Minnesota Budget Bites

The Minnesota Budget Project is now on Facebook (and, actually, Twitter too)! The results of our poll last week indicated that many of you would be happy to see us expand into this new format. So we are going to give it a go.

Why are we doing this? Well, our mission is to provide information on tax and budget issues. In fact, it’s not only our mission, it’s our passion. We will use our Facebook page to provide more real-time reporting of quick facts from hearings and other meetings, to let you know about upcoming events that we think you would find beneficial, and to share interesting reports or blogs that we come across – all through a method that is quicker and more accessible to those on the go.

We want to address a few issues that arose through our survey:

• People were concerned that Facebook might replace our blog and e-mails. No need to worry, nothing we currently do is going to change…Facebook is just one more way we can share information.
• Some are unable to access Facebook at work (or don’t have a Facebook account). As a solution, we are going to post a regular Facebook journal on the blog. The information won’t be as timely as it is on Facebook, but it will allow those who can’t follow us on Facebook, or those who missed something during a busy week, to catch up on any of the really essential information we shared. We won’t include everything – just the information we think has lasting value and would be useful to our blog audience.
• Some prefer to see us on Twitter. We also went ahead and set up a Twitter account (MNBudgetProject). Whatever we post on Facebook is set up to tweet to Twitter – so it’s yet another way of getting the information.

One thing to keep in mind:  we will continue to maintain the same high standards when it comes to the quality of the information we share through Facebook. We hope that this will be a more interactive environment, but we will still enforce our comment policy – we embrace a civil debate, but will delete any comments that are derogatory, partisan or otherwise inappropriate to our status as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

-Christina Wessel

Always on the lookout for better ways to serve our audience, we’re considering starting a Facebook page for the Minnesota Budget Project in time for the legislative session. Our goal is to have a place where we can share our work, share the good work of others and continue our quest to get vital tax and budget information into the hands of those who can use it.

How would we use our Facebook page?

• To report real-time important facts we are picking up at the Capitol or in other places
• To let people know when an interesting event or great training opportunity is coming up
• To share useful research being released by us or others

Being a fan of ours on Facebook would enable you to get information even more quickly, access it more easily through your mobile device, share it with others and engage in a conversation with us. In all, this would build on the mission of our blog – to let you know, what we know, when we know it.

However, before committing to this new strategy, we thought we’d do a little market research (and try out our blog’s survey feature!). So, please take our poll and let us know whether there is interest in seeing us on Facebook. Thank you!

(Just to clarify - since a few people have raised concerns since we posted this survey – Facebook would be in addition to everything we already do, it would not replace anything. Our blog and e-mails would continue as always.)

-Christina Wessel