As social media has become more popular, it has been enthusiastically embraced by non-profits and community groups looking to make their voices and position heard. In many respects, social media has leveled the playing field by giving people a powerful and popular platform that can thrive even if their issues and causes aren’t embraced by traditional media.

Until recently, I was an interested observer in this social movement. But that changed when Toronto’s Parks and Recreation Department proposed to eliminate community board that operated eight arenas in the city, including one in my neighbourhood that does a great job of serving the needs of the entire community.

The proposal made no sense because community-operated arenas are well run, clean, provide amazing programming and, as important, are profitable. This compares with the 40 city-operated rinks that lose $13-million/year.

Rather than just idly sit by and watch the politicians carry out this flawed plan, several members of my community and I decided to get involved to make it clear there was another point of view out there. So what do you do to promote the cause. These days, you tap into social media.

The first move was creating a Facebook Fan Page that could be used to explain our position and highlight links to interesting content such as newspaper articles, blog posts and documentation from the city of Toronto. Given that Facebook has more than 400 million registered users, it was a user-friendly way to attract support.

Another tool we tapped was an online petition. We ended up using GoPetition, a free service that’s pretty easy to use. In particular, “signing” the petition was quick and did not require providing information beyond a name and e-mail address.

In the end, we got 252 Facebook Fans and 258 GoPetition signatures. It was a respectable number although, in hindsight, we could have probably attracted more support by delivering flyers to peoples’ houses and putting postcards on utility polls.

That said, I think the Facebook Page and petition were successful they did galvanize the community, and allowed us to highlight the issues when approaching newspaper reporters and bloggers. This gave us credibility, and played a key role in generating some much-needed newspaper and blog coverage.

And in the end, we would like to think that our campaign worked. Rather than eliminating the community boards, city council approved a compromise that will hopefully serve the needs of everyone involved.

For me, the process was enlightening and educational process. It provided me with first-hand knowledge of how social media can be an effective communications and lobbying tool, as well as insight into how Facebook Fan Pages work.