Intro
At the beginning of the year we asked you about what you would like to see from us in regards to our communications activities going forward. We greatly appreciate everyone who took the time to answer our communication surveys. You gave us a lot of really useful information and feedback. Now that we’ve had a chance to review it all and make some plans, we wanted to share that information and let you know some of the things you can expect from us over the coming year.
Blog and Newsletter
This is the first edition of our new weekly blog. The topics for the blog articles will vary, but will include “Getting to Know Us” articles about our team members and partners, stories about our projects and events, educational articles related to grassland communities and the different organisms that inhabit those communities, photo essays, and much, much more. Once a month the blog will be a newsletter that focuses on news, announcements, and upcoming events. The blog articles and newsletters will be posted on our website, emailed to everyone, and shared on our Facebook pages.
Videos and YouTube Channel
Many of you have mentioned that you really enjoy the short, educational videos that are periodically posted on Facebook. Several of you also mentioned that you would like to see those videos on other platforms besides just Facebook. In fact, when asked what platforms you would like to hear from us on, YouTube came in 3rd – not too far behind Facebook. (Email was overwhelmingly the preferred method of hearing from us.) So, we’re planning to give you more videos and a more active YouTube channel.
Over the next few weeks we plan to upload many of our Facebook videos to YouTube and to create organized YouTube playlists of those videos. We are also planning to produce more videos in the future that we can share on both YouTube and Facebook. Those videos will cover a wide variety of topics including plant highlights, historical observations related to grasslands, how-to topics, and more. The videos may take us a little more time to get started on a regular basis, but we’re excited to be moving in that direction.
Facebook Pages and Groups
We currently have three active Facebook pages and groups – the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative page; the Southeastern Grasslands Ecology, History, and Biodiversity group; and the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative Volunteer group. We plan to continue posting on Facebook and engaging with our followers there.
Other Forms of Communication
In addition to the regular forms of communication discussed above, we will also be periodically participating in other forms of communication such as podcasts, news interviews, and educational presentations. As these come up, we’ll be sure to share them with you. We’ve heard you repeatedly say that you want to hear more from us and know more about what we are doing. Providing that regular communication and keeping you better informed about all of our activities is high on our list of priorities for this year.
