Facebooking for Conservative Activists

The conservative movement as relates to social media really relies on two key complementary factors: (1) Conservative leaders have to produce relevant and engaging content and (2) Conservative activists have to be willing to promote and share that content. I have and will continue to write blogs full of tips for conservative leaders, but I want to switch gears in the next few posts and focus on activists.

As an administrator for many Facebook Pages, I spend a lot of time asking Facebook fans and other supporters to share Pages, Groups, links, Notes, and more with their Facebook friends. The goal of these posts is to give you a few tips for sharing and spreading the conservative message to your friends and family on Facebook.

The first installment in this series will explain how to use Facebook Lists to target specific Facebook friends.  The second and third posts will then walk you through how to use those lists to share links and suggest great conservative pages to your friends.

Using Facebook Lists

For many of us, including myself, our Facebook friends include people with whom we don’t necessarily want to share our political views. Having been on Facebook since my freshman year of college, I’ve accumulated many former professors, colleagues, church friends, my brothers ex-girlfriends, former bosses, and even family members who I know will not appreciate frequent updates in their news feed about Sarah Palin’s Facebook Notes (this one is a good read) or the latest campaign Facebook Page I’m recommending (this one). Thus, I share your hesitancy to broadcast your political opinions to all of your Facebook connections.

The good news is Facebook allows you to categorize your friends into different lists and then target your updates according to those lists. This process takes a little time and effort on the front end, but you will find it really helpful once complete.

To get started, go to your home page or newsfeed page on Facebook. Look for this box in the upper left-hand corner and click “more”:

The list will be expanded.  Select “create new list”:

A box will pop up with pictures of all of your Facebook friends, groups, and pages.

Type in the name for your list and scroll through your Facebook friends to find the people you want to put in that list (select them by clicking on their picture).  Once you’ve selected your list, click “Create List.” Go back to the Facebook home page where you should now see your list in the top left hand corner.

That’s the play by play for creating Facebook lists. In the next installment of this series, I will show how to put these new lists to work to help you more easily and comfortably spread the conservative message.

I hope you’ll take the time to glance through these guides and share them with other activists who might need a hand!  2010 is going to be a great year for us, but we have to work together to get there! Get Facebooking!

2 Responses to “Facebooking for Conservative Activists”

1. Patterson says:

   January 29, 2010 at 2:52 am

   Alright, I’ve made my lists, when does the next tutorial come out?
2. Jessica says:

   January 29, 2010 at 10:18 am

   Soon!