About being a FACEBOOK Fanpage Mayor

On Friday, I read Bob Haywood's blog: I'm the New Mayor In Town He had been to the ActiveRain Camp in Dallas and they said start a Facebook Fan page for your local community. He crafted a fan page for his town in Oklahoma, and it was off to a great start, so he posted about his success with it.

I read the blog, and commented on it. I jumped to it, and started a Crosby, TX fan page. That was noon on Friday. Last check, about 5 minutes ago, we already have 375 fans!!!

I started the page by asking for photos or any cool commits. Interestingly, 2 of my 3 first fans are people I met on Active Rain that live other places.

Then, I followed up with a second post that promoted a benefit that had been planned for a few weeks to help a family that has two critically ill children. The benefit was at the FFA fair grounds and was a huge, overwhelming success. I posted about how successful the benefit was. Many people said they saw the post on Facebook, and that's why they came. I do not know how much money they raised for the Brown Family Saturday night, but they sold out of BBQ very quickly, and the games and auction looked to be a huge success. Now, I am not trying to take credit for the success of the benefit, as they had advertised this all over town, and it was discussed at my church for weeks, and they are a very old family here in Crosby, that many people know. There was a lot of support from the school, and many of the ill children's friends were helping out at the benefit. They had already done a GREAT job of advertising the event. But, I think that the last minute blast on Facebook helped to remind people to go.

At first, I was reallly not sure WHAT to do with this fan page. This morning I allowed one other person besides me to be an administrator for the fan page, because it has taken off so quickly that I'm afraid it will get too big for me. I also have contacted the Chamber of Commerce to allow them administrative access.

I figure this is what we will do--our mission statement of sorts, for the fan page. To shamelessly and unabashedly promote all things Crosby, with a giant, huge focus on the positive. I discussed the aim of the page with a few people, and we agreed that it would be WRONG to flood it with Real Estate listings at this point. But, we've had people add photos. This morning I posted a call to web site links to Crosby things. The Chamber had a ribbon cutting this morning, so we will report on that. After a while, we might use it to ad a listing here or there, but that really is not the direction I think I should go with for this page. I want to use it to PUMP UP CROSBY. It really is a great place that needs way more positive credit than it gets. For the address, I used my Brokerage's street address, as it is smack in the center of town.

This fan page has really turned into a really cool thing. I hope that we can use it as sort of a newspaper for events and happenings around town, and help bring up the spirits of people that live here. We are about to embark on a huge road construction project that will tie up traffic and bother us for a long while, and we will need a way to remind us why we are enduring the mess. Because we are a great group of people that looks out for each other. If you want to join the Crosby, TX fan page on Facebook, just search for Crosby, TX. It's there.