Current Day social media platforms position themselves to fill specific niches. The current top-level U.S. landscape plays out as follows:
· Instagram is an in the moment photo and video sharing tool primarily based on life events with friends and followers via a social graph. (Note: Instagram Explore is changing this dynamic by engaging Meta’s first interest graph that serves viewers content based on content consumption rather than based on followers)
· Twitter is a global in the moment idea sharing platform based on trending topics via a social graph. This is the modern-day public version of a news wire… just noisier.
· TikTok is a video content first platform based on a best-in-class interest graph that serves top performing content to end users based on browsing / engaging habits.
· Facebook is a community building tool used to support both relational (friend to friend) and community/group platform based on a social graph that serves followed content.
Facebook is an excellent first stop for fraternal activities on social media platforms. Facebook still commands a majority of Americans as users, and the community aspects of the platform mirror the community a fraternal organization hope to build in its physical community. While Facebook does an excellent job assisting in the creation of an online community, it is key for the community organizer to understand what type of community is appropriate based on their perceived needs of the community. Facebook offers the following types of presence on platform:
· Person: this type of an account is the base of the platform. A community manager must have a “person” account to access Facebook and this account must be based on and named after a person – not an organization. If you can “friend” an organization or if you have to enter a different username / password than you do for your personal account, the organization is setup incorrectly and one may find that account removed from platform for violation of Facebook’s Terms & Conditions.
· Page: a page is for the public face of an organization. Organizations can publish posts just like a person but followers “like” the page instead of becoming friends with the page. Consider a page if your lodge:
o Has several brothers that will act as community mangers to both publish content and answer inquiries from comments on posts and inbound chats via Facebook Messenger
o Does public-facing activities where non-members have a need to know what is going on
If you are wanting to create a Facebook Page for a member lodge of the Grand Lodge of Indiana, it is recommended to reach out to marketing@ingrandlodge.org to have your location claimed and to have you assigned as the community manager for the page. (NOTE: If you are doing it for a Murat Shrine location or unit, please reach out to andy@muratshriners.com to get the page structured.) When set up in this fashion, you page will be linked to the main Indiana Freemasons page (facebook.com/INFreemason) under the “Stores” tab. When you email, please include your Lodge Name, Lodge Number, Lodge Address and Meeting Times. This method will allow us to re-assign the page in the event that the community manager loses access to the page. We want to avoid having multiple “dead” pages for our lodges.
NOTE: We have worked to correct the issue where the lodge name was removed from the page name when adding lodges as a location. If your lodge has a Facebook Page outside of the Indiana Freemasons master page and you want to have your Facebook page added to the master list to allow the INGL Marketing Team the ability to reassign permissions in case of lost credentials, please email marketing@ingrandlodge.org and ask how to have your page added.
Outside of Indiana Grand Lodge locations, create a page for your organization by following the prompts at facebook.com/groups/create. You will want a high-quality horizontal image for your cover photo and an icon for your profile picture. It is recommended that you account title be very descriptive of what you are. Example: “Murat Shriners – Central Indiana Chapter of Shriners International” or “Prospect Masonic Lodge #714 – Indiana Freemasons”. For fraternal activities, select “Sorority & Fraternity” for the category
For assistance on managing your page, consider taking these free Facebook Blueprint Courses:
· How to create a Facebook Page: https://bit.ly/FB_Page_Class
· How to post on a Facebook Page: https://bit.ly/FB_Post_Class
· Using Creator Studio to post, schedule, and manage content on your page: https://bit.ly/FB_CreatorStudio_Course
· Adding additional Community managers to help create content: https://bit.ly/FB_AddAdmin
· Group: an electronic community where content around a specific topic (i.e., your organization) is created by the entire community. This is different than a page where content coming out from the page must be created by an approved and assigned community manager. Some security settings can be put in place to allow group administrators to approve posts before they are shared broadly. For simple instructions to create a group, visit https://bit.ly/FB_CreateGroup or for a course visit https://bit.ly/FB_Group_Course. Be purposeful with your group name, but remember, a group is a community, not an organization, so “Freemasons of Lafayette Lodge #123” would be a great name for a group consisting of members of a specific lodge.
There are a couple of settings that one needs to keep in mind when developing a group:
o Privacy
§ Public – content and members, administrators, and moderators lists can be seen by anyone on Facebook.
§ Private – content and member list is hidden from the larger Facebook user group but administrators and moderators are visible to all Facebook Users. Remember that even though a group may be private, it is still possible for people to share that content outside of the group using alternate methods (screenshots / copy/paste.) Nothing you type is guaranteed to be confidential.
§ Learn more at https://bit.ly/FB_GroupPrivacy
o User Level
§ Member – Can post (settings can dictate that posts must be approved by a moderator/admin prior to final publication)
§ Moderator – Can approve or deny membership requests and posts, can remove posts / comments, can remove or block members, can pin or unpin posts.
§ Admin – Can do all in the moderator level plus can make/remove other admins or moderators, and can manage group settings (ex: change the group name, cover photo or privacy settings)
§ Learn how to manage user level / access at: https://bit.ly/FB_Mod
· Combination of Page & Group: If you are a leader of a busy organization, it can be appropriate to have both a page and a group. Facebook even provides a method of linking the group into the page where the page (and the page administrators as a result) can act as a participant in the group. Learn more at https://bit.ly/FB_LinkPageToGroup
If you have questions about how to setup a Facebook page, it is easiest to send a message to the administrator team of the Indiana Grand Lodge Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/INGrandLodge) as many of those administrators have experience in this area.