Freegle Direct - Why You Should Add Facebook

If you like Facebook, you probably don't need convincing that using it to enhance your community is a good idea. So let's assume you loathe Facebook and think it's evil.

The first thing to realise is: that's your view.

• It'll be the view of some of your members too. But it's not most people's view - just look at how astoundingly successful Facebook is.
• Whether you like it or not, people spend vast amounts of time on Facebook, to the extent that they're watching less TV. I know, it's awful. But that's where people live online now. And that's where we should reach them - they're perfect people to be freegling.

If you're under 40, you'll quite likely have a Facebook account. Ask around - if you have kids or grandkids, ask them too. People have grown up with Facebook. We might not have, but it's what's happening now.

And some aspects of Facebook are just perfect for Freegle. We spread best by word of mouth. Because you see what your Facebook friends are doing (that's why you hate it, right?), people will see their friends freegling, and wonder what it is. That's the first step - getting people to hear about us at all.

You might hate Facebook. That's fine, we're not trying to persuade you to like it. But isn't it good for your community to reach people who do like it, and get them freegling?

Promoting national posts on Facebook

In ModTools > Publicity there used to be an easy way to share national Freegle's daily Facebook posts. As of November 2024, Facebook has disabled this, and seems to have deleted all such past posts.

To post them manually to your local community Facebook page, it's easiest to use the mobile app:

• Search for the national Freegle page.
• Tap Share on a recent post.
• Select the Feed drop-down - all your linked groups should appear. Select one.
• Confirm Share Now.

It takes a little longer in a browser on a computer:

• Open Facebook.
• Switch from your personal account to managing your Freegle page.
• Go to the national Freegle page on Facebook (if Facebook shows a load of clickbait instead of your page, click your page's profile photo at top left to open the page, then scroll down to a shared post by national Freegle and click on its account name, "Freegle").
• Under a recent post, click Share > Share to Feed.
• If prompted for an audience, select Public, then click the big "Share" button.

For posts originated by Freegle's national account, that's all there is to it. For posts where Freegle is re-sharing something from another account, first copy the introductory comment by Freegle, because when you share, Facebook may only include the original post from the other account, omitting national Freegle's comment - in which case paste in the intro comment (or type your own) where Facebook shows "What's on your mind" / "Say something about this".

Promoting local items on Facebook

The same feed used to also generate a local daily post showing the most popular items on your Freegle community, so it took one click to publish this to your local community Facebook page. These posts served as examples of what's been freegled, each linking back to Freegle. As of November 2024, Facebook has also disabled this and deleted past posts.

Instead, you may want to take a screenshot of recent items, for example using the mobile Freegle app. Crop off any ads, log in to your local community Facebook page, and post the image with a comment such as "Just a few examples of free stuff recently offered or requested on ilovefreegle.org."

Backup access arrangements

In 2023, Facebook made things more difficult by restricting access to accounts. Our Social Media Team can help with general queries about running Facebook pages, and also operates 'Amy'. Amy is a Facebook account set up to help local community pages get linked successfully to the ModTools sharing tools, and to provide a backup in case a page is lost or abandoned with no current community volunteer access. It's a simple Facebook Business Management arrangement that adds a layer of backup; in theory, even if there was an issue with the Amy account, we'd still have a way to restore access to any group that has this in place. As with the Amy account, no action is taken nationally without local consent.