Facebook is becoming much more than just a place on the 'net to connect with friends and send out messages.

With now more than 300 million users worldwide, Facebook's appeal has grown beyond individuals simply looking for their long-lost high school classmates. There are countless others who are now seeing a variety of benefits from joining the social networking site.

In the Tantramar area, for instance, many local businesses, organizations and even municipalities are jumping on the Facebook and Twitter bandwagon to explore a market that is opening the doors to new opportunities and possibilities.

For Karen Valanne, artistic director of Live Bait Theatre in Sackville, the idea of linking up with hundreds of potential theatre-goers was too good to pass up.

"I started using Facebook to promote Live Bait when I realized how fast that tool was growing," she says. "Everyone in the world seemed to be using Facebook."

Live Bait now has nearly 500 members in its Facebook group, almost as many as it has in its e-mail supporters' list, she says.

"It's a great way to send out news about Live Bait," says Valanne. "And I like that I can include photos, video and links to news articles as well."

She also likes that Facebook is interactive. People can leave comments or send messages directly to her, getting a dialogue going.

And what's even better?

"One of the advantages is that I can update it and create events myself in my pajamas at 6 a.m. I don't have to wait for a web designer to do the work for me."

The town of Sackville also recently added its name to Facebook's pages.

Warren Maddox, Sackville's director of community economic development and tourism, says his department has been toying with the idea of getting the town on board with Facebook for several months now, particularly following a conference he attended in which the biggest topic of conversation was the latest "social networking phenomenon."

During that conference, Maddox says a key player on US President Barack Obama's campaign team talked about how much of an impact Facebook had during Obama's bid for presidency last year.

"It seems to really have legs, it seems to be an effective tool to get the message out," he says.

Maddox also points out that, through Facebook, the town is able to reach a demographic it normally wouldn't hit - 17-to-27-year-olds (while 30-to-40-somethings are also joining the fray on the web).

And he says that while the town's mass marketing campaigns will still come in the form of the usual newspaper and radio ads, as well as website notices and signs, Facebook is simply an added tool that helps promote community events and businesses.

"You need to keep up with what technology is doing and what's happening in the technological world."

School District 2 is also pursuing every available means to communicate with the public by taking advantage of social media to interact with parents and the community.

The local school district recently launched an official Facebook page (also linked to Twitter) to send out messages, information, event notifications, pictures and videos.

"Facebook and Twitter are great ways to get information about our district and schools into our community's hands quickly," says superintendant Karen Branscombe. "These free and easy tools are an addition to the many other communication avenues that our district and schools use to communicate."

Aubrey Kirkpatrick, director of finance, administration and communications for School District 2, says with more than 300 million Facebook users, it is clear that this social media is a perfect communication avenue from which to reach out.

"We know that conversations are happening online about our children, their community and our schools and the district wants to join in and foster that conversation via this site" says Kirkpatrick.