Well I for one have been following the Clough House excavation on Facebook with interest from Western Australia, also the museum setting up its new storage area. As I liked the page when I comment on it my friends also get that link. I think it's quite an effective tool for outreach but have been unable to utilise my own consultancy Facebook outreach page to a similar degree. Most people don't know it's there. Not sure how to improve that. Any suggestions?

Gaye

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Joe Bagley
Sent: Wednesday, 19 June 2013 2:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Facebook archaeology, an example from Savannah, Georgia

We recently finished an archaeological survey of the c. 1715 Clough House in downtown Boston.  This is my first major survey as City Archaeologist, and I was very much interested in getting the public involved as much as possible. Facebook has been my outreach of choice for day-to-day interactions with the public.  Here is our Facebook page, which we are still updating as we progress through the lab processing of the collection: https://www.facebook.com/BostonArchaeologyProgram

This particular project is about 20 feet behind Old North right on the Freedom Trail in Boston, so we were guaranteed to have visitors and onlookers.  We started by creating an 11x17 laminated sign with a QR code for folks to scan. The sign was permanently on the fence blocking access to the site throughout the project, even when we were not present.

One of the best things about the Facebook posts was the ability to track numbers. In the four weeks were were surveying (only 15 days in the field) we gained an additional 250 "likes," and our numerous posts were viewed 59,464 times averaging over 530 people per post.  A few of our posts were shared by the like of the City of Boston (15,000 followers) and the SHA (2,000 followers) resulting in several thousand unique impressions on several posts.  We regularly had folks stop by the site who had been following us online and wanted to see it in person.

We were able to answer numerous questions and we had several artifact IDs from folks while we were still in the field.  Overall, we did not receive a single negative comment or post during the entire process. 

As we were backfilling, we received lots of walk-bys of people thanking us for posting the dig and saying they enjoyed following the progress. 

I think it really gives visitors the opportunity to follow the dig even after they leave, and for those that couldn't make it, it was exciting to be able to see photos a few seconds after significant artifacts were discovered.  I like that I could sneak in some less-interesting though important lessons about stratigraphy, preservation, lab processing, the permit and report process, etc. while still remaining entertaining.  I plan on live-facebooking all future digs and surveys.