Swallow Yachts Forum > General Discussion

Swallow Yachts Association on Facebook

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Sea Simon:
Happy as-is.

No Facebook for me thanks.

frobisher:
No thanks
This forum is first class why duplicate .I don't use/have [whatever the correct expression is]Facebook .
Frobisher

charliea:
I'm not a fan of Facebook and I really like the Forum, it does a great job as a platform for sharing technical detail and other more general ramblings. I'm sure it's a real selling point for experienced boat owners who are considering buying a Swallow.

However, what it doesn't try to do is help sell Swallow Boats to a less experienced audience, but perhaps that's Matt's problem rather than ours?

I remember when I was considering my shortlist of possible first boats I spent around a year browsing around trying to gather as much information as I could. Pictures of Swallow Boats were few and far between.

For Facebook users (+ Flickr, Instagram and Pintrest) it's really easy to post photos from your phone when you're actually out sailing. I suspect the idea of sharing pictures of yourself is anathema to most of us, but it's very different for those under 40. For many of the yoof, if you can't share a photo of yourself doing something you may as well not do it.

I think a more active Facebook presence would help sell Swallow Boats to a younger audience but I'm not sure how many people who are active on the forum would engage with it.

If God had meant us to use the railways he wouldn't have created canals.

Jonathan Stuart:
I think Julian has raised a good question and it's one I've also been thinking about recently. Where forums fall down and Facebook is brilliant, is for ad hoc posts "of the moment". For example, somone has a nice sail and simply posts a picture. People see it on their Facebook feed, "Like" it and then its gone. That could happen on a forum but it wouldn't work as well, which is why people don't use forums in that way. For example, we've just come back from a week's sailing from Weymouth to the Isle of Wight and back on our BC26 and there are experinces I would have shared on Facebook that I wouldn't (didn't) post here.

But there are problems with Facebook. First, many people don't use it and a good many of those seem vicerally opposed to it. Second, Facebook isn't great as a forum. I'm a member of a few Facebook groups and it's frustrating that the same questions are asked again and again because previous topics can't be seen in the same way as on a forum. Finally, I think there's a danger that the general popularity of Facebook kills the forum, and from Julian's comments that seems to have happened with the Drascombe site.

Julian's last post does address the second and third of those points. And I think he made a really good suggestion that Facebook posts better suited to the forum could be moderated and closed to comments with a note added that it should be raised on the forum. That might drive more people to the forum, which can only be a good thing.

If no-one uses a Facebook group then it fails and doesn't affect the forum. If it is popular and brings new people to the Association then that must be positive as long as it doesn't replace/duplicate the forum.

We can't get over the issue that some people won't use Facebook, although if Facebook is neither replicating nor replacing this forum then is that a problem? Also, I think it would be straightfoward to have a Facebook feed embedded in this Association website so everyone can view what's happening on FB (if they want) but without visiting Facebook or engaging in the Facebook activity.

I don't have strong views on this but I would like to be able to share my day-to-day sailing anecdotes and Facebook is the right place for that rather than the forum, so I'd support a Facebook community group. But strictly following the approach set out by Julian to ensure it supports the Association website and forum rather than threatening or duplicating it. Those that want to use Facebook can do so, and those with no interest in Facebook don't lose what they currently have in this forum.

Alternatvely, we setup something on this site that delivers some of what you get on social media but that isn't done in forums. I can't think what that could be if we want it to work properly, however I will think about this further. If anyone alse has any ideas then please add them here.

But unless we think of how to make this forum more conducive to the posts typical of social media, then I would support exploring whether a well moderated Facebook group could work.

charliea:
I think the key point is finding something that allows you to quickly post a short comment and a picture from your phone. Ideally the photos would then end up on the forum but that's less important.

Personally I'd be far more comfortable using something like Flickr or Pintrest.

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