THSCC Forums

It depends on your perspective. From an admin perspective, yes, multiple sources are difficult to keep in sync. From a promotional perspective, the more places you get the word out, the more people are likely to see it.

I GUARANTEE you that Marty gets more business at MH Motorsports because of his Facebook presence.

My suggestion would be to clearly define goals as an organization, and then look at the means to pursuing those goals.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say one of the primary goals for '11 is increased auto-x attendance. You might also consider some sub goals -
- Getting inactive members back out to an event
- Recruiting and retaining new blood.

How do you get the inactive members back involved:
- Email campaign for "Familiar faces" with a single event discount
- Try the 1/2 day event idea mid season, and market it hard to the busy with kids/family crowd

How about new blood:
- FB/MySpace presence
- Market to some of the single Marque car clubs (VW, Mustang, Corvette, BMW, etc.) and give them their own class to play with. Foster competition between them, so they won't feel blown off the map by a THSCC regular
-Military - as suggested by others, have a school for the guys at Bragg at Laurinburg, or maybe even try to get something on site at a base. One time thing, but build good will.

Bottom line: if you want things to stay as is, keep doing things as we do now. If you want to stir up some change, you need to consider some new ventures.

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

I think that's exactly it. Having an FB presence that simply allows for event schedules and periodic status updates like "don't forget upcoming points event #_ at _____ location...see you there!" or "Had a great time at Rallycross points #3--see you next time!" would be sufficient. Adding event reminders for rallycross, HPDE, Street Survival, EV Challenge, tech days etc would also be useful.

The goal (I think) is to expand our reachable audience under the assumption that most people new or interested in autocross have and use an FB page. It is probably best used for attracting younger, novice drivers. Hence, it would be of limited use for members as we have meetings and the forum for communication.

Also, it wouldn't require any extra "checking up" as that info would already be readily available to members in the forum area. Besides, if you're already a THSCC friend, the THSCC status updates would show up on your "recent news" thread.

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Steve Carter
1972 Datsun 240Z-- resto pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/srcartermd
2007 GPW Honda S2000-- STR 86

Tom, I think you get the post of the year.

It's just using it as a free marketing source to increase attendance and gain new membership and maybe even post some cool photos (if the driver were groovy with it) of all types of cars and classes to attract new members and spark interest. I had a weekend plan fall through last year and raced in an event after getting an invite at the last minute.

I wouldn't have gone otherwise because I wasn't planning to race for couple weeks thereafter.

Marty is also good about catching threads related to his products on car forums (At least Miata ones). I try to keep an eye out for locals that would be interested in ax on the forums I frequent and nudge them towards THSCC when it's appropriate.

Matt,

I think using it for marketing is a fairly decent idea. What I am trying to say I think communicating details about the event, eg "we are going to run split run groups, so plan on being present the whole day" is going to be difficult to make sure everyone is aware when you have to post to multiple places and have the potential to miss a posting. (i got the idea this is what was meant from the subject saying notifications and alerts)

I agree 100% on this. It shouldn't/couldn't be used as a tool to communicate anything other than the event basics.

I'll join in the "few". No FB here and no plans to crowd-follow the FB bubble either. Not gonna happen...far too little time to keep up with something like that also.

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Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

Huh? What's *the* place to post it now? The THSCC website, I presume. But there's exactly nothing wrong with posting updates that happen on the website on FB as well as on this forum. Which is kind of what happens now, no? I mean even this forum isn't canonical...there are still some racers out there who don't check it often. *shrug*


--Donnie

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My Blog

Interesting timing. I just got a Facebook invite to attend the T&T on Feb 26th with those wacky progressives over at Triad.

That sould solidify our stance against posting THSCC events on FB. I mean, God forbid we do anything that TSCC has already done.

(that was said with tongue firmly planted in cheek)

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

I see what you mean on this one. All the basics (stuff to mainly help first time novices get out there with everything to make the day comfortable, etc...) can be included and just link the stuff we'd put in the forum thread into the event's 'wall' or bits and pieces anyway.

Bottom line, we'll see more F-B stuff this year, but it won't be anything you can't get on the forums.

On to the next topic, who wants first car off @ 9:30 this year? j/k

i read this somewhere.................

and what kind of slack-ass track opens at 8AM? the day is half over by 8AM.

i suppose we will be required to sip our beverages with our pinky-finger extended also.


damn country club audacious snobbery.

seems to make sense to me.

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............

Except the b*$tards change the privacy settings all the time assuming that we all want our profiles shared with advertisers who can add value to our life. Oh well, I got to go back and check on my fishfarming mafia

Why thank you sir...

It's a well known fact that when you try to implement change in an organization, it's ALWAYS met with trepidation. We are creatures of habit. We like our comfort zone. Why do I still frequent this forum, and attend the occasional THSCC event instead of getting more plugged in to DC-area events? I like it here. I still know a lot of the people. That's right - It's comfortable. Do I need to expand my horizons and run some more events up here? You better believe it. I gotta go outside of my comfort zone.

As for Facebook as a medium, I understand why some folks just don't do FB. It makes sense to me, as it's a great time vacuum. However, if used smartly and sparingly, you can tune most of that out and get what you're really interested in. Donnie's commentary about being choosy accepting friend requests is key. I think if used smartly, a carefully honed FB presence could help the club attract some blood, and keep the FB-enabled current membership better informed.

I'm not even going to start on Twitter. I still don't get that.

Here's all you need to know about social networking:
Twitter: "I need to pee!!"
Facebook: "I just peed!"
FourSquare: "I peed at the IHOP on Capital Blvd"

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

Come on Chuck....remember when BMW started using fuel injection? At first I'm sure you thought "screw that, I'm going to go rebuild my solex carbs......for the 10th time" .

Seriously, I see this FB page as a means of communicating anything:

-Event day reminders
-It's going to be hot, bring water/electrolytes
-It might rain this weekend, bring tarps
-Thanks everyone for putting up with that 7 cone slalom
-We're doing a 2 day autocross for the next event for the Jimmy V charity...bring your friends and their friends and support charity
-The turn out is very large tomorrow (let's get to this point), so please everyone be on time and tech-ed
-Avoid the traffic project on 15-501 in Roxboro and take 86 instead to Danville
-Yesterday was a smoothly run event, thanks everyone who came out
-Sorry grid was a mess today, we have learned from it and will make sure it is better next time

I think people are underestimating the pervasiveness of FB on a large proportion of society nowadays. People can't help but click the little red notification thing in the upper left hand corner when it pops up and see it's a message from THSCC....well let's see what they have to say.

Or the stalker type who sees that 3 of their friends RSVPed to THSCC points event 3 in blah blah. Hell, the wife is out of town, I should go to that.

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2011/2012 Autox VP
2013/2014.5 President
2013 Top Gun

2015 Fit

22R-EC => 4G63 => D16Y7 + D16Y8 => EJ255 + K24Z2 => K20Z3 + K24Z2 => K24Z2 + M54 => L15B

it's as if you speak a foreign language James, what?

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............