Gina Grant, Shane Smyth and Taralouise McCaughey representing Donegal at the Facebook Communities Summit in London.
Three people from Donegal were invited by Facebook to participate in the social media giant’s Communities Summit held recently in London.
Shane Smyth (Bundoran) who admins the local Facebook group “Inform Bundoran”, Taralouise McCaughey (Bundoran) and Gina Grant (Letterkenny) who admins the Donegal Down Syndrome Facebook group attended the event held at various venues in London’s Olympic Park including the Lee Valley Velodrome.
The summit saw 300 page and group administrators from 24 countries in Europe spend 2 days in the company of Facebook staff, many of whom had flown in from the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California and Seattle, Washington.
During the summit, attendees were given a chance to experience how new products are built at Facebook by taking part in a unique “design sprint” where new ideas for improvements to groups and pages were brainstormed with the Facebook technical staff. Attendees across the two days also had the opportunity to meet with staff to find out more about the various products offered by the social media site and ask questions about the features that make the site work.
Shane Smyth said “this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to take part in an event run by Facebook, meet the people who make the social media site work and also to effect positive changes for us as users and see our suggestions and ideas get possibly developed for inclusion on Facebook. It was an amazing experience to meet so many likeminded people from all across Europe who like ourselves use Facebook on a daily basis to build and effect real change in the communities around us.
Inform Bundoran has been running for just over 2 years now and has almost 2000 members, mostly permanent residents of the town who rely on the group for accurate and reliable information about what’s happening in the town. Hopefully our experience with the Facebook team over the past few days will further enhance the offering of the group to the members for many years to come. Just four groups from Ireland were invited to take part and I know I speak for all of us when I say a huge thank you to the Facebook team for having us and looking after us so well during the event.”
New Facebook products were announced during the summit which were rolled out immediately to group admins including the ability to highlight up to 10 posts or announcements, new admin tools, personalisation of the page and also a new investment in community leaders programme.
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