ABGA Facebook Page

For this week’s blog we are supposed to analyze a social media site or a website that would be related to our blog. Because many people are on Facebook and many organizations have switched a lot of their information to these kinds of social media sites I will be analyzing the American Boer Goat Association (ABGA) Facebook page.  For class this week we are learning some ways that make pages more user friendly and more attractive. I will also be looking at the content of the page and the messages it is trying to communicate.

The first thing to look at on a page is to see what the purpose of the site is and if it is easily understood. The purpose of the American Boer Goat Association page is very evident. They want to better connect with the members. Looking at the about information section should tell a person a little more about an organization. The ABGA site has a lot of good information about its organization. It tells the mission of the organization which is to promote and protect Boer goats and have records of them. It also has a very good description of the organization. It states where the headquarters are, an estimate of how many animals are registered, when the organization was founded, and some of the services the ABGA provide.  It also addresses the values of the organization, which are strong ethics, service, team work, inclusive decision making, and fiscal responsibility. This may be important information for viewers of the site if they have had organizations that lack one of these values in the past and it is significant to them.

                                                      ABGA show in Kentucky

                The targeted audience for the ABGA page is Boer goat producers and more specifically those who are interested in showing and having registered animals. The page does an excellent job of communicating information that producers needs to know. The page has updates on shows, member dues, and meeting minutes. They share links that are helpful to growers like tattooing tutorials and let them know that the correct identification letter for 2014 is letter D. Each year has a different tattoo letter that needs to be used. So the first kid born in 2014 would be D001 and then each goat after would have the same sequence D002, D003 and so forth. This is an easy way for the organization to age animals in case ear tags follow out.

                A final thing to look at is the page design and accessibility. First off the page has a good html tag. It is easy to find because their organization is the last section. The whole address is https://www.facebook.com/AmericanBoerGoatAssociation. The page looks really professional and is easy to navigate through. The cover photos are clean and often contain a main message that they want its members to know. The big event they want people to know about right now is that the national show is coming up in Nebraska in June.  Photos are organized by event or show so it does not take long for people to find what they are searching for.  Also if people have questions about something the organization is normally pretty quick with a response.
               
                The only thing that the site lacks is connections with other social media sites like twitter. It does have its official website listed which is a great resource if people have further questions about the organization.  This website is www.abga.org . It also has the phone and address for the main office. If you are looking for information on the American Boer Goat Association I would definitely recommend checking out their page.