FB week reflections

So to reflect on last week's task of managing the mytribe FB page:

1) I set up a separate photography FB group and publicized it on mytribe FB page. From there, I put up a description of the group and encouraged to share their photos/works of art on POOL. To set an example, I myself logged on to POOL and posted up some of my works.

On duties of being the Facebook Admin (and being the first in the tutorial group to test waters), I went into POOL and publicized some works that had been uploaded. I reckoned that the promotion of POOL shouldn't start with a BANG! or people will be wondering what is all the fuss about this POOL thingy.. rather, a slow start would create awareness. The future pairings would then have a chance to make POOL 'the next big thing'.

Still, I was secretly hoping that there would be a BOOM in numbers.

The initial response was encouraging, with 30 members joining within the very first day. However as the week dragged on, the members multiplied twice and it stood at 60.

Looking at the stats, the average number of people that joined after the first day was 5-6.

I had one member that PM'ed (private msg to inbox) and asked me: 'Hey Julian, what's the function of this group? And how is POOL different from other community websites like flickr and youtube?'

I answered but couldnt really make a strong argument about POOL. I told him to think of a 'new hybrid of flickr and youtube with the chance of getting your works being featured by ABC'.

The member went 'oh. That's in Australia right? But I'm all the way back here in Singapore...'

Reflecting this, it is really abit of a problem. Besides appealing locally (which probably will not be that huge of a problem), what are the strategies that I'm gonna look into and employ to reach out globally? Competitions with the incentive of prize money? Hmmm...

2) The number of people and who the people were that joined the mytribe FB page.. was, in a word, quite demoralizing? Only 13-15 people joined within the week... that was even lesser than the amount of people that joined my photography group. And as to what our tut group voiced, most of the people that joined were all RMIT students.

Another issue to think about: how to get people to 'commit' and post links/images/audio/video on the FB page at least twice a week. How do we retain their interest in the FB page and ultimately POOL. The POOL site is also full of RMIT students, making it seemingly like another school project.

One can post as many links and dive into other groups and publicise about mytribe and POOL, but at the end of the day, will people still join?

I guess the main issue here is finding a strategy to RETAIN and STIMULATE their commitment and interest respectively. I hope the rest of the tut group manage to come up with something, as do I will contribute throughout the semester.


Ok I somehow think that the 'chance of getting your work being featured by ABC' is not strong enough. Could future pairings explore into the possibility of a competition with prize money involved? People are motivated by monetary gains... cos i would be too. If resources were available, I would put 1000 dollars as first prize, 500 as second and 300 as third. Combine this and your work being publicized.. suddenly it looks enticing.

In a nutshell, though the results weren't as positive as I would like it to be, the most important thing I can take away is having a strategy timeline to reach objectives. If given another chance to be admin of the facebook page for the week, I would do it. But this time, with some tricks up my sleeve.