Social media is an important component of the fight against hunger and obesity, and the fight for the best school nutrition for America’s kids. Using Facebook and Twitter are important tools for disseminating the information we publish on this blog but they are equally important as research tools. Every day hundreds, thousands, millions of people are having public conversations debating everything from Justin Bieber’s haircut to what “healthy school food” really means.
My conference badge, the Flip I used to record short interviews, my camera. This photo taken with my Droid and then downloaded to my laptop. So … I like social media, yes.
When I write something I post a link to it on my Facebook page as soon as it’s published. I want people to read what I write and so I put it in front of their faces in a quick and easy way. I also find information by joining fan pages of my favorite causes and organizations; all of the Breakfast in the Classroom partners have Facebook pages: School Nutrition Foundation, FRAC, NEAHIN, and the NAESP.
TrayTalk.org is updated on Facebook through the School Nutrition Association page and the Let’s Move! Campaign maintains an active Facebook fan page, too.
This weekend, after being asked what it is I do with social media, I described myself as a “Twitter tutor”. I love Twitter … love, love, love it. It’s another great place to enter our blog into the ongoing conversation people are having about #schoolfood and #hunger and #poverty and how to achieve the goal of #nokidhungry. What’s with the funny numbers sign? On Twitter when you place a # symbol in front of a word, with no spaces in between, you create a “hashtag”. This is a searchable link which, when clicked, displays every other Tweet that uses that hashtag. It’s how you tap into ongoing conversations or create one of your own. For people attending the LAC conference the hashtag is #lac2011. Anyone Tweeting from the conference (including me!) could add that hashtag to a Tweet and we would all see it. The FRAC conference is using #hungerpc2011. Use the hashtag #schoolbreakfast to talk about school breakfast with others.
I’m on Twitter and so are the SNA, FRAC, NEAHIN and the NAESP. Yes, the Let’s Move! campaign is on there, as is “The Slow Cook Ed Bruske, who I met on Monday afternoon of the LAC. The WalMart Foundation is on Twitter, too. Who do you follow that you think we should be paying attention to? How do you use social media? Leave us a comment!
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