Friends of the Rail now has a group on Facebook

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Steve Appleton
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Friends of the Rail now has a group on Facebook

Post by Steve Appleton »

FOTR comes to Facebook. Heritage steam meets modern high-tech!

Intended to provide a more instant and publically-accessible news and communication mechanism for the modern age, a "Friends of the Rail" group has been created on Facebook. In a long-overdue and very welcome initiative, one of our Facebook-savvy members, Gabor Kovacs, has created the new group as a platform to share fast-moving news and information amongst the "social media generation". Thank you, Gabor!!

It is, however, still believed that this forum has a very important role to play and is by no means obsoleted. We still think that this forum provides a better organised and more stuctured approach to information storage. It provides and more stable, long-term information request and sharing solution for the more serious railway enthusiast.

Facebook is not owned nor run by FOTR which means that any content placed thereon is vulnerable and subject to whatever policies, etc, may be imposed by Facebook's owners now or in the future. If Facebook closes, so will the FOTR group with the potential loss of all its content. Facebook is also less structured and disiplined which is great for immediacy, but not so great for researchers.

This forum is owned and managed solely by FOTR and all its content is routinely backed-up away from the host internet service provider's site providing, we hope, long-term security for the forum and all its content. We are not dependent on any third-party service provider to maintain the continuity of the software and storage on which this forum runs. Nor does this forum have to adhere to Facebook's rules in respect of either use or content. We make the rules which can be as liberal as we like or, perhaps, as our users can tolerate.
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John Ashworth
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Re: Friends of the Rail now has a group on Facebook

Post by John Ashworth »

Thanks, Gabor.

I do hope, though, that information, photos and even "fast-moving" news will continue to be posted on the FOTR Forum for those of us who are not part of the "social media generation".
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Steve Appleton
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Re: Friends of the Rail now has a group on Facebook

Post by Steve Appleton »

I am not part of that generation either, largely because the company I work for has a management policy that actively bars internet access to many of the social media sites as well as to video sites like YouTube, radio sites like Highveld Stereo and the bulk upload/download file-sharing sites. I can only access Facebook from home, after I have taken out my computer (when I am in the mood) or at other times from my smartphone (when I am in the mood to subsidise MTN executives' huge free lunches).

As a result, I do not directly read our chairman's (or anybody else's) posts and pictures on the Atlantic Rail Facebook site either. I do though get the gists of what's been posted sent to me from Facebook by email.

In my view the best primary digital marketing tool is still a well-contructed website, not a Facebook page. The latter, along with Twitter, etc., is secondary.
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Jeffrey van Rooyen
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Re: Friends of the Rail now has a group on Facebook

Post by Jeffrey van Rooyen »

seems to mee that I need to sort out my Facebook account again Gaby. Good initiative.
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Derek Walker
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Re: Friends of the Rail now has a group on Facebook

Post by Derek Walker »

I agree Steve, social networking, while handy also thrives on spam, teenage weenies with "pix of their chix", and celeb worship. But, a well managed group with a website is still my preferred visiting place. Sadly though, in an era of instant gratification the old "content is king" maxim is becoming harder to comply with all the time.
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Gabor Kovacs
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Re: Friends of the Rail now has a group on Facebook - Update

Post by Gabor Kovacs »

Greetings to all!

Since January 2012, I had taken the initiative to open and administrate a public Facebook page (FB page) on behalf of FotR.

I would like to take this opportunity to do a feedback report.

Initially, after the Facebook page was opened, it was somewhat difficult to populate the page with "current items" of the day, due to the start of the new year and similarly like our FotR Forum initially, the up-take was a bit slow at first!
I must quickly add, that slowly but surely the "word" is spreading, and now on a weekly basis there are more and more people connecting and viewing the FotR FB Page

Since the opening of the FotR FB page, I have advertised every single public train on the Events Page, with links back to the FotR main website, namely; the 2012 schedule, bookings page for Cullinan and Tshwane Trips; and links to interesting and relevant forum topics, from time to time.
Sometime, this weekend coming, I will be creating new entries in the Events page of FotR FB Page for all the up-coming train trips , until the last one on the 16th Decemebr 2012

At this stage, I have no indication as to how much internet traffic has been directed or diverted to FotR's main website, booking page/s or to the forum, but I sure there has been a small amount of bookings and general interest generated!

We have had very little FB page traffic where passengers, visitors, guests or even other club members upload their own pictures, and or other relevant information, but with time, this will I hope, increase as the "word" spreads . . . .
Obviously, when uploads of interest or of importance are uploaded on the the FotRs' FB page, the necessary information can be saved ( or even cross-linked, as I have been doing of recent) onto the forum (with the owners permission of course), to avoid loss, should something happen to FotRs' FB page.

I can confirm, that to date, the FotR FB page has had clean slate with no posts in "bad taste", and I intend to keep it that way, checking almost on a daily basis!

Below I have included some interesting pictures of graphs available from FB to indicate some interesting observations from the FotRs' FB Page.

Of interest is the Demographics Graph below,

Most of my international railway enthusiast friends follow my posts, which I also cross link to my own profile page, and most of them are in Europe, thus the high figure/s for Hungary and for "cities and towns" in Hungary. Beside this point, one should take note of the age groupings and that women do look at the FOtRs' FB page, but unfortunately not the the same extent as men do . . . !!?

FotR's Marketing can also use the Demographics Graph, in respect with planning for next years schedule, and attempt to plan somehow toward specific age groups or other related data . . .

My next follow-up report concerning the FotR FB page, will be in late December 2012!

Regards
Gabor
Attachments
FotR FB Page Current Header - Changed from time to time, mostly related to seasons
FotR FB Page Current Header - Changed from time to time, mostly related to seasons
FotR FB page.JPG (131.04 KiB) Viewed 3772 times
Stats Overview Graph - FotR FB Page
Stats Overview Graph - FotR FB Page
FotR FB stats.JPG (120 KiB) Viewed 3772 times
Demographics Graph - FotR FB Page
Demographics Graph - FotR FB Page
FB demo.png (63.18 KiB) Viewed 3772 times
People reached Graph - FotR FB Page
People reached Graph - FotR FB Page
FB Reach.png (28.38 KiB) Viewed 3772 times
Daily Visits Graph - FotR FB Page
Daily Visits Graph - FotR FB Page
FB Daily Visits.png (34.52 KiB) Viewed 3772 times
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John Ashworth
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Re: Friends of the Rail now has a group on Facebook

Post by John Ashworth »

Thanks, Gabor, for all the effort you have put into this. I can't say I understand it all, as I am definitely not part of the Facebook generation, but I'm happy to see that FOTR is making its mark on the newer forms of social networking.
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Steve Appleton
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Re: Friends of the Rail now has a group on Facebook

Post by Steve Appleton »

Gabbie, I and all the "board" of FOTR thank you for this great initiative. Although I use facebook occasionally, like John, I was initially sceptical about its value and had heard/read scarey stories about its unruliness and the likely content. I have been proved wrong. It has gone extremely well under your control and lively mentorship (even if some of it is in Hungarian and unreadable to me). Well done for coming up with the idea, setting it up and getting it going.

Although I cannot get such statistics, I am certain the facebook page has indeed directed and generated much new business for FOTR via our website and forum.
"To train or not to train, that is the question"
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