The Power of Social Media

Today I took the Bambino north for an excursion to Tuggerah Library (one of Wyong Council's libraries) where I was greeted by the bubbly Reference Librarian, Michelle Goldsmith and work experience student Sharon (who happens to be one of my Twitter pals).   I was there at the library's invitation to present a workshop on Social Media for Family History.

Michelle and Sharon made me feel most welcome and were very helpful as I set up for the gig. I saw a couple of familiar faces from the Family Historian Interest Group in the room  plus a member of the Ku-ring-gai Historical Society where I am on the Committee; I also met a fellow geneablogger, Janelle, so I felt right at home. The venue was airy, comfortable and the computer and projector worked so things augured well for the talk.

Before I got started I put out a couple of messages on Google+ and  Facebook asking my contacts to say g'day to the assembled group. Very few in the group had any experience of social media so they were most impressed when, within a few minutes, we received greetings from the US and Australia. Kylie Willison of South Australia was first off the mark , thanks Kylie.

Thank you to all of you who sent messages - you provided a great practical example of how social media works - this is more powerful than just showing a series of screenshots. See the messagaes below.

Thanks to the folk at Wyong for inviting me along. I may have bamboozled some of the group but I think most of them went away with some understanding of how social media can be used to enhance their genealogy experience. I only noticed one person nodding off so at least I kept most of them awake and that for me is an indicator of success.

From Facebook

From Google+