When I was serving as Chamber director, I had made it my goal to get our community connected and supporting all the great things happening here in Excelsior Springs! By creating a Facebook Group for our community, over the last two years I have fed the room information each day by sharing our community’s businesses, organizations, and citizen’s posts into the room on a regular basis.
Each day I monitor over 400 community pages in order to help them get their message to a broader audience. Being an administrator of over 20 different community Facebook Pages, I knew that before having the group when making a post, I would have to rely on whatever organic reach that post received, or pay to have it get out to the audience I needed to see it. By sharing it to a group that has a concentrated local audience, I’m guaranteeing each entity that their message is getting further to the people they want to reach the most.
With that being said, I don’t have the group room set up so that just anyone can gain admittance. I have an approval process when a request comes in that I go through. If a person is connected to multiple group members within the page already, I will often add them. If they’re not connected to anyone, I visit their page to look for any local clues that I might find letting me know their location. I work to keep the members of the group from the local area as much as possible. We currently have 3,937 members and the group is growing larger each day.
Here’s a list of some of the things that I try to provide the community information about daily:
– Local and area events
– Local news article links
– Pictures of Excelsior Springs
– School information
– Local ads and sale offers
– Hiring opportunities
– Obituaries
– Community organization and business posts
The group has also provided a way for citizens in the community to ask questions such as asking for recommendations, finding out about what’s happening in the city, communicating when there are emergency situations like power outages and severe weather, and somewhere they can get immediate answers. I work to connect each of the inquiries coming in each day with someone that can help them find a resolution.
Managing the group at times is not always easy. I have a strict policy of the group room not being used negatively against the community or any entity in particular. The room is to be used to promote business and community, not work against it. I also don’t allow for it to be used as a swap shop room (a group room where you can sell your own personal items) because there are plenty of rooms like that out there already for that purpose.
I have seen the room be used to help solve crimes, promote community events, find lost pets, raise money for individuals facing serious health problems, and more. It’s been a great resource for our community to connect, support each other, and have community-wide conversations.
If you are interested in joining our group room, put in a request by clicking here!Â