I think the most effective social media outreach for our project at the Hidalgo County Public Cemetery would most likely be Twitter. I say this not only because of the writings of Lauracuente and Rocks-Macqueen but also because of my personal experience with social media and its reach.
For this blog post, I reflect on the findings of unofficial class surveys in my history and political science courses in college. Without fail, every time I took one of these courses the professor would always ask the class to answer where they get most of their news from and which media or news outlet they frequent the most. Again, without fail, the majority of the class would answer that they did not watch the news or deliberately read any newspaper and that one of their most frequented news platforms was Twitter. I think this news may have been disappointing to these professors dedicated to policy, old and new, but it could be good news for us. I don’t think we should hesitate to take advantage of the popularity of this platform if it will result in great community involvement. There is a high volume of traffic on Twitter, and a lot of kids, believe it or not, are looking to get in touch with their roots and the history of the RGV.
In addition to that, I follow a couple of anthropology and archaeology related forums and accounts on Twitter myself, as well as some accounts that share things to do around the Rio Grande Valley. A lot of people use this platform for the same reason: to find things to do and to make local connections. I personally think we should not pass up on the opportunity to reach a wider audience with the local users of Twitter. As far as casting a wider net goes, Twitter is a sure-fire platform to help us pick up some volunteers or curious onlookers. I’m confident it could even help us catch the attention of some icons of Hidalgo County, or perhaps future sponsors for the restoration processes.
