Using Social Media to Promote Your Club

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Using Social Media to Promote Your Club
Tips, Tools, Insider Secrets
By VPPR Educational Chair Angela Holdren and her team

1.  Attract More Guestssocial media
• Recruit New Members
• How to Engage Existing Members
• What Social Network Management Site to Focus on
• What Information to Use on Social Media

2. Determine your target audience
• People who desire to improve communication skills
• People who desire to improve leadership skills
• People who seek to overcome fear of speaking
• People from specific professions – IT, Business Analyst, Sales and Marketing, Project Managers
• Demographics – Age, Gender, Ethnicity

    • **Determine challenges members may be experiencing – improving presentations, introverts, confidence
    • **Knowing what your target audience needs will be critical toward the development of the correct social media strategy.

• Write your messages to your audience emphasizing the benefits your club can provide
• Emphasize this information when addressing visitors

3. Choosing the correct platform
• Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, Meetup, Snapchat
1. You want to know what your audience uses and be there!
2. Less is better – Majority Rules – Go where you will reach the greatest number of people
3. Focus on one main hub and carefully select a few other networks to help get the word out

  • **YouTube and Meetup are outstanding networks to attract people to your club.
      • 1. Post videos of speeches on YouTube
      • 2. Schedule meetup events for your club meetings on meetup.com, then share on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

4. Posts that engage your audience
• Content is critical on social media. The more engaging your content the more people will be engaged.
• Posts that generate interest
1. Club news
2. Success stories
3. Events
4. Pictures
5. Videos

Tips and Tools for Engaging Content

1. WIIFM – “What’s – In – It – For – Your – Members!”
Earlier you determined the challenges your members were experiencing – using this information, create posts and resolutions to generate interest and help your members overcome their concerns. Emphasize the benefits of Toastmasters i.e. Self-paced, positive feedback, safe environment, mentorship…

2. K.I.S.S – Keep It Simple Sweetie!
Remember, people don’t want to be inundated with too much content to read. Keep post interesting, informative and engaging.
Use photos, video clips, images that are eye catching

3. Hashtags – Use 1 -2 hashtags to increase exposure
Hashtag is a word or keyboard phrase with a pound sign (#) before it. It identifies messages on a specific topic. #Toastmasters, #D44Toastmasters, #Leadership, #IgniteTheLeaderWithin #Communications, #PublicSpeaking
Tweets, Posts using hashtags receive twice the exposure than those without.

4. Content Calendar – Your New BFF! Smarter not Harder
Here is what your District is using to plan Social Media Content
o Motivational Monday – personal development, what gets you going
o Toastmaster Tuesday – sport Toastmaster swag, pass out brochures and invite others to your club
o Well done Wednesday – Leadership tips
o Talking Toastmasters Thursday – Communication tips
o Fabulous Friday – recognition and celebration of our members be it in Toastmasters, at work or in life. This is our day to celebrate each other because we think our members are fabulous.

What is your daily goal: Post 1-2 post on Facebook, 2-3 on Twitter, 1 on LinkedIn

5. Social Media Management Tool – Free!
Constant Contact: Social media management tool that your District 44 uses. It can be used to schedule content in advance.
Hootsuite: Enables a user to schedule posts in advance on multiple networks at scheduled times of the day. Best yet, it’s free.
Evergreen: Social media management tool that can be used to schedule content in advance. One great advance of Evergreen is that it is not time sensitive.

6. Respond to Likes, Shares and thank members for retweets – welcome new followers. Share post on your District Facebook: D44GeorgiaToastmasters