As part of our work with Sport England, BUCS and Facebook England Athletics now has a 5K running community as part of our Run In England Facebook Page. Just go along and put your latest 5K time in. Let everyone know how your running is going and look for people running similar times to you. The page can be accessed via www.runinengland.co.uk/leaderboard.

So get involved, and don’t forget to tell your friends!

More about the project - using facebook to boost participation

In partnership with Sport England, BUCS and selected universities England Athletics is working with Facebook on a pilot project to harness the phenomenon of Social Networking and use it to drive participation in athletics.

Challenge yourself, challenge your friends, challenge everyone

The universities involved in the project are creating special Facebook Pages that tell people about new running groups and running events that they are going to be creating.

Many of the universities will be rolling out the Run In England project to students, staff and the local community. As well as the usual Facebook tools of being able to share pictures and videos of activities the Pages will also be able to use new tools developed in partnership with Facebook.

These include the ability for people to challenge their friends to take part in an event and then record their performance on a leaderboard. Unlike conventional rankings lists the Pages are able to focus on specific groups of people, and can be used by Facebook members to share their experiences. As people can share the information with their Friends on Facebook the Pages allow members to give each other support, encouragement, and of course appropriate banter! All this happens within the confines of Facebook so people are able to use the Facebook privacy settings and safeguards to ensure they are able to have the kind of interaction they want, with the people they want.

Andy Barber, National Communications Officer for England Athletics, said: “This is a very good way of people taking their first steps in the sport. They may well see that one of their friends has signed up for a group and realise ‘If they can do it, so can I!’ They can also see how much fun and enjoyment their friends get from their involvement in the sport.

“The pilot project in these universities is not limited to Run In England activities but these are very appropriate for inclusion as Run In England is all about bringing people into the sport and showing them how enjoyable and accessible it can be.

“Whereas people coming into the sport could find their performances are fairly anonymous on a national or even regional rankings list this approach allows the Page specific lists to focus on people just like them.

“These Pages can become very motivational and very sociable. We’re very appreciative that Sport England and Facebook have included us in this project and are already thinking of ways that this can be rolled out to boost the wider athletics community”

Pages using the new tools that are being developed will also be able to take ‘feeds’ of information and content including video and photographs from England Athletics which means that members can be kept up to date on the latest news and information as well as their members being given additional advice and support.

Get involved!

As well as the pilot project with the selected universities, England Athletics also has a Facebook page at www.englandathletics.org/fb and Run In England has its page at www.runinengland.co.uk/facebook. Andy continued: “We would encourage people to sign up and get involved in these groups. “By signing up, posting a comment or inviting a friend to join you help to spread the word about the sport. “We put summaries of our news stories on these pages so people can comment on each story on there.”

The power of Facebook

• 19 million users in the UK
• Average Facebook users has 120 friends on the site
• 12% of users update their Status every day
• Two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
• Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications  

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