Social Media Team

Role and Remit

The Social Media Team was formed in June 2022. The current team members are shown on Modtools>Teams.

The social media team’s remit is to get all Facebook and Twitter local accounts auto-posting standard content, and (ideally) have 'Amy' or an equivalent on Facebook groups as a backup.

Membership

Volunteers who would like to offer their experience and/or time to help other Freegle volunteers and groups are welcome to help. Email: socialmedia@ilovefreegle.org. Acceptance to the Team will be by a simple majority of votes by the existing training team.

The Board will have access to the Team via the socialmedia@ilovefreegle.org email address.

Working Practice

The discussion group for the team is https://groups.io/g/Freegle-Social-Media

The team's email address is socialmedia@ilovefreegle.org

Strategy

Facebook

To ensure all Facebook groups are on brand (including group logos), linked to Freegle, and publishing Freegle posts.

All Freegle pages will be offered a central backup (either active or silent), and where possible linked to the Freegle FB business account to ensure access can be maintained if admin rights are lost.

December 2022 changes: Facebook restricted some of the things we can do with their API unless they recognise the company that owns the app as a “Tech provider”. They didn’t recognise us, so we got restricted. But developers of the app can use some permissions with their own account. So adding Amy as a developer of the app and an admin of the page allows us to do things that we can’t otherwise do. The Social Media Team can relink pages to Modtools once Amy is made an admin on a Facebook page.

Action - to work through the options spreadsheet (D-L) for each page to make sure every group has everything in place for 'best' outcome.

Twitter/X

To ensure all Twitter accounts are on brand (including group logos), linked to Freegle, and publishing Freegle posts.

Where access to a Twitter account has been lost or the account suspended, one attempt will be made to regain access or reactivate the account; if this is unsuccessful, a new account will be set up.

Action

We will be reviewing unlinked and suspended accounts.

Our first plan will be to attempt to access existing pages (both unlinked but active, and suspended). Where we cannot get access (eg where there's no known email address / it's linked to a Yahoo email address) we will set up a replacement account.

Once new pages are set up and linked (and publishing Freegle posts) we will actively follow as many local groups / accounts as possible before handing the page back to the group.

We will check each group email address to see whether it's associated with a Twitter account. Where they're not, we will look to help getting them linked!

Code of Practice

The Team will never take action with local accounts without local consent. A conversation on Central in Oct/Nov 2023 (https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/t/question-about-facebook/6761) resulted in a form to be sent to all communities to explain Amy/Pippa and get consent where needed for passwords etc).

There are two 'national' accounts used by the team to help local teams - Pippa and Amy. Both accounts will allow relinking Facebook pages so they will continue to repost local and national posts.

Amy will additionally check for and respond to comments / messages, and if missing, update pages (eg add locations, update links / email addresses, ensure pages have Freegle logos / header images if these are missing).

Pippa will carry out no further actions, and will only provide a backup role should access be lost.

Currently (October 2023) the team is looking to contact or poll all groups (hopefully via ModTools) to ensure that consent is implicit as to whether they are happy to have either account as a backup; and if so, which account they are happy for the Social Media team to have in place.

Reports and Review

The Team will submit a report to the Board for inclusion in the Board's Report to the AGM each year.

The Team can consult with Development Group or the Geeks Team if there are issues regarding this remit or other areas.

Related Documents and Links

• Overview of social media accounts: Social Media Accounts
• National Social Media guidelines: Social Media Guidelines
• Local Social Media Guidelines: Local Social Media Guidelines
• Why you should add Facebook for Freegle: Freegle Direct - Why You Should Add Facebook
• Example messages: Tweets and Facebook Messages
• Twitter Guide: Twitter - 2018
• Facebook Guide: Facebook - 2018

• Freegle Mailbox Guidelines
• Document Approval Policy
• Glossary
• Freegle Teams