Trolley Museum of New York in FB:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Trolley-Museum-of-New-York/84567804229

On Twitter: @TrolleyMuseumNY

Grand Canyon Railway has a facebook page, but most of us employees are not allowed to access it from work, so I can't look up the address. It is easy to find though. It's maintained by the marketing department - but occasionally they forward mechanical or historical questions to me.

C&TS, Strassburg, and many of the others have pages as well - I know because I am friends with most of them.

Grand Canyon Chapter NRHS has a page as well, which I maintain. I try and include not only info on Chapter activities but also info on Grand Canyon Railway special events, or other items of local interest.

Eric

I figured the term "viral" was used when hits are in excess of one million. A handful of likes, is that viral?

Something goes viral when it is seen by many people via internet sharing. The more people, the more countries, the more hits, the more "viral" the media. I may be wrong but I do not believe there is a defined threshold; something that "goes viral" for you may just be something that has been picked up by the interwebs more than your usual content.

For example, we may get 4-5 thousand visitors to our website a month, mostly from local people within a few hundred miles, and the content doesn't generally get picked up by anyone else on the internet. But this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enkh9A5jdUI
...has been viewed over 300,000 times in countries around the world on youtube alone. In addition, it was picked up on various "world's worst" TV shows, news broadcasts and websites globally.

This may not be as "viral" relative to other media on the wider internet, but for us it's pretty good. To see the various data about the video, click on the statistics link on the right just below the video (button looks like a graph). It was the number one video in Norway for a while. Norway!?

Your mileage may vary.

Mike MacLean
New Hope Valley Railway

PS. I suppose one could argue the merits of the content within this video and whether you'd *want* it to go viral; but thats best left for another thread. This video was presented merely as an example to support my "viral" discussion.

"Going Viral" simply means spreading rapidly, from person to person, like a virus.

The threshhold varies with the context. For me, when I had a post on Google Plus that got several thousand +1's (The G+ version of a like) and was shared a few hundred times, I considered that to be "going viral" since it was far more than usual.

For a celebrity or large organization with many thousands of followers, the threshhold would be higher.

In some cases, people try to encourage folks to spread things, usually with a contest or giveaway of some sort.

But the original meaning of "going viral" was something that simply caught people's attention, was shared far and wide, and got far more reaction than was expected.

I have a facebook page, but I find it frustrating to use. It is not actually that easy to navigate and manage. Also, it seems the structure is constantly being modified by Facebook Inc.

Funny: they are constantly trying to get you to add new "friends", but it takes effort to display the list of current friends.

For those who use Facebook as the public face of a business or organization, I find it even more frustrating. It is simply not set up for basic functions like: where are you located? what services do you offer? etc.

I would much rather view a well written website.

You can modify and edit your Facebook page quite a bit, or at least you could in the past. Our has all the basics, address, a map and a link to our website.

But we don't try and duplicate the website on Facebook. Keep in mind that the more places on the web you have your schedule and information, the more places you have to update when it changes. So instead of duplicating the info everywhere, have it in one central location (your webpage) and have the rest of the social sites serve as pointers to your main site. "Come ride the choo-choo. Fares and schedule at bigtrain.com!"


My suggestion is much easier to implement. Treat your Facebook page as the modern equivalent of the mailing list. Put out just the basics, with links back to your real web page for further info and reservations.

For example, here's a recent post from our page:


Having these codes also helps track how much traffic the FB page is actually driving to our site. Having 10,000 likes is cool, but if they're not buying tickets, does it really matter?

Car 57 page on facebook is here
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Car-5 ... 6064224535
Caboose 2516 here
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Caboo ... 2552775735

Mike Pannell

Forgot about the DSP&P Car 3 'Geneva' page
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/DSPP- ... 4972890605

Mike Pannell

Virginia Museum of Transportation's page

http://www.facebook.com/VA.Museum.Transportation?ref=ts

Boy, that big image looks familiar

Social media is about connecting, building, and continuing a conversation with customers.

Your page insights and analytics and some targeted posting can usually determine when and how a post will be received and the number of "Likes" you have (i.e., not friends -- for a proper business page on Facebook they are "Likes") will ultimately determine the "virality" of a topic. For instance, our most popular posts (100-400+ likes with busy comment threads) are often from material we post in the evening. The same post in the morning is rarely as successful or popular unless it is significant to get enough people to Like, Share, or Comment on it, which increases its "virality," therefore spreading it into other folks' Newsfeeds, so that they can discover that content as well.

The most active time for most users 18-35 is between 8pm and 10pm, the most well received or popular postings are images. And one of the best ways to get responses is to ask questions of your followers. These are not just my practices, these are bonafide tips from Facebook itself. And also, just because it is free doesn't mean you shouldn't shirk a sponsored story or ad once in a while to further target your advertising.

In my film/creative business, we do a lot of "cultural relevancy" consulting which involves social media. The FWRHS' page has exploded recently, 500 new "Likes" in two weeks pushing us over 3,000 thanks largely to our schedule publishing, our new video, and the 8100 NKP Heritage unit. While some posts become wildly popular, trends with your audience unfold over time, and it does take time. You really have to engage people where their eyeballs are, not where we hope they'll be.

Social media as much as it is a buzz word lately is actually something that requires as much dedication as website updating and general public relations work. Consistent, interesting, diverse postings win more people over time. As Bob points out, you do need to develop a dedicated userbase to translate popularity/virality into actual dollars and support. The central website is key, but use social media as gateways to the core content, but don't forget to keep a conversation and connection going.

http://www.facebook.com/fortwaynerailroad

Railroad Museum of New England---Naugatuck Railroad:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/naugatuck.railroad

Howard P.

And YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmRTgowq ... e=youtu.be

This one is long at 28 mins.; it was primarily shot to be a "show" for public TV.

A short, 2-minute "promo":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPMqsef5 ... ure=relmfu

From that link, other RMNE-NAUG videos can be accessed--

http://www.youtube.com/user/NaugatuckRa ... ture=watch .

We've been fortunate to be working with a pro video producer, who is a member.

Howard P.

And I'll add Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society, North Freedom, WI:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mid-Conti ... 3452868009

mld

Cascade Rail Foundation has a page too.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cascade-R ... 0201851368

Paul Krueger
Seattle, WA