I don't do Facebook, and know very little about, other than things I see about Security (true or falsely exxagerated???)

I have just started my 3rd website for Anadarko Class of 1962 (did 60 and 61 earlier, with much success). The Class of 1962, like the others is small, only 76 classmates, We only have email for 20, but strongly suspect many are active on computer and possibly using facebook.

My question, if I start a Group Facebook account for Anadarko Class of 1962, will it get enough exposure that some of the classmates will notice it? I am looking for a way to draw them to their Website, and How best to do using Facebook.

Derrell:

I was on Facebook long before purchasing Class Creator; and our group on Facebook is very active. And yes, I have used it to direct people to our web site and it has been a very successful means to do so.

First you have to find your classmates on FB, or let them find each other to be able to ADD them to the group. Then I use the group to direct them to topics on the CC web site.

Around the class reunion time, the CC site was very active. Once everyone had seen the pictures and video, things slowed down. But rest assured, Facebook is a part of everyday life for people. That is where they WILL see stuff. You can't send CC emails everyday, or it will turn people off. But on the Facebook site, people check in all the time.

That said, I know classes that have used Facebook to plan reunions and I kind of watch this and it is NOT as successful overall! Not by a long shot. Of course, these seem to be the classes that have always flown by the seat of their pants: find a restaurant, reserve a room and hope people show up.

I don't know about you, but that method doesn't work for anyone getting hard of hearing....and we just have never done it that way.

Short answer: YES!!!! Get on Facebook and get into the world. You will be amazed. Make sure your privacy settings are "friends only" and you will be fine.

Sincerely.
Denise

We are also doing a 1962 class page. We have about 200 grads with about 33 deceased and a doazen or more not found yet. We had few reunions along the way. About a year ago we started a facebook page. At best we got 20 people on facebook, I suspect many of these rarely log in to FB and some that do only to play the games. Before setting up our website we did search for email, snail mail and phone numbers of classmates based on yearbook entries and the graduation program. I would guess that half of the 20 people we are missing don't want to be found. We now have ewmail addresses for 110 people, About 55 have joined the website. We are working to get these people on board for the website. I suspect we are not reaching some because they have their spam filter set to reject everything. With us the big problem is classmates without email, classmates that set spam filters and surprisingly classmates who married fellow classmates and only have one email address. I have asked the site managers to provide us with a snail mail letter we can send out to tell people how to get an email address and then get on out website. WE are encouraging folks without email to ask thei kids or grandkids for help. I doubt FaceBook will be of much help

This must be an age demographic thing. Of 640 classmates, well over 200 (I have lost track) are on Facebook. About 270 are on CC site.

We have many, many people who just do not want to participate. We don't beat ourselves up over this. I just sent a Christmas card to a good friend who will not even do email (she does at work). I explained that if we want to have a "60th birthday party cruise" in 2013 we will only be using social media; it's far too expensive to do mailings for every thing.

So our main task is reaching people and getting them hooked up. There are still some who do not want to no way, no how, and I just respect that. I do not make any kind of "false profile" for anyone. I know some have (with permission). I don't do that.

1/4 of our committee would not do Class Creator or Facebook. I am tired of phone calling. If they will not communicate electronically, next time they have two choices--get on board, or call me to keep up. It will be their responsibility. Otherwise they will not be on the committee.

Seems harsh, but I don't have the time to run everyone down!

We've found a lot of our alumni on FB. Some of the individual classes have their own FB pages & invite each other; these work better around reunion-time. We have several successful all-class alumni pages that individuals have started, one targeted to finding lost classmates - mostly they just share memories of local hangouts. People seem to find those pages by the school name being incoporated in the name.

I collected classmate FB page site URLs by first entering each email that I knew into the search box. Any that turned up their FB page, I then friended them &/or looked at their friends lists for classmates we didn't have.

Since FB doesn't usually show email addresses I contact them by private FB message, asking for their email so we could notify them about their class events and invite them to join our website.

We maintain a separate database of our 22,000+ alumni and using those methods, we have 6135 FB addresses. 220 of those are for people whose email has bounced from our website, and 1910 we don't have emails for at all. We do have emails for 7600 (about 35%) and over half of those aren't on FB.

Hi Denise, we are a 3-year reunion group with something over 600 grads across 1969-70-71. To date we have 292 registered grads & guests on CC. We started beating the bushes to find people again less than 2 years before our last reunion (summer 2010) but we had contacts from the previous reunion to start with too.

Facebook is a valuable resource to find people, even in our age demographic, as they'll have accounts, or their kids/grandkids/relatives will. Having your CC site helps your grads to find you, as does Facebook. We only have 120 members on our Facebook group, as you've found out, some classmates just won't bother or refuse to join either CC or FB groups. BTW some classmates are on CC but not FB and vice versa.

Having Facebook nowadays will expose your reunion to a much wider audience IMO... And I should say that many attendees came for the 1st time ever, crediting the CC site for bringing them onboard Kudos to CC.

Happy New Year!

I don't find FB to that much of a help. Especially for the girls, their
names have changed. I did find a few, but no where what I expected. We
have a school site set up on FB, but not much goes on there. We also had
a small class 150 total, 30% are deceased and 65 have signed on the
classcreator.com. I know that about 10-15 will be signing on after the
holidays are over. I found most of mine on Peoplesearch.com of course you
have to pay for that site, but It works. I actually had to call most of
them to tell them about the site and get their e-mails. Having 65 already
in less than a month is pretty good I think. Everyone seems to love it.
So I consider it a success

I found peoplefinders.com to be very helpful in finding our classmates, especially the guys (girls are more difficult to locate because of their name change). When you have the city / state for a classmate, then go to anywho.com, whitepages.com, or similar site to find the street address and phone number. All of the above sites are FREE for basic information.

After you have found a classmate, ask them for information about other classmates. Usually everyone knows the whereabouts of one or more classmates.

Happy New Year everyone!
Louise

I have a lot of facebook friends that are classmates("62-'70) that have not joined the class wwebsite, even though I have posted the link on Facebook......I guess it's up to them and not us web admins.

I have to admit... I'd love to pull everyone from Facebook to our sites. However, I have to agree with Denise D. in this quote from one of her posts above, "... Facebook is a part of everyday life for people. That is where they WILL see stuff. You can't send CC emails everyday, or it will turn people off. But on the Facebook site, people check in all the time."

Not long after I built an alumni site, another alum started a Facebook group page. I found within 24 hours hours. The group page was a hit. Why? He used our hometown name in the title with two of the most inviting words. It is "McHenry Illinois Remember When." He did not know about the web sites when he started it. He told me to copy the topics over to the site, but to keep up with it, I would need to be four people!

Members start topics, post pictures and recipes. I want this happening on the web site to include those who are not on Facebook and have no intentions of every joining Facebook. Am I dreaming? I prefer to think of it as a goal. It is a goal that exhausts me thinking about it!

I check the group page members list to find IF they attended our school and their class year. If I find an email address, I send them a Missing Classmate email from the site.

I started the topics in the alumni site forums, but the forums may be a bit much for those who participate on the group page. The negative of the group page is that the topics get lost ... they are hidden, as new topics are added. It is a mess with all the comments making the history longer. Using the forum on our site as an organizing tool is key, but getting classmates to the forum is like like pulling teeth.

Okay, I strayed off topic a bit but maybe WE (admins) with CC can come up with a way to make our sites a place classmates will want to visit as much (okay... almost as much) as Facebook. We've "gotta wanna" first.

I'm off to post a New Years note on the Facebook group page.

Donald Carter wrote:

Hi Don,
It IS up to them. Yet, there are days I'd like to drag each one of them over to the web site kicking and screaming...
then I stop day-dreaming.