Jazz Advocate's plunge into "Social Networking"

I received the following from on of my readers:

I, for one, am disappointed about the newsletter soon going through Facebook  only.  I don't feel comfortable with the "social networking" so won't be opening a Facebook page at all. I'll miss the info but fully understand your situation and need for ease and convenience. Hope to see you around at DJO, and esp summer concerts at Riverscape.  Thanks for all your time and work to keep jazz alive in our area.

My reply:

I understand what you are saying and I have had a few similar comments on this subject.  I have two big problems with continuing the newsletters with Constant Contact.  One is the cost but more important is trying to format our publication on their server.  I came to the conclusion that I had to change so from now on all newsletters will be posted on our website at www.jazzadvocate.com.  Having made this decision, it leaves the challenge of sending out the word that a new edition has been posted to 2,000 people.  In reality there are several options available and I have four or five months left on our contract with Constant Contact in which to work them out.  The following are several options that I’m looking at:

1. – Continue with Constant Contact and use it just to send out notice of new newsletters.   This means we spend $300 to $400 a year just to say hey we’ve posted a newsletter.  Of course if we continue this service, it could be used for occasional news release sending’s.  In addition, if cut the size of our mail list to under 500 (we are presently paying the under 2500 rate), our cost would be cut in half.  This option is still on the table.
2. – Use Facebook postings to notify local jazz fans about our new postings.  The supposed great wave that everybody is riding has its own challenges.  You create a Jazz Advocate in Dayton, Cincinnati & Columbus Facebook page, which we have done.  Then you try to get all of you readers to go there and “Like” the page so they will receive our notice on their News Feed page.  This is going to take some time to develop, maybe longer then my remaining contract with Constant Contact.  While Facebook may be useful for miscellaneous jazz notes, I’m getting the feeling it may not be great for notice of newsletters.
3. – Use Twitter messages to notify local jazz fans about our newsletter postings.  It’s starting to look like this may be a better way to go.  The messages are short and simple but allow a link to our newsletter to be included.  I have Rosemary set up on Twitter just to follow Jazz Advocate, that way she only receives our postings without a bunch of clutter.  It is a real simple to set up and is a non-obtrusive way to go for those who don’t want the "social networking" hassle.
4. – Send direct emails to notify fans of new newsletters being posted on our website.  For those opposed to "social networking," we could create a special mail list and send the notices out separately.  There is a limit as most Internet Service Providers hold you to around 100 email addresses per message.
5. – A combination of all of the above.  Chances are this will be the way we will go – a lot of extra work but what else can I do?

In summary you probably didn’t want all of this but I will be publishing it for the rest of our readers.  In the meantime I have added you to a special (inactive for now) mail list that I will use for those who like you don’t want to get into Facebook and all of the rest.  Hopefully it will be less the a hundred names.  When the time comes I will send newsletter notice out using all the way we have decided to go with, so rest assured you will be kept in the loop.

Thanks for the input.