Grand Lodge Social Media

By Nicholas J. Sampogna, PM Fraternity Lodge No. 54 & The Colonial Lodge No. 1821

WB Nicholas Sampogna

Istarted this year excited to take on my new Grand Lodge committee assignment. I scoured the calendar for meeting dates, planned photoshoots, dreamt up live video integrations, and generally worked on finding new ways to make sure the world of Freemasonry was aware of the great work our Grand Lodge was planning to do in 2020. And then… well, you know the rest.

For the last eight years, I’ve worked for the Superstars of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), traveling the world and helping to tell the television and real-life stories of amazing athletes, some of whom, many of you (hopefully) are familiar with. In my time with the company, WWE has amassed over 1 BILLION social media followers across all platforms, so when I was approached to help the Grand Lodge with our social accounts, I was excited to apply what I have learned with WWE to our Craft.

Today, we are ten months into our project to enhance our social presence, and it has been an absolute pleasure assisting our Director of Communications, WB Jason Van Dyke, our Grand Secretary, MWB Jeffrey Russell, and our Most Worshipful

Grand Master, Michael D. Nicholas, Sr., as they strive to keep the Grand Lodge and its constant work connected to YOU—our members. As the calendar was supposed to be filled with events and new opportunities for prime content, COVID redirected that plan. And the Grand Lodge Social Media subcommittee found a new way forward, a new way to keep our Lodge members interested and up-to-date while stuck on a bevy of Zoom calls and

without the jewels, aprons, and collars we traditionally fuss about.

Initially, adapting our social media to meet the current conditions of our Grand Lodge was a bit of a challenge without the many events we had planned. While the Grand Lodge has had two townhall meetings, rolled out an entirely new website, and restarted virtual lodge meetings, the traditional meat and potatoes posts from those canceled events was missing. And then, our Grand Historian, Bro. Chris Ruli, messaged me one day with dozens of historical photos captioned by brief anecdotes – and voila, “what’s old is new again,” as the saying goes.

Each week, we populate our social channels with historical posts from Masonry in DC, famous DC Masons, or special objects from our Grand Lodge archives. But again, is only the beginning. We’ve used what I have learned from my day job combined with the years of professional service represented by our Grand Lodge Office, to create best practices on our “social” to help share and publicize the work that this Grand Lodge is continually doing, even through the current pandemic. A wonderful example of this is the joint letter penned by MWB Nicholas and his Price Hall counterpart, Most Worshipful Brother Quincy G. Gant of the MWPHGLDC, which was seen by over 14,000 people on Facebook alone!

Social media, when utilized properly, can spread the unifying message of Freemasonry thousands of miles outside of our own capital city, and it is our job to make sure we populate it properly. There is no substitute for the warmness of fraternal greetings, or the experience of initiation, but I hope you’ve still felt connection to Freemasonry and our Grand Lodge, even while we’ve been away from physically being in our lodges. And be on the lookout for more great posts in the weeks ahead. Like I said before, we just got started.

Follow the Grand Lodge on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Search “DCGrandLodge” on all platforms and “follow” and “like” to see the newest posts, videos, and updates from the Grand Lodge. If you don’t receive the Grand Lodge’s “Weekly Digest” visit our brand new website’s Member Resources section and sign up (https://www.dcgrandlodge.org/ newsletter-sign-up.html). (You’ll need the site password, which you can get from your lodge secretary or by contacting the Office of the Grand Secretary.)