Why do membership organisations need social media? What channels should you choose? This presentation answers these questions and more.
Ben Jackson (Content, Community and social media strategist at Sift Digital) spoke at the Membership Breakfast Club on 14th October 2015.
A write up of the presentation can be found on the Sift Digital website: http://www.siftdigital.com/who-we-are/social-media-for-membership-organisations
3. Why do membership organisations
use social media?
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4. A few examples
● Awareness building
● CRM
● Recruitment/ retention
● Tracking sentiment/ trends
● Influencing
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5. There is a lot to choose from...
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6. Step 1 - Start with your audience/
members
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7. Ask yourself the following
● Where are our members?
● Where do they want to speak to us/ talk about us?
● What do they want from us?
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Don’t know the answers? Ask!
8. Step 2 - Look at yourself
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9. Ask yourself the following - be honest
● Do we have things to say?
● Do we have the right resource in place?
● Do we have the right skills?
● Do we have the tools we need?
● Do we know what we want to achieve?
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10. Step 3 - Channel selection
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11. Key questions to ask before joining a
social network
● Will our members want to speak to us here/ will we be relevant here?
● Can we create a steady stream of high quality content that’s relevant to that
social network e.g. images/ video?
● Will our current resources/ skills be enough?
● How will we ensure that people find us here?
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12. Step 4 - Your tone of voice & content
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13. It’s what you say AND how you say it
● Decide how you want to speak to your audience
● Think how to structure your copy - how can it be interesting and open
● Focus on what is likely to provoke a response from your audience
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14. A picture says a thousand words (sometimes)
● Rich content is key
● What do you have? What can you create?
● Where can you source content from in your organisation?
● Do you really need that video…..
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18. ● Don’t play ‘social media by numbers’
● Find out what your audience like by varying
content
● Use analytics to keep an eye on what works
and what does not
Experiment!
Don’t be afraid to ‘fail’
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19. Step 5 - Getting your tools right
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20. There’s no need to break the bank
3rd Party Management
Tools
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Native Tools 3rd Party
insight Tools
22. Community Management
● Set up relevant keywords in your monitoring tool
● Have resource in place to get involved in
conversation
● Think of every conversation as a chance to effect
behaviour change
● Carefully consider how your social media links to
your CRM
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23. Step 7 - Measurement and
proving success
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24. Measurement
● Engagement metrics - benchmark over time
● Reach - where important (Facebook)
● Site traffic generated (quality as well as click throughs)
● Conversions and assisted conversions
● Qualitative - capture positive examples from your community management
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26. To pay or not to pay...
● Be sure you know what you want to achieve and how you’re going to
measure it
● Experiment with your content
● It can be a great opportunity to speak to new audiences
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28. Handle with care…
● Social Integration
● The Social Business
● Pro-active engagement
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29. In Summary
● Research your audience - know where they are and where they want to
engage with you
● Choose your channels carefully
● Ensure you have the right skills and resource in place
● Ensure you are able to surface the right content
● Experiment
● Track and measure
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