South stack?

Hi Lesa,

Yes, the first Puffin was spotted back on South Stack on March 31st! You can keep up to date with all the South Stack news via the North Wales Facebook page - www.facebook.com/.../499927010123112

Kind Regards,

Ben

I agree with you Bob, I don't want to Facebook South Stack for Puffin or sightings info. either

Thanks for your response, I don't use Facebook either.....

This thread raises some interesting questions which are relevant to all RSPB reserves, not just South Stack...

1). How much time and effort should reserve staff put into promoting 'their' reserve on blogs, social media etc.?

2). What media should they use?

and, 3). How can the main RSPB website make this information easier to find?

I would suggest the following 'answers':

1). How much time staff are able to devote to this sort of thing is potentially a limiting factor, but it is something that should be considered important. 'Showcasing' the activity at a reserve helps to show members, locals, and the wider public how important the reserve is for the wildlife, and how the RSPB are working to conserve the wildlife there. If staff don't have time to write blog posts, etc. regularly perhaps they can request contributions from visitors and regularly volunteers (if takes relatively little time to scan through something that has been contributed to make sure it is OK and then post it).

2). I think that use of the RSPB forums and blogs should be encouraged, especially as  both can easily be accessed from the reserves page on the RSPB website and the most recent posts appear down the right hand side of the page.

However, use of social media like Facebook and Twitter should also be encouraged because the RSPB blogs and forum have to be specifically searched for. Social media helps the activity at reserves to be seen by a wider audience because when people are following a reserve they can very easily 'share' the reserves posts with their friends, and on Facebook others get to see links to the reserves posts if one of their friends hits the 'like' button.

Ideally I would suggest reserves should aim to post regularly on the RSPB blog - and then 'share' links to the blog on social media sites.

3). Although the reserve pages do make it fairly easy to find reserve blogs and forums, I think that it could be made easier for these to be found. At present it is not clear from the RSPB home page that there are reserve blogs that can be read. Perhaps this is something to address once more reserves have active blogs? When reserves do have Facebook pages etc., these should be linked to more obviously as well (at least on the reserve pages of this website).

Finally, to all those who have said they don't want to use Facebook for reserve sightings...

Remember that you don't have to be logged into Facebook, or even have an account, in order to read Facebook pages (as long as they are set to 'public', as all RSPB Facebook/Twitter pages should be). Any reports/comments posted to a public Facebook/Twitter page can be read in the same way as any other web page. You only need to sign up if you want to comment.