Making connections through social media

First part of a series

The way people live their lives has changed in recent years and you can thank (or curse) technology for that. Sure televisions are now paper thin and a GPS can get you around a traffic jam, but one of the biggest advancements in technology in the past decade has been the growth of social media. There are dozens of popular websites that millions of people use every day, but the one with the most “likes” is none other than Facebook.

Besides causing a few tempestuous relationships for Mark Zuckerberg and making him a few truckloads of money in the process, Facebook also connects people around the world instantaneously. It has been used for years, and now more and more organizations are getting in on the fun to help spread information and connect with people in a social environment.

In early 2009 when David Sabatino was kicking around the idea of Envision Valley Stream, he thought it would be good to make a Facebook page and see if any other Valley Streamers felt the same way he did about his hometown. Initially, Sabatino said, he shared the page with friends and other community members, and slowly but surely the it began to grow.

“I really used it as a way to gauge if there was interest for this type of community group,” he said, “and very quickly it turned into people that were interested and willing to meet in person.”

Soon after Sabatino initially posted the page, he held his first informal meeting. “Within a couple of months I saw that there was interest and I had people that wanted to do more than just discuss,” he said. “They wanted to get together and start doing some work.” Envision Valley Stream now meets regularly and organizes events throughout the year.

The Village of Valley Stream created a Facebook page last year as a way of communicating with residents. Richard DeAngelis, the deputy village clerk, maintains the page on a daily basis and said the village uses Facebook differently than other organizations.

When a person becomes a friend of Valley Stream’s Facebook DeAngelis will then unsubscribe them so no one can post things on the wall besides the village. “It’s really not a place to interact,” he said. “We really don’t want the page to get cluttered with everybody else’s statuses because then your information kind of gets lost in the wash.”

However, DeAngelis said, residents often ask questions via Facebook and he is more than happy to assist them. “A lot of times people will message us with a question, maybe about a tree on their block or a pothole, and then we just take that information and relay that to the department that it needs to go to,” he said. DeAngelis added that one of his favorite parts of running the page is wishing people a happy birthday from the village.

The Valley Stream Little League is no stranger to social media and has accounts on a host of different websites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Lee Bogner, a vice president and the league’s information officer, said it made sense to create a Facebook page a couple of years ago because a lot of younger parents and older players already have accounts themselves. “I always look to reach the audience in ways that are comfortable for them,” Bogner said.

He added that it’s important to reach people on multiple platforms in order to get out as much information as possible. “It’s where the world is heading,” Bogner said. “You have to make information accessible to your audience in multiple places and ways easiest for them to consume.”

Facebook is a platform that isn’t very crucial for the Mill Brook Civic Association because President Marc Tenzer and other officials reach members by other means. Tenzer said the civic association uses a Yahoo! chatroom that was set up about 10 years ago. Also, he said, more people respond to emails and regular mail than they do on Facebook.

“More people that I speak to in the community would rather get their information via email than via Facebook,” Tenzer said. He added that the civic association would likely continue using Yahoo! and other platforms rather than its Facebook page. Tenzer said he does like how easy Facebook makes it to send group messages, but members seem to prefer other means of accessing information.

The Henry Waldinger Memorial Library created its Facebook page in 2009. Children’s librarian Jaclyn Kunz operates the page and said that Facebook enables her to reach out to younger parents to notify them of events at the library.

Also, she said, if someone has a question or concern, Facebook is more efficient. “It allows us to respond to them faster than if they were to send an email,” Kunz said. “Facebook is more instantaneous, people don’t have to go out of their way to comment or make a suggestion.”

Kunz said that in the future, she would like to use the Facebook page to create even more dialogue with patrons.

Any organization that uses Facebook, Kunz added, must be smart about it. “I try not to overwhelm their newsfeeds because I think that can be annoying to them,” she said, “but to at least get something out there maybe once a day just so that the library stays fresh in their mind and that they know there’s things going on here all the time.”