email Congress using Facebook, and why not to

Congress.org has unveiled a new tool, called “Tell Congress,” on their Facebook page, www.congress.org/facebook.

With just a few clicks, you can send a message to your representatives on the important issue of the week.

When you’re done, you can share the tool with your friends on Facebook and post it on your wall to help generate more letters to Congress and amplify your voice.

While tapping the user-base of Facebook will undoubtedly bring awareness to more people and solicit their involvement in the legislative process, please continue to write letters and call your elected officials.

It’s all too easy to delete emails as “spam” or throw them into a folder and just look at the number of emails for or against a topic — without even having read them.

Writing a letter takes time, and not just for you. Every letter that arrives at the office of your legislator must be opened by a human, read by a human, and notes take by a human. After that, ideally a response must be written, also by a human, then stuffed into an envelope, again, by a human. All this human involvement adds extra perceived importance or weight to the topics talked about in those letters.

Phone calls also carry substantial weight — and are nearly immediate ways to communicate on time-sensitive votes.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t use this new tool from Congress.org, just don’t let it replace your current methods of communication.