100,000 fans of World Scouting on Facebook !

The members of the World Scout Committee had chosen three themes to shape the dynamic of their 2008-2011 mandate. One of these themes was “Tell the Story”.

Of course, one main element of this process is to take advantage of the new Web 2.0 medias. Opened in October 2009, the official WOSM Facebook page has just reached 100,000 fans.

The success was instantaneous, especially among youth. 68% of WOSM's fans on Facebook are under 25 years old (see graph below).

These new channels offer a more direct means of communication to show how Scouting impacts young peoples’ lives, and to share innovative ideas or success stories from certain National Scout Associations.This all helps to convey a more dynamic and particularly more modern image of the Movement.

Some other groups on Facebook allow Scouts from all over the world to get into contact with each other and share ideas on the activities they are organising at a local level. These groups, which are split under different themes ( Scouts of the World Award, World Scout Environment Programme, JOTA-JOTI), are also very popular.

Other social networks are used by WOSM to offer a direct access to its publications, photos and videos. All of these resources are available now and can directly be used at the local level.

The use of these websites has attracted more visitors to the institutional website of WOSM (scout.org), which received in 2010 more than 1 million visits (between 80,000 and 110,000 unique visitors per month).

Other projects are currently under consideration to facilitate the searching of information on the website and to improve the access to the site from smartphones.

Sharing resources in a more efficient manner in order to reach the most people possible allows World Scouting to position itself as a major leader of innovation in the field of non-formal education.

Stats about Facebook page on the 15th of February