Online Presence of the TLP

"The Todd Listening Project (TLP) is an initiative started by Todd residents and organizations to connect more of the Todd community through

listening—listening to residents naming their hopes and dreams and watching for the twinkle in their eye when they talk about what they love. It might not sound like front porch conversation, but it’s a start," (Jaime McGirt, 2016). Because the goal of the project is to listen and foster communication, it is essential that the project have its own social media presence.

The only social media presence currently employed is from the Blackburn Outreach twitter account, @blackburn_house and a Facebook page under Blackburn Community Outreach, Inc @theblackburnhouse. The Facebook page has 333 people following it, and the twitter account has 40 followers. There may be a potential issue with the TLP not having a stand-alone social media presence because the TLP is from but not bound by the Blackburn Chappell. In my last post I identified the reason why the Church's name is not on the TLP, because not everyone in the town goes to the church. A benefit from having accounts specific to the project may be increased followers or online engagement and stronger community ties on and offline.

The social media objectives would include a boost in local youth participation, faster dissemination of information of events, and quicker response times to more conversations about the TLP.

The online persona would be energetic, respectful, community-minded, engaged, and responsive. The persona would draw in new participation, encourage continued participation, and be receptive and giving of local and regional support.

The program may open a professional twitter account that will be able to quickly post news, images, updates, connections, and links to blog or Facebook posts. Twitter will also engage the younger members of the community and potential visitiors. The program should have it's own Facebook account that engages the community members with accounts themselves, posts news, updates, images, videos, and participates in any and all

conversations about the project, community, members, events, success stories, book clubs, etc. An Instagram account could be beneficial for blurbs and picture updates of community garden, local renovations, river-cleanups, birthday or holiday parties, town tours or rafting adventures. All things that will promote the TLP and the internal community engagement should be employed first. All other accounts or posts that may increase donations or visits or positive attitudes from non-community members should be a close second priority.

One individual can be responsible for cohesion and inter-platform consistency between multiple media, but should also post three times a week (minimum) to ensure participation and engagement from community and followers. It is understandable, because of the limitations to a not for profit program, for the TLP to lack funding for the social media training of an individual, the individual chosen should have some experience aligning and maintaining multiple accounts over various platforms.

Because the TLP is already on their feet and the project has gone on for a while, there are no necessary dates to prepare for, however proper research will be done to get a better idea of what time and days work best to promote the community's engagement.

The social media roles and responsibilities are to ensure proper and respectful participation and engagement from community members or supporters of the TLP. The TLP should avoid posting anything not approved by the Blackburn Chapel, or the head of the TLP. The role of the social media accounts will be to inform and engage.

A social media policy should be drafted under regular guidelines and processes used by the Blackburn Chapel and the TLP.