really care if people love the site because of ongoing archaeology or because of the pretty flowers that grow on top of the site, or because they believe that ghosts inhabit the place. We just want them to love it for whatever reason, so they will help support its preservation. With that in mind, we are using facebook to broaden the appeal of our site. www.facebook.com/oldcahawba
2. FEEDBACK AND EVALUATION
FB is flexible enough to let us to reach many different market segments. One day we can highlight an archaeological find, the next a rare but photogenic wildflower. And, like magic, we can track which of our posts are "liked" the most or shared the most. This can be very eye-opening information. - & sometimes heartbreaking.
The best part of FB is the feedback and evaluation it provides. Knowing the age, gender and location of people viewing, or talking about your posts is invaluable information. (now we know who our "Peeps" are!) Before FB, this information was very hard to come by.
Recently, we had some vandalism, and I was surprised at the response from our FB users - they not only expressed sympathy and outrage, but they posted on other very visible facebook and web pages in an effort to catch the vandals.
3. ADVERTISING BUDGET RELIEF
FB allows us to reach out to a great number of people with our very limited budget. We're finding that FB is reaching many more people that our printed material did.
4. BEST PRACTICES
We have found that good pictures on facebook (or websites) are to people, like honey is to bears. Text is not nearly as important as a good pictures! Especially when dealing with tourism, reporters and all media.
5. POLITICS
All of the historic sites at my agency started their facebook pages about the same time, and whereas most are stuck in the range of 75 - 300 likes, our archaeological park had topped 1300 likes, so those stats will be be excellent feedback to use in departmental politics and budget negotiations! Interest in our out-of-the-way archaeological site has surprised many people who think its all about architecture.
Your work with facebook sounds very promising, and I believe the sky's the limit as far as finding meaningful ways to use FB in the ways you suggest.
Unfortunately, all it takes it time, and all of us are short on that commodity. Posting and analyzing the feedback could easily be a full time job. I say, yes FB is a necessity, but there are other digital venues that are nipping at its heels, and might reach younger audiences. Pin Interest, for example, is big among tourism folks.
By the way, here's our facebook address: www.facebook.com/oldcahawba
Linda Derry
Site Director
Old Cahawba
719 Tremont St.
Selma, AL 36701
ph. 334/875-2529
fax. 334/877-4253
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-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rita Elliott
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 12:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Facebook archaeology, an example from Savannah, Georgia
Facebook versus face time…Do archaeologists need Facebook? Is it a public outreach necessity in the 21st century? We can weigh in on using Facebook (FB) on one particular project, the Abercorn Archaeology site in the Savannah, Georgia area. (See “Abercorn archaeology” on FB.) This project was funded by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and conducted by New South Associates (NSA) of Stone Mountain, Georgia. The project has a major public outreach focus including: public tours (four 90-minute tours daily), a full-time public archaeologist, interpretive signage, a web site, a Facebook page, a children’s book, and an educators’ curriculum. Fieldwork is complete, but we continue to update the Facebook page with additional information from the fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and other behind-the-scenes efforts.
Cursory analysis suggests that the FB page is an important tool for this project. Many of the 1,098 visitors who took guided tours learned about the opportunity through the FB page. By including photographs (by permission) of visitors to the site in FB albums we increased their feelings of involvement and generated a larger audience when these posting were shared by visitors with family and friends. Many of our most numerous post “hits” (1,500 and 1,700 unique visitors) were generated to a greater degree when the posts went viral (shared or picked up by others) as opposed to hits by people who already friended us on FB. We also try to vary the posts by covering archaeologists working, “before and after” excavation sequences of features with interpretation, occasional artifact shots, general preservation and archaeology issues, and non-fieldwork such as research, curation, etc. The FB page has also provided a useful forum for gently showing the “how and why” of ar chaeology from a documentation versus looting perspective and as insights in our answers to questions from FB messaging and post comments. The main challenges … keeping viewer’s attention in between “exciting field discoveries” and FB posts, and following the completion of fieldwork. What about you? Have you had good, bad, or indifferent experiences with using FB as a public outreach tool? Have you tried ways to expand the reach of FB and/or use it in a unique way?
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