From the constitution of the Longboat Roadrunners:
“[Section] 29 Promotions
(1) Persons or companies wishing to sell goods or services to the Club shall submit a written request to the Board. The Board will deal with each request on an individual basis.”
The Facebook advertising policy of the Longboat Roadrunners, decided at the Board Meeting of 3 February 2016 and posted on Longboat’s Facebook feed on 5 February 2016.
Advertising Guidelines for Longboat’s Facebook page: This Wednesday past, the executive decided upon guidelines for what advertising should be allowed or not allowed on our Facebook page. Long story short, the purpose of our Facebook page is to promote the Longboat Roadrunners, to enable Longboaters (and Longboat friends) to have conversations about running, or simply to engage in friendly banter. To that end, we don’t want our space to get crowded out with product advertising. So advertising posts by non-club members will be removed. Posts by club members that discuss running related products or which promote club related activities will be allowed. There is admittedly a grey area involved here, but common sense should serve as a reliable guide. Here are some examples:
Example One: if a race director who is not a member of Longboat tries to advertise a race, that will be removed. If, on the other hand, a member of Longboat’s executive wants to promote a race because Longboat has been given a club discount, that’s OK. Likewise, if a club member wants to discuss the merits or demerits of a race (or group of races), as Tony Serwatuk just did, that’s great. (That was a really good discussion).
Example Two: If a non-club member wants to promote a product, that will be removed. If a club member wants to draw the attention of the club to a product or sale, as Laura McLean has just done, that is OK. In fact, Laura’s post is excellent because she discussed the product as part of a marathon preparation strategy (on which she is an expert).
Example Three: Longboat recently received an offer from the producers of the forthcoming movie on Jesse Owens to advertise their product on our space. Not OK. However, if a Longboater wanted to organize a club party to watch the movie, that would be fine.
If you are in doubt about something, ask for feedback. Or simply shift the discussion to your own Facebook feed (as I did recently with my post about loving Kinvara 4s). Ask yourself these questions: is this product discussion something that EVERY Longboater needs to know about? Or, is this a discussion that could benefit a Longboater I don’t know?
These guidelines can be refined with the benefit of further experience and discussion. Having once been a professional moderator for a discussion list on American foreign policy, I would prefer that the club exercise a light hand on Facebook posts. But long story short, we do need some guidelines because there are many, many groups out there which are eager for us to do heavy promotional work on their behalf in exchange for a pittance.