What is Social Media and how can it benefit my TRA?

You may already be involved with Social Media, it may be something that interests you, you may have heard the term but not quite understand what it means, or you may not be interested in it at all. Whichever of these apply to you, social media is hard to ignore and can actually be an effective tool for your group—plus, it’s free!

Social Media refers to websites that are used for social networking, in it’s simplest form, social networking is the use of websites to communicate with other users. This means that unlike a regular website which provides one sided information, social networking allows the visitor to interact with others using the same site.

So, why would this be useful? Well, as a lot of people are already using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, once your TRA has a profile it is ready for anyone to see. Blog sites are also a great way to share information with your community on projects and plans and also somewhere to put your TRA meeting dates for people in your area to see. Add to this the ability for people in your community to give comments, feedback and support and you can see why it can be so useful.

As well as using these tools to give out information, they are a great way to get information too. There are loads of community pages offering up to date local news and information allowing you to interact with other organisations and people.

Will it be complicated and take up a lot of your time? That’s the beauty, you can make your social media profile(s) as easy or as complicated as you have time for. You can start off slowly and build up over time, or you can dive right in! It’s entirely up to you and your committee.

Of course none of this will replace good old face to face communication or leaflets, think of it as another tool to use alongside the regular methods, after all it won’t cost you anything.