Social Media

[ISR]

I’m wondering what other hunts may have as policies with regards to social media.

Does your hunt have a Facebook (Twitter?) account? Is it set up as a “page”, “group”, or “friend”? Do you have any privacy settings? What do you see as the advantages, disadvantages?

Also, what if any content do you restrict members to sharing? Pictures, discussion of the day of hunting? Or is it a “what happens in the hunt field, stays in the hunt field” approach?

This time of year we’re working on our outreach and new membership. We are trying to find a balance between keeping with tradition, and using new technology to spread the word of the sport (without offending or drawing unwanted negative attention to the club).

Also interested in hearing how any negative social media reactions were treated by the clubs. Do you delete/ignore? Respond?

Thanks–

[WildBlue]

I only keep up with the two nearest hunts on FB. Both have closed-membership groups. (Well, those and FHOL’s FB incarnation.)

I’m not sure the subject of ‘negative’ or ‘restricted’ content has ever even needed to be addressed here locally. People tend to only post things like reminders of general-interest events, hunt items for sale, or cute candid photos and brief comments about a recent outing. When everyone knows everyone, the overall tone tends to stay pretty upbeat and civil.

I’m curious how many people actually want to discuss details of the day’s outing via social media. It seems those who do have a lot more fun comparing lies (that oxer was THIS BIG) in person at the tea.

[ISR]

The negative comments are coming from people outside of the hunt, this is permissible because the FB groups are set up as fan pages, not closed groups, so in theory anyone can “like” or comment. I’ve noticed these negative comments appearing a lot, particularly in pages from hunts in the UK.

The upside of a fan page obviously is you can post disseminate information to potential members, not just members within a closed group (presumably already in the hunt?). The downside appears to be the risk of having people make unwanted, baseless comments, rude comments. Wondering if there is a right or wrong way to go about managing this element of FB, do you have two pages, one group, one fan page?

The other issue is pictures, not sure if this is actually a real issue or not, but i’m just speculating. Pictures identifying land markers, crossing into neighboring territory, territory without permission, injuries (to human or beast?). Some may be totally unintentional and obviously some common sense should be exercised when posting ANYTHING on the internet, but i’m wondering if any other hunts have addressed this.

[WildBlue]

The closed groups I’m familiar with are not limited to current hunt members. In fact, people who are at all interested in hunting are encouraged to join and ask questions. I think the groups for local hunts self-regulate by being too small and uninteresting for anyone beyond the occasional shoe salesman to spam.

Larger groups try to determine whether someone is a real person before admitting them and have to be a bit more vigilant about removing trolls and spammers. Content is, if anything, probably going to be even more generic to avoid the very problems you mentioned.

We don’t have to worry about sabs scrutinizing pictures to determine our fixture locations, so it’s not an issue I’ve heard discussed. I’m not sure anyone would be tacky enough to post an injury or something else negative and, if they did, I’m sure someone would quietly remove it and have a quiet chat with them offline.

The unspoke rule–here–appears to be that social media is for general public consumption. The weekly members-only newsletter delivered via email will contain more private club information, such as hunt reports and news and decisions made by officers/masters/huntsmen that affect the club operations. It’s still nothing that can’t be forwarded on to potential members–it’s just not put out for every fool in the world with a keyboard to comment upon.

I suspect, if you decide to run an open ‘fan’ page, the quality and tact of the moderators will determine whether the page does more harm than good. At best, they’re going to have their hands full keeping things positive and on-topic. A website with an admin who has time to thoroughly vet content every day before posting it might be a much better venue than fully-interactive media where the mods can only react to what’s already been put up.

[CindyCRNA]

Our hunt club does not have a FB page but I think it would be fun. I like the idea of a closed group where you can have members and fans but can also kick off a mean poster. Social media is a great way to keep members active, connected and stimulated.

[CANTEREOIN]

Lots of Hunts do engage in Social Media

Our hunt was struggling with the concept and the use of Social Media and a few of us formed a committee to do research on the issue (we already had a FB page). The good news is that the MFHA already had some guidelines to support the use of Social Media (can you tell how I feel about it?).

http://www.mfha.org/mfha-policies.html

And as part of our research, I pulled the list of recognized hunts from the MFHA website and joined as many of the available FB pages. You don’t have to do the same, trust me when I say a good many of them do use FB. Some hunts are active FBers year round, others are active only during the season and some have pages with little activity.

After all this research and discussion, the only thing we changed on our FB page was make the setting Closed and added a statement regarding the purpose of the page. Closed means that we either invite you to the group or you ask us and we approve your joining. Three of us are administrators and I believe I’ve only turned down one (checked her profile and not a horse was to be found but lots of sexy girly pics were).

As Administrators, we can remove posts and pictures that are offensive or unflattering. We do post hunt and event pics. Members of the group can remove tags if they wish. I did have one member ask to have a picture removed and which we did.

The three Administrators are active FBers and we are notified when someone posts on the site. If anything inappropriate is posted, it will be down within minutes. (We have iPhones.)

I find (and I’m sure Bogie, one of the other Administrators and a top notch communicator would agree) that the FB page promotes community, shows others the fun they’re missing by not participating, encourages new members and promotes our events.

It’s fun, works in engaging members, entices non-members and its free!

[Bogie]

I concur! Facebook is a great way to build your community. I think our members really enjoy that they can post photos from the hunts without working through our website administrator (me)! to post them.

It helps with our communications outreach too. Since members and friends of the hunt like to communicate in different ways we use Facebook, our website, direct email and even regular old snail mail. We use the Website for information that is relatively static (our fixture card, hunt protocols, etc) and the FB page for discussions about hunts, photos etc. As the website administrator I was always frustrated that more people didn’t post their thoughts there but FB is so much easier.

As mentioned above, our FB page is a closed group but we don’t restrict it to members, we just don’t invite public comment.

[FitToBeTied]

Several years ago, I redid the site for what was then my hunt. I also built the facebook page. I was/am an advocate of as open as possible. A lot of the people having anti paranoia didn’t want to do anything. In the last five years, I’d estimate 90% of the new members’ initial contact was through either FB or the website.

When I set up the FB page, I think it was a group. Moderators had to approve new members. Once approved then they could post pictures, comments, etc. If they posted something that was not hunting related or inappropriate we pulled it and sent them a polite warning. If they did it again, we deleted them.

The website was geared to new people trying to find out how to hunt with us. The hunt schedule was on the front page. It was one click to fixture maps, directions, fees and key contacts. I had comments from people that we appeared to be the friendliest hunt around.

Social media is definitely a balance but in the days of dwindling hunts, I think more open is better.

I think Bull Run has an excellent site (http://www.bullrunhunt.com). It is very open and easy to negotiate. Farmington Hunt is pretty good but a little more private than BRH. (http://www.farmingtonhunt.org/). There is a lot of variation.

[candysgirl]

Ours is a closed group, but anyone can join that group. It ends up being a lot of reminders of upcoming events. It also gets updated with info on weather conditions and cancellation of the day’s hunt due to weather or ground conditions.

Some of the younger members also whip out cell phones or small cameras during the hunt. Typically this is at checks, but a couple of us have horses that have enough of an autopilot to pull them out while riding. Everyone seems to enjoy the pictures.

[wateryglen]

JMHO~

A lot of the hunts in our area are on fb besides their websites. And for the most part; it’s all good. But we did have someone NOT a participant/member; who is an animal rescue type who wrote on their own blog that they were appalled at something they THOUGHT a hunt had done. Their thoughts made it onto some member/non-member timelines and became a discussion which sadly the hunt had to address on their page. It was a rumor control sort of thing and it’s a shame when a hunts page has to be used for that. They did a great job and it died but lesson learned. THEY are out there…watching!! :eek: And the philosophy of staying under the radar just doesn’t work nowadays. Better to nip stuff in the bud I think. And quickly is my recommendation. I love my hunts page as it’s used with great humor, photos, and stuff I sometimes miss. :yes:

[Bogie]

[QUOTE=candysgirl;7114959]

Some of the younger members also whip out cell phones or small cameras during the hunt. Typically this is at checks, but a couple of us have horses that have enough of an autopilot to pull them out while riding. Everyone seems to enjoy the pictures.[/QUOTE]

I have gotten very good at riding with reins in one hand and point and shoot camera in the other :D. There are some days when my horse needs both hands on the reins but I really enjoy taking photos while we’re out.

[tangledweb]

@CANTEREOIN;7114762

The good news is that the MFHA already had some guidelines to support the use of Social Media

http://www.mfha.org/mfha-policies.html

Thanks CANTEREOIN, I had not seen that before. It’s a much more useful document than I expected despite being quite cautious and having a fair amount of common sense rolled into it. “Don’t link to pornographic websites” … well duh.

I presume hunts in countries with a more active sab community are more discreet but around here I think Facebook serves a useful purpose keeping the less hardcore members in the loop, helping the hardcore members relive the day, and getting more people to the social and volunteer activities.

Getting hunt clubs into technology will always be a rearguard action over time. By the time you get a club used to Facebook the next generation of potential members will be using a different social network that their parents are not on.

You can’t make people who don’t want to participate participate, but beyond the hard to measure goals of internal amusement and potential new member recruitment, social media is a measurably great way of promoting your public events like hunt races, hunter paces or whatever other open events you have.

[eesterson]

MFHA’s social media guidelines

[QUOTE=tangledweb;7115870]
Thanks CANTEREOIN, I had not seen that before. “It’s a much more useful document than I expected despite being quite cautious and having a fair amount of common sense rolled into it. “Don’t link to pornographic websites” … well duh.”

As the author of said document, first we encourage all hunts to use social media (both MFHA and Covertside have facebook pages), but we also encourage careful monitoring. There’s nothing like one bad photo or helmet cam video going viral to cause a major PR hassle for all of us. And yes, there’s a fair amount of common sense rolled into it, because, well, lots of people don’t have common sense when it comes to Facebook–users of this forum may be somewhat more sophisticated than the average MFHA member (our demographics skew somewhat older). And yes, we included pornography and sexually explicit linking because you’d be amazed. Really, you would be. People are a lot less careful than you think they are.

We’re updating the manual again (I wrote it several years ago) and will continue to do so. I’m open to hearing suggestions about what should be included. Additionally, there may be a talk about this topic (as well as handling PR issues in general) at the Staff Seminar in Lexington in April.

[Martha_Drum]

[QUOTE=CANTEREOIN;7114762]

After all this research and discussion, the only thing we changed on our FB page was make the setting Closed and added a statement regarding the purpose of the page. Closed means that we either invite you to the group or you ask us and we approve your joining. Three of us are administrators and I believe I’ve only turned down one (checked her profile and not a horse was to be found but lots of sexy girly pics were).

As Administrators, we can remove posts and pictures that are offensive or unflattering. We do post hunt and event pics. Members of the group can remove tags if they wish. I did have one member ask to have a picture removed and which we did.

The three Administrators are active FBers and we are notified when someone posts on the site. If anything inappropriate is posted, it will be down within minutes. (We have iPhones.)

I find (and I’m sure Bogie, one of the other Administrators and a top notch communicator would agree) that the FB page promotes community, shows others the fun they’re missing by not participating, encourages new members and promotes our events.

It’s fun, works in engaging members, entices non-members and its free![/QUOTE]

Agree with all of this vis-a-vis the Farmington closed fb group. Updates on events, photos from meets, horse shows, social events, occasionally a random but related post (such as the recent Hunt Race video from the Dublin Horse Show) or pictures of specific hounds, which is helpful to those of us who can’t walk out. Try to remind people not to post information/identify children unless it’s OK with a parent (though usually parent is the poster). And the Admins have to be able to delete or refuse entry for those who are illegitimate. I think it’s great, but am in the camp to keep it a closed group.

[Ponyclubrocks]

My hunt has both a website and a facebook page. The Facebook page gets the vast majority of the action and we have never had a negative comment appear. You have to request to Join the FB group but we have lots of people on who are not (yet) members. We post pace results, people post lots of pictures, horses and equipment for sale etc etc. Overall it has been a very positive experience, going on three years now.

The website is handy, we can pay dues and subscriptions via paypal, there are forms and waivers available. Lots of great video footage. Parts of the website are password protected for members only and these parts include the payment section, the fixture card and calendar of events.

[JSwan]

[QUOTE=eesterson;7119903]

As the author of said document, first we encourage all hunts to use social media (both MFHA and Covertside have facebook pages), but we also encourage careful monitoring.

We’re updating the manual again (I wrote it several years ago) and will continue to do so. I’m open to hearing suggestions about what should be included. Additionally, there may be a talk about this topic (as well as handling PR issues in general) at the Staff Seminar in Lexington in April.[/QUOTE]

You did a good job.

Social media is great; like others have written the closed group FB page seems to be popular and a great deal of fun.

I saw the post Wateryglen is referring to and was horrified and disgusted by the persons responsible for it. You know the saying, “A lie makes it halfway round the world before truth gets its pants on”.

That particular lie spread like wildfire… but what concerned me was that the location of the kennel was known and activists expressed interest in breaking in and stealing hounds.

That’s the sort of thing that really frightens me about the use of social media. The lies and the number of crazies out there. So if a club was to utilize social media I’d be pretty darn careful to vet people before allowing them to join the group.

[rivenoak]

I am a member of two hunt clubs.

Both have closed groups on FB.

One has a website with both public and private sections; members are emailed a password to the private pages.

The other club is going to try having a public website again. We want people to “find us” online.