New Year's Resolution for Portsmouth: Get On Facebook!

At the risk of stirring up the technophobes in town, I’d like to make a recommendation to the town administration for the new year.

Please establish and use a Portsmouth, Rhode Island, Facebook page – just as Middletown and many other area towns do – to communicate with the citizens of Portsmouth.

Facebook is free and only requires that someone at the Town Hall make or coordinate postings of official town announcements. If everyone there is too busy or this isn’t within their job description, I’m sure a volunteer town “Facebook administrator” could be found to help out.

Why do we need Facebook? To provide a way for the town to communicate important announcements to its citizens and for residents to provide comments and suggestions back to the town. I’ve been told that there are over 4,900 adult Facebook users in Portsmouth, all of whom are potential customers for town announcements.

Obviously, this isn’t something that everyone uses, but I suspect that if Portsmouth residents knew that the town was using Facebook to post important news and other information about town events, the numbers of people following Portsmouth on Facebook would increase.

Facebook would not be a total fix for the town’s communications issues: some residents do not use the Internet at all. To ensure that critical announcements reach as many residents as possible, a reverse 911 system is probably the best bet, as almost everyone has a telephone.

But the benefits of a Facebook page go beyond just sending information out, it could also be used by the town’s leadership to get feedback on important issues by asking questions and allowing comments. The point here is that this technology is easily available, now, at no cost.

I suggest that the town establish a Facebook page and then experiment with how town leaders want to use it. Many other towns use Facebook successfully in the ways described here. Why doesn’t Portsmouth?