Social Networking Key to Success of REACH LA's Youth Programs

Social networking is key to the success of the youth programs of ZeroDivide grantee REACH LA.  Ovahness Leaders and Girl2Girl (G2G) Leaders use social networking to communicate with their youth constituencies and promote their programs and activities.  For them, MySpace is still the networking site of choice.  The minute a decision is made about an event (such as the Ovahness Skate Party), it is posted on the Ovahness MySpace=2.0 site. One REACH LA staff person then posts the information and sends out messages to all the Ovahness friends. Then each person sends emails or texts with the link to their friends.  In addition, another staff person then posts the link on seven or eight Yahoo group sites and on an evite list, and the event is then instantly promoted to hundreds, both locally and nationally.  The Ovahness Leaders all send out the message about the event to their own personal address books and ask that each person send the message to their friends. 

This is a truly efficient and low-cost method to promote their events.  It also reaches a diverse community that is hard to reach, except through social networks.  According to REACH LA, it seems that 100% of the youth that they meet have either a Blackberry or an iPhone and they have them on 24/7.  REACH LA continues to update them on the activities, or they forget, but with daily or weekly reminders, somehow the message gets through.