The Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers (MARP) has joined the social network websites Facebook and Twitter. Social network websites have been  helpful to organizations in getting their messages out, strengthening networks and building memberships to their cause.

A major benefit for MARP members and the public who become “a fan” of the Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers Fan Page or decide to follow”tweets” on Twitter is that they will be automatically notified of updates such as breaking news on the MARP website at www.marp.org.

To access the Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers’ Fan Page on Facebook, click on Facebook or the Facebook icon at the upper right corner of any web page on www.marp.org. The direct link is: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michigan-Association-of-Railroad-Passengers/106717032702437?ref=nf. You may have to join Facebook to use all of the functions such as posting to the web page wall and sharing pictures. You may recognize some names and make new friends while on the web page or find links to other Fan Pages or websites of interest. Updates to the MARP Fan Page and www.marp.org will show up anytime you log onto Facebook, depending how you have your settings.

To acces the MARP Twitter page, click on Twitter or the Twitter icon on the upper right corner of any web page on www.marp.org. The direct link is: http://twitter.com/michrailpass. (Tweets on Twitter are limited to 140 characters. Twitter is an excellent way to keep up with the latest news and can even be accessed on many cell phones depending on the type of cell phone account you have.

Since January, there has been a third way to follow updates on www.marp.org called a RSS news feed. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary and is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. To access the MARP’s RSS feed, click on RSS Feed or the RSS feed icon on the upper right corner of any web page on www.marp.org. The direct link is: http://www.marp.org/?feed=rss. At the top of the RSS Feed page, there are instructions on how to use the feed and how to configure it. Many browsers, such as Internet Explorer, allow you to automatically configure the RSS feed function of the browser by clicking the  Subscribe to this feed link at the top of the page.

By the way, the “Comments”  link at the upper right corner of any page at www.marp.org functions much the same way an RSS feed. Instead of providing a feed of updates to the website, it provides a feed of recent comments to content on the website.