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er Story. . .

Social Media: Communities of the

21st Century By Karen O'Keefe, DTM

What if I told you that Toastmasters If I could give you one
District 7 and Toastmasters International piece of advice, up front, it would be to
have places you can go to get help with look at your options and choose one that
speeches or your club? Places you can go works for you. If you try to set up a club
to get your questions answered no matter page (or participate in discussions in too
how large or how small? Or find new many places), you risk spreading yourself
members? Or display your speeches? Or too thin. It is tough to keep up. Figure out
market your club or advertise your what works for you and stick with that.
events? Or even find out important
information before it becomes generally Facebook
known?
Did you know that nearly 20%
You are in luck, because both locally and of the world’s population logs
internationally, Toastmasters provides a into Facebook once a month? Late last
variety of tools that will help you do all of year, Facebook reported that its active
this and more. I am talking about Social users had reached 1.35 BILLION people.
Media, which are the communities of the That’s more people than live in China.
21st century. The purpose of this article, is What that represents to Toastmasters is a
to tell you about the Social Media wealth of opportunity. Facebook is a great
channels that are available to you today— place to advertise your events, tell your
right now—for just about anything you friends about Toastmasters, and interact
could possibly need as a Toastmaster. with other Toastmasters in District 7 or
internationally. People often ask me how I
More than 50% of Toastmasters are over know so much about Toastmasters and
the age of 45, which also corresponds to my answer is usually Facebook.
the largest growing group of social media Membership to Facebook is free and you
users. Social Media use is so prevalent can set your account up to be as private
today that if you are not using one or or limited (or public and unlimited) as you
more social media tools, you run the risk like. One of my clubs does all its club
of being left behind. Consider this your business through our club FB page (all
introduction to Toastmasters social media.
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