What’s in it for your organisation?
Run well, social media engages and retains your members. Run really well, it can become a source of membership growth and even sponsorship revenue.
Whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram; and no matter if it’s public or private – be sure to remember everything is for your members. To do this:
- Share valuable content. Ideally, content that your members want to share via their own social channels.
- Connect members with key industry personnel.
- Create networking opportunities and support systems.
- Prove your value in advocacy.
- Be active on the social channels where your members are.
Effective social media builds a self-perpetuating community.
Connected members who are engaged with their peers are more likely to be retained.
These engaged members will become your best and biggest advocates, encouraging their peers to become new members.
Where there’s an engaged and relevant audience, sponsors are circling to spread their message. Generate revenue for your organisation through paid partner and sponsorship opportunities. On your terms, you can allow sponsored messages that should add value, and not just be a bland advertisement.
Retention, membership growth and sponsorship are compelling reasons to have a member focused social presence. If that’s not enough, consider you’ll also be able to:·
- Listen (and react) to your members in real time.
- Better control your organisation’s communication and messaging.
- Build a sense of community.
- Build a membership acquisition pipeline.
- Drive more traffic to your organisation or event website.
- Increase membership satisfaction.
- Connect with members via a channel they check several times per day. (Australians spend nearly 2 hours a day on social media)
As a final added benefit, maintaining active social media channels gives your association more brand presence. Links from these social channels to your website builds trust with Google. Building the trustworthiness of your website works to improve your rankings in search results. The more people who find your association, learn about membership benefits and engage, the greater the opportunity to grow the membership base and your advocacy work.
At pepperit, we work with associations and not for profits to make social media an effective membership tool, not a chore. We’d love to hear from you so please contact us to chat.